Variants
Put simply, the written sources for Cornish
span several centuries and reflect different periods in the life of
the language. In reviving Cornish, spelling systems have been
devised which reflect different ideas on how we should use this
knowledge to take Cornish forward into the future.
The majority of Cornish literature appeared in the 1400s to
1700s and took the form of religious plays. Prose writings in
Cornish date from 1550 to the end of the 1700s. The different
dialects of Cornish put varying weights on this corpus of historic
Cornish. A very simple guide to each one follows:
Standard Written Form
This standardised
spelling of Cornish was established in 2008 to bring together users
of all forms of Cornish and to be used primarily in education and
public life. For further information about the Standard
Written Form (SWF) follow this link to the Standard
Written Form page.
Unified Cornish
This was introduced in the 1920s and was based on the grammar and
spelling of the literature of the medieval period.
Common Cornish
Common Cornish was developed from Unified Cornish during the 1980s,
following a long period of discussion and research into traditional
texts. The greatest changes were made to the orthography or written
form. Common Cornish is phonemic – what most people would call
phonetic – in that each sound in the spoken language is represented
uniquely by a letter or group of letters.
Unified Cornish Revised
A revision of Unified Cornish, UCR has amended the spelling to
avoid potential confusions and to reflect further research. UCR
takes as its source the Cornish of the Tudor texts rather than the
medieval texts.
Modern Cornish
Modern Cornish aims to pick up the project of those who tried to
save spoken Cornish in its latest phase. It is based on the period
when prose writings appeared and on the pronunciation of the early
1700s. There are therefore some differences in both pronunciation
and spelling between Modern Cornish and the three other
dialects.
All forms are mutually intelligible in the same way as dialects
within English.
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