poetaster (GanS 6)

Scots, wee bit bardie, Kern. cragh-varth, Wel. crachfardh, gofardd, bardd is-raddol, Sc.Gael. bardan, Ir. Gael. fileoir, éigsin, Fr. poétereau, poétastre, Ger. Dichterling, Lat. poeta malus, Ital., Span., Portug. poetastro, Gr. stichoplókos, Neth. mindere dichter, Swed. versmakare, rimsmidare … there are further-flung examples to be found at answers.com.

Curiously enough, the Scottish 'bardie' also denotes a 'gelded cat', which may help to explain the scarcity of this species of poet in the Lowlands north of Hadrian's Wall, with William McGonagall being a celebrated exception:
Q: "What's worn under the Bardie's kilt?" A: Nothing … but why belabour the obviously absent?

Indeed, as this list shows, many other countries are infested with 'poetically challenged' rhymesters. However, we note with interest that Wales—in line with its hordes of famously out-of-tune and (alas!) émigrés tenors—appears to have three times more of them than just about anyone else. 'Gwlad y Gân', 'The Land of Song' indeed? 'Gwlad y Crachfeirdd', 'd be more apt, I fancy!! Ha!

Here in Corwall, the situation is no different than anywhere else (except our tenors do sing in tune —honest!), with two shining exceptions: Gerva an Scrynkyer and, of course, this blog! Their pages are generously strewn with the choice effusions of some of today's most quality bards: don't be fooled by the modest, self-effacing noms de poétastres assumed by some of these poetising powerhouses! As you'll have seen by now, An Barthyk Dysbardhek, An Barthyk Mur, An Cragh-varthyk Lym et al. would be good rôle models for any aspiring verse-monger who can't write. This haiku proves the point:

If a Poetaster's writings • are adorned with Poetasticules,

Then female Poetessters • will just stick to Poetessticles.

'South o' the Border', The Bodmin Bardie. 2006.

The Big Lie (GanS 6)

A useful concept for spreading the One True Orthography (=KK®!), first coined and put to use by an Austrian corporal who suffered from a pathological dose of folie de grandeur. Niccoló Macchiavelli probably wishes he'd thought of the phrase first: ' La Bugia Grande' — 'Die Grosse Lüge' — though neither of those sounds quite as good as 'The Big Lie. The first just has to be an outsized form of pasta ("I'll have the Bugia bolognese, garçon, por favor, like"), while the second suggests an overinflated rubber gun. But both of these men would be proud of their modern acolytes, who have taken the Art of Mendacity to a whole new higher level of expertise altogether.

Examples of the Big Lie are littered thoughout these pages (see 'cuckoo', for instance), as this was one of the factors that brought Gerva an Scrynkyer (and this blog) into being in the first place. Disinformation is best fought with a dose of the plain unvarnished truth, we always say: La verité—c'est moi! as Charles de Gaulle might have put it. Curiously enough (though put it down to editorial bias, if you fancy), since we introduced the Sans-Serif-for-KK convention to these pages, most if not all of the BL's seem to have been set in that font. Anecdotally, of course.

printing plates (GanS 6)

Back in the good ol' 1970s and '80s, this quaint technology was used to print a book. Curiously enough, the same technology could be used to prevent the printing of a book—by destroying the plates.

(Not that this was ever done, of course! Just to hinder other forms of Cornish than KK® or anything? A vile and baseless canard, I tell you!).

See 'obscurantist vocabulary', 'cuckoo'.

"devious lying little sh*t-bags" (GanS 6)

Although Kernowek Kemyn is best known perhaps for its faux-Cornish spelling, grammar, syntax, pronunciation and vocab ideas, it does occasionally add items to the repertoire of English. The present jocund offering is a colourfully playful reference to those recalcitrant recidivists who will insist on using historically attested forms of Cornish.

(They've also been luridly dubbed, 'Venom-Spitters', 'a few Living Old Fossils', the 'Wilhemine intelligentsia of the Mobutu-Heidegger school of linguistics', and the 'Bizarre anti-Cornish self-referential Bigots who inhabit a Tudor refectory culture'. And all these because they hold dissenting views about spelling -- we kid you not!)

This first charming phrase was in a personal communication that was inadvertently shared with the whole membership of CornishOrthography (and subsequently deleted). It offers a valuable insight into the degree of respect accorded by a prominent Kemynista towards his despised foes.

