[Spellyans] fleece

[Michael Everson]

On 25 Nov 2009, at 19:06, nicholas williams wrote:

> There is something of a problem with Lhuyd's <lyv>.
> It is possible that he did indeed hear the word and that it was  
> pronounced [lIv].
> I have my doubts.

A fair point.

> In the middle of the sixteenth century the word was [lIw] written  
> <lew> TH 7.
> In CW this appears as <lywe> CW 2358 and <lyw> CW 2420,
> and in the plural as <lyvyow>  CW 2314, 2538 and <levyaw> CW 2165.

Yes, and in OM it's <lyf> [liːv].

> This means that the usual forms in the sixteenth and seventeenth  
> centuries seem to have been
> either <lyw>, <lew> or plural <lyvyow>, <levyow> with singular sense.

So... *you're* suggesting this is a bÿs/bës word?

> It is therefore possible, and perhaps even likely, that Lhuyd didn't  
> actually hear his <lyv>
> but derived it from the plural <lyvyow> and from the singular <lyf>,  
> which he came across
> in Origo Mundi (we know he had read OM because he quotes from it at  
> AB: 265).

OK, so liv, livyow [liːv], [ˈlɪvjoʊ]

> If in KS we are going to base our spelling upon the texts, then we  
> should write
> singular <lyw>, <liv> (the latter representing <lyf> in OM) and  
> plural <livyow>.
> I prefer lyw, livyow.

We base our spelling on the recommended pronunciation of Revived  
Cornish, not just on the graphs of the texts. UC and UCR were such a  
normalization, but SWF and KS are "phonetic" orthographies.

I think that lyw/livyow is a strange ambiguous variation that is less  
satisfactory than the regular liv/livyow.

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