Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/86

Rh on the stage and in fiction, with some foundation in fact, to the Hebrew race. This is shown by the tendency to turn s and z into sh and zh, and to insert b before m, and d before n. In the English spoken in Cornwall at the present day this tendency has quite disappeared, and the pronunciation, though not always the same as the standard English, is remarkably crisp and clear. Readers are solemnly warned against attempting to base or support any theories of Jewish or even of Phœnician influence in Cornwall on the above coincidence.

These directions for pronunciation must needs be only approximate. The exact phonetics are not attainable. The pronunciation of Cornish place-names forms something of a guide to the old sounds, only one must be careful not to be misled by the modern tendency to pronounce words as they are spelt according to the English values of letters, and one must also remember that there is no settled system of place-name orthography.