[Mong Vras, pers. comm. on CornishOrthography]
See also 'tw*t, twit, twot''and 'nonsense, nonsensical ramblings, load of cr*p'

typographic style (GanS 6)

fig.1 A jocular typographical rebus.

We have already considered some of the æsthetic effects of typefaces (see 'typography) in an earlier article. You may also recall that we chose to use a traditional Serif font for the Traditionalists, and a Sans Serif for the other lot. It was gratifying to plough through the absolute deluge of responses that came trickling in via the ePost, and to see how many readers wanted to have a go at 'messing about with type' after what they'd read.

But a word of caution is necessary here. Some boisterous newly-minted tyros have called for the substitution of Comic Sans MS for the Sans font in this Gerva on the grounds that:
(1) Kemmyn is a bit of a joke, and
(2) it's seriously lacking a lot of the frills and furbelows that make Cornish so much fun, and
(3) Microsoft "make crap software and OSs that're full of bugs 'n'…stuff, just like KK" [sic!].

I'm afraid that, in the interests of editorial impartiality, we must resist these calls. The 1st point is gratuitously truthful, while the 2nd is a bit too recherché for yer average Cornish homme/femme dans la rue (with 'sans' being the Quylkynek for 'without', and with them not knowing their serifs from their swashes!). You typo tyros must get over your initial exuberance, and learn some restraint in the practice of this recondite craft! Anyway, we're using a sans font already, and if you can't see that, then you'd better reconfigure yer Web browser, hadn't you?! So there! As for the 3rd point, despite some obvious parallels, this sounds like a one-way ticket to getting sued by MS for mega-quids (M£)!

Also, we were not amused by cheap typographyck taunts like, 'Kemmynites are Dingbats who need Zapfing!', and 'See how they like the Impact after an Arial trajectory from our Trebuchet a few Times!!' (All jocularly set in the corresponding fonts, of course!)

However, the editors felt there was at least a modicum of T-shirt potential in the design concept shown above in fig.1.

A Bloggist's lot is not a happy one ...

Although our labours have found favour in some people's eyes, the poor satirists —woe is we!— are also targets for the (hurtful!) slings and arrows of some outraged satirees.

Our old chum 'Évets' (who featured in two previous articles) has found our blogging efforts to be quite without value; indeed, he "doesn't like it, not one little bit". In a recent post to the CornishOrthography group (#2905), he remarked, "Now if only people would spend as much energy on advancing the revival, as writing such worthless blogs."

Alas, the poor fellow felt so strongly about it that, when politely coaxed by the Moderator to describe what he himself had been doing 'to advance the Revival', or whether his own blogging efforts were more 'worthful' than our miserable travesty of a blog, he had to depart in confusion, calling back, 'Sorry [Moderator] for expressing my opinion, I will shut up and leave it for the nasty guys of UCR to keep this site. Good bye and good luck'.

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
think I'll go and eat worms...
big fat juicy ones, little slimy skinny ones,
hope they don't have germs!

This isn't the first time he's promised to leave the group, but we hope it'll be the last; I'm sure we'll all try not to miss his presence too hard.

Course, one has to point out that—as we stated up front on this blog—we all stick to UC, rather than UCR, so it looks like we ain't the 'nasty guys of UCR'. But as 'nasty guys' seem to be those who disagree with him, it looks like we may be the 'nasty guys of UC'. Shame that, really!

Now, although there's a touch of the argumentum e silentio fallacy about trying to interpret his lack of response, we may tentatively infer that he believes:
(a) KK 'lies, hypocrisy and disinformation' should go unchallenged,
(b) blind faith (in KK) is preferable to a healthy skepticism,
(c) 'undesirable litter' should be left where you find it, and
(d) those who disagree with him are 'nasty guys' [I can hardly believe he actually said that!]

Moreover, he apparently feels that he has made no efforts worth mentioning,
(e) neither in 'advancing the [language] Revival',
(f) nor in creating any 'worthful' blogs.

And if only one or two items on that little list were true, wouldn't you too be tempted to depart in silence?

An Gannas (The Messenger)

This magazine of Cowethas an Yeth Kernewek was originally in UC until the organisation was suborned by the Kemynistas after the notorious Truro Bierkeller Putsch in the late '80s. It now has a remarkable editorial policy, whereby articles submitted in any other form of Cornish than Kemyn are 'translated' without the author's consent, and any syntax or vocabulary that is 'deprecated' is transmogrified with equally blithe high-handedness.

