[Spellyans] 'up, upwards'

[Eddie Climo]

This sounds like an equally good argument for admitting either 'yn',  
or  both 'yn' and 'in', for the preposition.

I do not favour the idea of introducing into Cornish artificial  
orthographic conventions to make homonymic distinctions between  
homophones.

With some reluctance, I do accept the idea of distinguishing, say, / 
gwyn/ 'white' from /gwy:n/ 'wine'; although I don't find this  
confusing myself, I do understand that some learners might find it so.

But as for using orthographic notation to distinguish homophones --  
therein lies the path to madness! Consider this little set (which is  
only one of many in Cornish!), and imagine trying to play this sort of  
game with them. Let this one example stand for the many similar ones  
that exist in Cornish; the word (rendered in UC) <cok>, with a long  
vowel, can mean (Nance 1938):
1) cuckoo
2) fishing boat
3) man-cook
4) empty, vain, worthless
5) one-eyed.

Imagine trying to find **5** different spellings for all of these  
meanings of /co:k/.

As we couldn't possibly do it for groups like /co:k/, we shouldn't  
advocate it for /yn/.

Eddie Climo
- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- -
Dres ethom akennow byner re bons lyeshes
Accenti non multiplicanda praeter necessitatem


On 23 Jan 2009, at 08:41, nicholas williams wrote:
> As a matter of interest in for 'in' is as common as yn.
> <yn dan> occurs 18 times, <in dan> is attested 43 times.

> On 23 Jan 2009, at 00:15, Eddie Climo wrote:
>> I see no need for this distinction; 'yn' for both works perfectly  
>> well, and should be allowed.
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