Kernowek Standard

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Kernowek Standard (KS, Standard Cornish) is a variety of revived Cornish. Developed gradually by a group called UdnFormScrefys ('Single Written Form'), it was published as a proposal in a series of revisions.^[1] Its principal authors were Michael Everson, Neil Kennedy, and Nicholas Williams. The orthography was meant to adhere to two basic requirements which the group identified: to be based on orthographic forms attested in the Cornish literary scribal tradition, and to have an unambiguous relationship between spelling and sounds. In order to embrace both Middle and Late Cornish forms, Kernowek Standard took as its foundation the late Middle Cornish play Creacon of the World by William Jordan (1611). In 2007-8, Kernowek Standard was not chosen as the Standard Written Form for Cornish in official contexts (SWF), but was designated to provide a key source of input into the SWF along with Kernewek Kemmyn.^[2]

KS differs from the Standard Written Form in several respects. It uses diacritics to mark unpredictable vowel length or quality. While rejecting graphemes such as hw, kw and iw on the grounds that they are not found in the scribal tradition, KS uses some others such as ai and au which were not included in the SWF. KS and the SWF also differ in their treatment of unstressed vowels and in the spelling of a number of individual words.