Of course, the omnipresence of KK between its covers just goes to 'prove' that '100% of our contributors are Kemynites'! Which does remind us of the persistent tales (which we referred to earlier) that some of the KK books on the market are equally 'un-kosher' when it comes to respecting copyright law. Gosh! —they do need to be careful, or someone might just shop them to the Copyright Cops!

This shabby policy is in sharp contrast to that of the more wholesome An Gowsva, the organ of Agan Tavas, where articles are published as submitted, or only modified with the author's agreement. Of course, they only accept historically-attested forms of Cornish, but at least authors using KK would get an honest refusal.

'Golok Dhyscryjyk' Blog Launched Today!

Stop Press! 2006-12-08

Today, the Blog opens its doors to the public at large, after an evaluation period in front of selected critics.

The aim is to cast a skeptical and satirical eye over the Cornish language revival, and to sound a warning note whenever we spy anything undesirable littering the landscape. This includes the lies, hypocrisies and disinformation handed out by those in charge of the Kernowek Kemyn clique, but is not confined exclusively to those.

But in addition to our role as skeptical debunkers, we've also enjoyed our work as satirists as well. We hope you might find your eyes opened by the first, and your funny bones tickled by the second.

To nail our colours to the mast, the authors of this blog all use Unified Cornish, but are perfectly receptive to all the other historically-attested forms, such as Late Cornish, Late C. Revised, and Unified C. Revised. When the Single Written Form is eventually decided upon, it's likely that we'll be receptive to that as well, although we'll probably still continue to use the U.C. we're familiar with.

What we reject utterly is Kernowek Kemyn and 'Saun-Dreck', and any other forms of 'Cornic' which are not historically attested. These we view as shoddy fakeries, invented by linguistic incompetents--a view shared by every university Celtic Studies department in the world. We believe that these idiolects will come in time to have the same half-forgotten status in Cornish as the various extinct 'fakeries' one can find in the English-speaking world; GB Shaw's Shavian orthography comes to mind, as an example of this (as does William Barnes' 19th-century Real English with its mock-Anglo-Saxon coinings like 'ungothroughsome' for 'impenetrable', 'folk-wain' for a 'bus', and 'life-lore' for 'biology').

Remember, Kernowek Kemyn -- fük yu!

An Pyber Dyscryjyk, An Barthyk Dysbardhek, An Geriadorer Dyslettrys (and friends).

The Ultimate Form of Cornish: K3 — Kernuewekk Kenpollekk Kemminn.

by An Peebur Discree-jikk, An Barthikk Disbarthekk, An Gariadorer Dislettrice et al.

Building on the remarkable work started by Dr. Djennedh Kordj, we boldly take her ideas for "Phonemic Cornish" (Kernuewekk Sonyeythekk) right into the twenty-first century—and beyond! Such "Cornish For The Future!!!" inevitably involves the use of computers, as She Herself has revealed to us in her widely (at least, outside scholastic circles) celebrated and revered studies on the Cornish language.

This new computer-readable form of the language shall be called Kernuewekk Kenpollekk Kemminn, or Kenpollekk or K3 for short. As we can see from the sample transcription below, its aesthetic impact on the eye is even more striking than that of bog-standard Kernuewekk Kemminn (K2, or 'Djennewekk' as some of its aficionados call it), which should ensure its ready acceptance by all progressive speakers of Cornish. Surely here we see the long sought-after Single Written Form, and one which is computer-compatible moreover—no small matter in this era of the Information Autobahn! We predict that K3 will take over the torch carried by Unified, Late and K2 Cornish before it, and lead the Language Revival forward into a Brave New Future!

Naturally, we feel that K3 should supersede those other forms of Cornish we were recommending in our earlier writings on KAK (Kernowek Amendys Kemyn) q.v.. They, like K2 before them, are now shown in their true light as mere passing phases of linguistic juvenilia: K3 is the real deal: Perfect Cornish—at last!

