According to, the Common Brittonic period ended around 600AD due to the loss of direct land communications between western and southwestern Britain following the Anglo-Saxon incursions., however, assumes a later date, stating that Jackson "pays insufficient attention to maritime connections", and notes the various shared developments between the neo-Brittonic languages during this period, such as the accent shift and internal i-affection. Also, the similarity of Cornish to Welsh and Breton during this period is such that glosses in Old Cornish, Old Welsh, and Old Breton are said to be indistinguishable orthographically. By the time it had ceased to be spoken as a community language around 1800, however, the Cornish language had undergone significant phonological changes. divides the history of the Cornish language into four periods:
Primitive Cornish, before the earliest written records.
These dates are broadly accepted, though uses slightly different dates, based upon the estimated dates of the extant manuscripts. The historical phonology of Cornish is inferred using the methods of comparative linguistics, particularly by comparison with its sister languages Breton and Welsh, and by analysis of the surviving texts written in Cornish, including analysis of rhyme, as much of the Middle Cornish corpus is in verse. Additionally, the work of, who visited Cornwall for three months in the early 1700s and recorded what he heard in a more-or-less phonetic orthography, as well as native writers from this era, are used to reconstruct the phonology of Late Cornish.
Phonology
Stress
Stress in polysyllables was originally on the final syllable in the earliest Cornish, which then shifted to the penultimate syllable at some point in the eleventh century.
Monosyllables were usually stressed, apart from the definite article, possessive adjectives, verbal particles, conjunctions and prepositions.
According to, Middle Cornish verse suggests that the pitch-accent remained on the final syllable.
Rules for vowel length
From around 600 AD, the earlier Brittonic system of phonemic vowel length was replaced by a system in which vowel length is allophonic, determined by the position of the stress and the structure of the syllable. This is the system described by as the New Quantity System. After the accent shift to the penultimate syllable at some point in Old Cornish, the rules were as follows:
vowels in unstressed syllables are short
vowels in stressed syllables, followed by two or more consonants are short
* There is some evidence that vowels were also realised as long or half-long before the consonant clusters and. This may have been due to the influence of English loanwords, or perhaps because such clusters were analysed as a single consonant.
vowels in stressed syllables, followed by a single consonant in polysyllabic words were half-long
vowels in stressed syllables in monosyllabic words were long
vowels in irregularly-stressed final syllables of polysyllabic words were long
The date of the breakdown of these quantity rules, due to the influx of English loan-words not conforming to the original system, is disputed. dates it to before the earliest Middle Cornish texts, whereas claims it did not change until roughly 1600. According to this analysis, Cornish at some point returned to a system of phonemic vowel length as in early Brittonic after this so-called "Prosodic Shift", and most vowels in polysyllables became or remained short.
The "prosodic shift"
The suggestion that Cornish phonology underwent systematic changes in its vocalic system first appears in, who dated it to around 1600. Nicholas Williams, however, later suggested that this Prosodic Shift occurred some centuries earlier, either in the early thirteenth century or the twelfth century. According to Williams, the consequences of the prosodic shift are:
Vowel length becomes phonemic
Half-long vowels become short
All long or geminate consonants are reduced to short or single consonants
Vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be reduced to schwa
Vocalic alternation
All nuclei in diphthongs are now short
Williams's theory has been criticised by several linguists. points out that "there is no incontrovertible evidence as yet to show that any such Prosodic Shift ever occurred" at any time, especially not as early as postulated by Williams; he further argues that "the observed results of pre-occlusion in the sixteenth century would have been impossible if the inherited quantity system had been radically re-shaped centuries before." and states that George is "quite correct in his rejection of Williams's evidence for the Prosodic Shift at a date before the Middle Cornish period" He also rejects George's use of Late Cornish spellings to support a shift c. 1600. argue that Williams's claim that all diphthongs were short from the thirteenth century at the latest "does not withstand even a cursory glance at Edward Lhuyd's transcription of Late Cornish diphthongs", which were collected in the early 1700s.
Vocalic alternation
points out that the reflex of Common Brittonic and in the Middle Cornish texts is usually written as in monosyllables, but is often written as in polysyllables. This phenomenon is known as 'vocalic alternation'. This written alternation does not appear in all of the Middle Cornish texts, and there is disagreement on how this alternation should be interpreted. Both and interpret this as a purely orthographic phenomenon. According to Williams, the continued writing of and in monosyllables is an archaism and a reflection of orthographic conservatism which does not represent the contemporary pronunciation of the scribes. According to Dunbar & George, the scribes who wrote were describing the quality of the vowel, whereas those who wrote were describing the reduced quantity of a half-long vowel in a polysyllable. Both of these interpretations are questioned by who argue that the use of and in the texts reflects the phonetic reality of the language at around the time the manuscripts were written. According to their analysis, the graph used by the scribes is determined by the quality of the vowel, and vocalic alternation is a consequence of the lowering of Old Cornish to. They further state that vocalic alternation "cannot therefore be the result of a general shortening of vowels, unless one accepts Williams's assertion that 'by the Late Cornish period, vowels in stressed monosyllables had again lengthened.'"
is the reflex of Old Cornish in many environments according to. According to, Old Cornish in these environments was either palatalized to or assibilated to, depending on dialect.
