Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/70

Rh l, n, or r, and occasionally as a final; a short, under similar circumstances, becomes o short.

2. u, with (approximately) the French sound of that letter, becomes ee (î), or else ew, as in the English word dew.

3. eu, ue, with the French sound of eu, or the German ö, becomes e ( = ay in may).

4. y of Middle Cornish, perhaps pronounced as ĭ, but sometimes obscurely, like the primary sound of the Welsh y, often became short e.

5. An open long y which may have been sounded ee (î) in Middle Cornish, often later became ei (or as i in mine), though there are inconsistencies in this respect, showing that the change was not universal.

6. In a considerable number of cases short o became the "obscure vowel," o of London or u of until.

It does not follow that these were very distinct changes between Middle and Modern Cornish. Possibly the change in sound was a good deal less than on paper, and consisted in intensifying earlier changes. The Middle Cornish system of spelling looks very like an inheritance from an earlier time still.

The grammatical changes were few, and, except for a diminishing use of pronominal suffixes, those, like the new preterite of gwîl, to do, were chiefly false analogies, or else imitations of English. But it is to be remembered that a great proportion of the remains of Modern Cornish consists of translations and a few original compositions by persons whose own language was English, who had in some cases learnt Cornish very imperfectly. This would apply to most of the translations of passages of Scripture, to Lhuyd's Preface (though, of course, his own language was Welsh), and to Gwavas's attempts. The really valuable specimens