We note that DK's pioneering work was sufficient to gain her a Doctorate, and one that has been remarked on by her academic peers (at least, outside scholastic circles). It would seem only fitting that since we have so comprehensively completed the labours she herself started, so the three (or more) of us should be able likewise to bask in the glory of having those coveted letters after our names. It would invite invidious comparison were we to look towards Brittany for our vellum, so we thought of one of those convenient institutions in the American South, which can be so obliging for a 'fistful of dollars'. Now, is a D.Litt. (Uni. of Deadwood) more stylish than yer workaday PhD? . . . or maybe a D.Phil. (Little Big Horn Military Academy) has more bling factor . . . hmmm, wonder how much a Professorship would cost, or a 'Noble Prize' ?

We also note with envy, by the way, that the Great Reformer has been honoured by her German-speaking fellow Celticists with an admiring nickname. They have dubbed her 'Die Grösste Philologin aller Zeiten' [The Hugest Philologist of All Time], or Gröphaz* for short. This is in recognition both of her unique linguistical analyses, and of the way in which her work leapt into the limelight after the remarkable 1987 Truro Bierkeller Putsch, better known by its protagonists as Deth an Tavasow Felsys (The Day of the Forked Tongues) and, by its victims, as Deth an Keynow Gwenys (The Day of Stabbed Backs).

[*with apologies to Helmut F. Kaplan, Austrian Vegetariererphilosoph,
and any others who might happen to have borne this name]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There was a recent request by a member of the CornishOrthography group for recordings of varying speech realizations of Cornish. In response to that, we can do no better than have the trio An Cyber-Canoryon give us their Canu Plygain rendition of a famous poem (transcribed into Kenpollekk Kemminn), which was composed in UC by a lettered friend of ours in acknowledgement of the achievements of the Great Language Reformer Herself. The first of these two MP3 files (Arleeth an Yeythow (K3).mp3) in the 'Recordings' folder of the group features the voices of the PCs of Prof. Peebur Discree-jikk, Ms., Ph.D., Dr. Barthikk Disbarthekk, Ms., D.Litt., and Dr. Gariadorer Dislettrice, Ms., D.Phil.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cornishorthography/files/Recordings/

Arleeth an Yeythow (K3).
Teer yeyth ragg an Gurnoo-yon in dann an nayff,
Een ragg an Arleeth doo war ee drone more ayff,
In vroaoa Voredor lay ma grow-weth an skayz.
Een yeyth th'aga rool-ya ol;
Een yeyth th'aga hafoss-ee;
Een yeyth th'aga dree ol, hagg in chewll-der aga hellmey.
In vroaoa Voredor lay ma grow-weth an skayz.

For comparison, here is the original draft form of the poem in Unified Cornish, so that you can see what an improvement is made with the new K3. We have uploaded another MP3 file (Arluth an Yethow (UC).mp3) of one or our PCs reading this version as well, and making rather a hash of it. This proves how superior K3 is to UC, and you can hear the proof of that with your own ears!

Arluth an Yethow (UC).
Tyr yeth rag an Gernewyon yn-dan an nef,
Un rag an Arluth-du war y dron mor ef,
Y'n vro Vordor le may groweth an skes.
Un yeth dh'aga rewlya oll,
Un yeth dh'aga hafos-y,
Un yeth dh'aga dry oll hag y'n tewlder aga helmy,
Y'n vro Vordor le may groweth an skes.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You might wish to copy these transcriptions onto your computer, and see for yourself how your text-to-speech program renders the two versions given below.

cat ( GanS 4)

The cat, Felis theomorphis tigris, is a sage beast, and the ultimate arbiter in matters linguistical, as those who have studied their pronouncements can attest. Who else but a pheline philologist could have validated the daring neo-Chomskian Deep-Grammatical hypothesis that "No! Stop it!" is actually semantically synonymous with "Yes! Go ahead!" ?

The Ancient Egyptians acknowledged this expertise in a temple inscription at Karnak dedicated to the cat-god, Bâst:

I shewed Ye Khâtt a page of Khê-m-myn,
Ask'd him what he mayde of it.
With fangèd smyle he said, 'It lackes
Authentickality a bit.

Kath-hotep II (ca. 1500 BC, trans. Parmiggiano, 1745)

Taking this ancient advice to heart, I asked the views of my own tabby Guru, over a shared glass of mulled glühwein one dour winter's evening, after we'd been perusing some kemynous websites together, out of idle curiosity. He was not amused:

My stomach is going like a Mexican
Bean, 'cos a fur-ball is stuck—
Or maybe I've swallowed a lexicon
Of Kemyn, or similar muck'.

