Keskowsva an Gernewegva

Lhuyd AB: 227c tells us that yn few is to be pronounced in vêu. As Ben suggests about Lhuyd's en uîr, in vêu looks like the breakdown of the system of mutation in Late Cornish. In terminal Irish dialects lenition, as the commonest initial mutation, often replaces the less common nasalisation. En uir and in vew may also of course be contamination from Welsh.
There can be no doubt that yn gwir, in gwir is the historic Cornish form, in which yn is the preposition 'in' rather than the adverbial yn. There is no justification for *yn whir in the revived language.

This incidentally will be my last post on Keskowsva an Gernewegva. There is no point in discussing anything with people whose only aim is to show as unpleasantly as possible that others are mistaken. As Michael points out, being mistaken is no crime. Refusing to admit one's mistakes, however, is culpable, and has done the Cornish Revival irreparable damage.

Genough farwel

Nicholas Williams aka Golvan

Dowrgi wrote:Here are the sentences.

Thanks for those. In most if not all cases one could argue that yn gwir is not being used adverbially so yn hwir would not be expected anyway.

May I respectfully suggest that in future you trawl through the texts yourself, if possible.

Equally respectfully if I had searched for "yn gwir/gwyr" I wouldn't have found them. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to know that I'd have to search for gvyr, guyr, guire, guir and gweyr to find all the attestations!

(Post deleted)

In contrast to Golvan's decision to leave the forum - which I personally regret and am finding difficult to understand, as it seems to me that his withdrawal is a reaction to branvras' postings which I did not find uncivil at all - I would like to stress that this forum will stay open to anybody as long as ad hominem attacks and bickering about orthography stay out of the question. Also, participants will not be required to give their real names. The basic rules of netiquette should suffice.

Apart from these caveats, debate is both welcome and necessary, as is trying to find flaws in each other's arguments in a constructive and benevolent way. How else are we supposed to progress?

Should Golvan at any time wish to return to the forum, he is of course as welcome as ever. In the meantime, let's return to the actual topic of this thread: Idiom and current usage. A number of interesting points have been made here after all.

Pokorny wrote:The basic rules of netiquette should suffice.

They do not suffice. We have snideness and nastiness flung at us by anonymous people. When I protested by calling it "nasty" (as it was), I was chided by Ben for protesting. If you do not "understand" how we find branvras' postings to be hostile, then you should look again at them, and try to understand our position.

Your anonymous forum, therefore, no longer attracts the interest of two of the Revival's prolific experts. We have noticed your reluctance to engage with experts on the Spellyans forum, where open debate is encouraged, but anonymity is not. We remember, though you may not, your promise and Ben's to resume what we believed were key discussions, broken off by Ben taking a taxi to the airport to fly to Austria. That was the last time we had meaningful discussions with either of you. That you did not resume the discussions is something we took notice of. If you did not take notice of it, that likely says something about your attitude to our contributions to the Revival. Bíodh agaibh.

As Golvan has said, so far as this forum is concerned, I too shall say. Genough farwel.

Should Evertype and/or Golvan ever wish to return, they will be very welcome to do so.

I'd just like to point out one last thing before returning on topic:
Ben commented on Evertype's calling a person, not their posts, "nasty" - which clearly constituted an ad hominem attack. The rules of the forum apply to everbody, and he made that clear.

In case anyone is wondering: much like the forum as a whole, this thread is still open.

Pokorny wrote:Ben commented on Evertype's calling a person, not their posts, "nasty" - which clearly constituted an ad hominem attack.

You're entitled to your opinion. It allows you to join Ben in chiding me. Perhaps that makes you feel good about your superior civility.

Since the intent of my comment eludes you, or since you are determined to be concerned with its form rather than its content, please note that I have edited it thus:

Evertype wrote:There's no room for civil discussion with anonymous people who just want to make snide, nasty comments in order to "prove" that we are "missing the point entirely".

I hope this clarifies the matter for you.

Pokorny wrote:Should Evertype and/or Golvan ever wish to return, they will be very welcome to do so.

I doubt it. You and Ben have been anything but welcoming to either of us, never mind those who criticize us personally from the security of their anonymity. I am certain by now that it was a mistake to attempt serious discussion on a forum where people hide their identities. On Spellyans, we may disagree with one another, but we do so as colleagues who know one another and can therefore remain respectful.

Did I just miss something? I've never seen anyone being uncivil to you Evertype (Or Golvan) ? Argumentative, and perhaps a little facetious... but not uncivil.

Just because you made a mistake and got brought up on it, doesn't mean you have to storm off? You've got to admit this place is far more behaved than "the other place", or perhaps you preferred Gokys ranting?

If anybody wants to introduce yn gwir to current usage, they're more likely to succeed if they can find a distinct semantic niche for it. Although you sometimes hear expressions like an gwir yw ..., most people perceive gwiryonedh as the word for 'truth', with gwir as a noun generally meaning 'right'. In that augmentive kind of sense in the passage quoted from the Ordinalia[i], a lot of people would use an expression such as [i]dhe wir, to be distinguished from yn gwiryonedh. Unless those attempting the introduce yn gwir to modern usage can implement a distinct function for it, then they're on a hiding to nothing.