Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/75

56 from those adopted by previous writers (or from that of Breton, where coincidence occurs), and not too much encumbered with diacritical signs. It is to some extent a following of Dr. Edward Lhuyd, whose system, though rather clumsy and unnecessarily puzzling in places, was on the whole very good and of great value.

2.

Simple: a, â, e, ê, i, î, o, ô, ŏ, u, û, ŭ. y, ŷ.

Compound: aw, ei, ey, ew, oi, oy, ou, ow.

A. Simple vowels.

1. a, short, as a in man. Before l and r it is generally sounded as o in not.

2. â, long, the lengthened sound of a short, not as the English broad a in father, or long a in mane, but as a broad a is commonly sounded in Cornish English. Thus bâ would have something between the sound of the English word bare (of course without the r trilled at all) in the mouth of a correct speaker, and the actual sound of the bleat of a sheep.

In some words, and especially before a liquid followed by a consonant, a tends to be sounded as aw or short o. Thus âls, cliff, gwander, weakness, wartha, upper, are sounded awls, gwonder, wortha or worra, and brâs, great, is sounded brawz.

In unaccented syllables a represents nearly the sound of u in until, or, as a final, the English sound of a at the end of proper names, such as Vienna Maria, etc., which is more or less the final e of German, meine, deine, etc., or perhaps the e of the French words, de, me, etc.