Bonsaí MacTìgeir (2006 AD)

obscurantist vocabulary (see 'pond') (GanS 5)

Back in the 'good old days' (before it was republished in a memorial edition, and so became available to the 'common masses'), Morton Nance's 1938 Dictionary Gerlyver Noweth Kernewek ha Saswnek was rather a scarce (and costly) volume.

There were those of the KK® persuasion who— owning copies of the book themselves—sought to impress upon their copyless brethren and sistren the awe-inspiring incomprehensibility of their lexical erudition by using wee wordies that were only found in that dictionary. Alas (or so an ydhnyk byghan tells us), one uppity proletarian Prometheus obtained and studied a samizdat copy of the '38' and confounded one of the 'Olympians' at their own game.

This is a true story, although names have been veiled.

There was an elder Billy-goat, with coat of balding Brown,
Who thought to strut his lexicon in good old Saltash town.
With wordies rare and recondite, he was an awesome feller,
Until he met a lad who'd read the same Gerlyver. Well, er …

… When the two began to talk, the old 'un said, 'I ken
The sorts of word ye've never heard, nor never will again.
I am the most amazing of the modern Kernywekkers,
And I'll impress and overawe you rude, unlettered feckers!'

But the younger cousin Jack, though wet behind the ear,
Had read old Nance's early books, was sharp, and knew no fear.
He spoke the kind of Cornish that the codger couldn't twig, or
Follow, as his words got faster, more obscure …and bigger!

The more he spake, the more he lost this low-browed Kemmynista,
Whose Cornish comprehension was too poor to get the gist. A
Crowd had gathered round them, smiles and laughter did arise,
As this elder's bloated ego popped – ! – right before their eyes!

The moral of this story can't be very hard to reckon:
If you want to sound impressive, you must have the best 'lexecon',
Your intellect and trousers must be lacking perforation,
Or you'll expose your backside to public humiliation.

'The Sharp Lad and the Billy-goat Brown', An Cragh-varthyk Lym, 2006.
to the tune of 'The Modern Major General,' Gilbert & Sullivan.

Bretonek (Brezhoneg, Breton)

A brythonic language related to Cornish, suitable as a source of wadding to plug the gaps in Cornish.

Kembrek (Cymraeg, Welsh)
A brythonic language related to Cornish, and spoken by furriners; totally unsuitable as a source of anything for Cornish. For other similar sources 'not Fit for Purpose', see 'English', 'French', 'German', 'Latin', 'Greek', 'Dublin', 'Unified Cornish …' etc.

typography (GanS 5)

The art of selecting and laying out type so as to harmonise the appearance of a book (or other printed matter) with its contents. The headers of the award-winning series, Gerva an Scrynkyer, have been designed by the celebrated Cornish typesetter An Olsetyer Dyspuyssant. And the quality of his designs certainly matches that of the lexicography within!! Another dictionary that fits this criterion—that appearance should match content—is George's noted Gerlyver Kres, whose typographical (and scholarly) solecisms are enough to make both grown men blench, and the editors of the Oxford Manual of Style contemplate hara-kiri.

Early, Middle, Late, Unified Cornish (GanS 5)

Early Cornish, Middle C., Late C., Revised L.C., Unified C., U.C. Revised
Forms of language about which there are a couple of contrasting views:
(1) The forms of our language which hold the repository of much of the Cornish people's cultural heritage, and which make up the soil we're all rooted in.

(2) Dead Brythonic dialects spoken by a few relict enthusiasts; distantly related to KK® —and totally unsuitable as a source of anything in today's 'Cornish for the Future'. Their 'literature' is sparse and/or irrelevant to the 21st 'Brave New' Century. Might as well speak Gaulish! See 'duckweed'.

duckweed (Cornish: bos-heyjy)
A pretty little plant that, seemingly out of nothing, forms a verdant pelt on pond or puddle. Our Gaelic cousins know it as 'an lus-gun-mhàthair-gun-athair' (cornicé: an losowen hep mam na tas, the 'plant without mother nor father'), while we know it as 'duck-food'. A curiously rootless vegetable, whose Gaelic name (and natural history) show that it bears more than a passing resemblance to one inauthentic form of rootless 'Cornish', especially as its other name chances to be kellyn or ken lyn (anglicé: pond scum). c.f. 'Early Cornish…, §1, §2' .