[Spellyans] An Abecedary Kernowek

[Michael Everson]

You all know how fond I am of alphabets. I'd like to establish letter- 
names for the Cornish alphabet.

I have seen lists, both from KK and from other sources, which treat  
"some digraphs as letters, but that practice (similar to practice to  
Welsh and Breton) is outdated; we do not use it in our dictionaries  
and we have other diagraphs like "sh" and "lh" and "th" and so on.  
Nevertheless, here is what I have seen:

Wella Brown's KK alphabet (omits C, Q, X and Z):

a, be, cha, de, e, ev, ge, ha, i, je, ka, el, em, en, o, pe, ar, es,  
te, u, ve, we, ye

An alphabet (possibly from Talek?):

ah, be, ce, de, edh, e, fe, ge, egh, he, je, ke, el, em, en, o, pe,  
que, er, es, te, the, u, ve, we, ya, ze

This is written to fit the Alphabet Song, thus:

ah be ce de edh e fe
ge egh he je ke el em
en o pe que er es te
the u ve we ya [ha] ze

As I say, I don't think we can have "ch", "dh", "gh", or "th" as  
"letters" whilst omitting "sh" and "wh" and so on. In particular since  
the usage isn't uniform

I give below a set of letter names for the alphabet in KS.

Comments, please. In particular, what about "h" and "q" and "r" and "w"?

A	a	â
Â	â	â to bian
À	à	â sogh
B	b	bê
C	c	cê
D	d	dê
E	e	ê
Ê	ê	ê to bian
È	è	ê sogh
Ë	ë	ê dewboynt
F	f	ef
G	g	gê
H	h	êch
I	i	î
Î	î	î to bian
Ì	ì	î sogh
J	j	jê
K	k	kê
L	l	ell
M	m	èm
N	n	èn
O	o	ô
Ô	ô	ô to bian
Ò	ò	ô sogh
P	p	pê
Q	q	cû, kuw
R	r	àr, èr
S	s	ess
T	t	tê
U	u	û
Û	û	û to bian
Ù	ù	û sogh
V	v	vê
W	w	wê
X	x	ex
Y	y	yê
Ÿ	ÿ	yê dewboynt
Z	z	zê

This is not for the Alphabet Song, though all that needs doing for  
that is to add some ha's and then write two lines for the end of the  
song:

â, bê, cê, dê, ê, ef, gê,
êch, î, jê, kê, ell, èm, èn, ô, pê
cû, èr, ess, tê, û ha vê,
wê hag ex ha yê ha zê.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com