According to, ,,,,,, and are new phonemes arising to accommodate English loan-words to the Cornish quantity system. These phonemes are not generally accepted. They may however have existed as allophones, especially in comparatives, superlatives and certain verb tenses.
Assibilation and palatalization of Old Cornish and to or :
* According to, in the groups and, except when followed by or , was assibilated c. 1275.
* Also according to, medial and final, both by itself and in the groups, and, became assibilated in similar phonetic environments, c. 1325
* argues that these phonemes in this environment were first assibilated, then palatalized to later, perhaps with as an intermediate step.
* George now argues that assibilation occurred first, followed by palatalization, but states that the realization did not take hold in the Powder hundred.
* proposes the following schema for the evolution of Old Cornish and :
**In medial and final position in the groups and was affricated to before the twelfth century.
**Intervocalic was affricated to in some words.
**Around 1100, was affricated to finally, and medially before certain vowels and
**Before a stressed front vowel, or before followed by a stressed vowel initial was affricated to dz in some words following a final
**Medially after and was voiced to
**Before stressed front vowels and followed by a vowel, was palatalised to, and became
**Some dialects of Cornish tended to more regularly palatalise to, and to, even when not followed by a high front vowel.
**In dialects in which this did not happen, was simplified to and was simplified to
argues that merged with either or at an early date. argues that this merger took place gradually through a process of lexical diffusion throughout the Middle Cornish Period.
Williams argues that merged with either or depending on dialect at an early date.
In George's view, the phoneme is realized as when short.
-diphthongs
-diphthongs
is rare according to George, who has now removed it from many words, and its continued existence at all in Middle Cornish is disputed by Williams and , the apparent reflex of Old Cornish according to George, is based on rhyme evidence and etymology, but only occurs in a few words, and is disputed.
Late Cornish c.1600 – 1800 AD
By this time, was merging with in all environments. By 1600, historical and were generally being realised as and in stressed syllables, respectively. There is a tendency for final fricatives to be lost or confused with one another Whatever their phonetic realisation, the distinction between and may have been lost at this stage, if not earlier. classify as a separate phoneme to. Lhuyd's description of Late Cornish phonology, as well as contemporary pronunciation of Cornish placenames, may indicate the raising of to. disputes the recordings of in regards to as a distinct vowel and claims that the lower realization of Cornish long may have led him to make a distinction that did not exist.
ɪ-diphthongs
ʊ-diphthongs
aʊ
ɔɪ
ɔʊ
ɛʊ
əɪ
iʊ
seems to be found in only a few words such as and .
Recent Modern Cornish c. 1904 – present
Cornish ceased to be spoken as a community language around 1800. The revival of the language is generally dated to the publication of Henry Jenner's Handbook of the Cornish Language. Jenner's work aims to pick up where the language left off and, as such, is mainly based upon Late Cornish vernacular and Lhuyd. Since this time, a variety of other recommended phonologies have been proposed, based upon various target dates and different theoretical reconstructions.
Jenner's system
Jenner's system is largely based on the phonology of late Cornish, and therefore is characterised by pre-occlusion, the loss of the rounded front vowels, and the raising of to. This system was used by the earliest revivalists, until it was replaced by Nance's Unified Cornish.
Unified Cornish
Robert Morton Nance developed what came to be known as Unified Cornish from the 1930s. Nance based his system more on the earliest Middle Cornish texts, Pascon Agan Arluth and the Ordinalia. With a target date of around 1500, Nance's system is characterised by the addition of the rounded front vowel and a recommendation not to use pre-occluded forms.
Mainly associated with Richard Gendall, who began to promote this system in the early 1980s, Revived Late Cornish again seeks to base its phonology upon an analysis of Lhuyd and the other Late Cornish sources.
Kernewek Kemmyn
Developed mainly by Ken George following the publication of his thesis, A Phonological History of Cornish, Kernewek Kemmyn again returns to a Middle Cornish target date. This system has a number of differences from Nance's reconstruction, including the addition of a second rounded front vowel, an additional vowel, and a phonemic contrast between and. Also Kernewek Kemmyn is characterised by phonemic consonant length, half-long vowels in stressed penultima of polysyllables where appropriate, and a number of diphthongs which are not used in other systems. The following tables are based on.
Unified Cornish Revised
Following the publication of, Nicholas Williams published his revision of Nance's system in the form of a grammar, Clappya Kernowek, and an English-Cornish Dictionary. UCR is notable for the absence of George's /o/ and /ɪ/ phonemes, lack of half-length, and a phonemic contrast between long and short vowels rather than consonants. However, it retains the /œ/ vowel of KK, which Unified Cornish does not use.
The SWF
The Standard Written Form, agreed in May 2008, was developed with the intention of allowing all users of previous systems to write as they pronounce the language. It attempts to represent the pronunciation systems of UC, UCR, KK and RLC in a single orthography. As such, it does not represent a single phonology, but seeks to cover a range of pronunciations based on a period of several hundred years.
Kernowek Standard (KS)
Kernowek Standard is an orthography and recommended pronunciation developed mainly by Nicholas Williams and Michael Everson in response to perceived problems with the SWF. Like the SWF, it attempts to represent a diverse range of pronunciations, with the exception of KK, the recommended phonology of which is not catered for. Although it mainly differs from the SWF orthographically, it has a number of phonological features which distinguish it from the SWF.
