Cornish IPA Converter — Pronunciation rules and notes

Notes accompanying the SWF Cornish → IPA converter.

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Pronunciation profiles

Careful / conservative SWF keeps fuller unstressed vowels, preserves mm/nn as audible geminates, and normally begins single s with /s/.

Later / more reduced SWF allows more unstressed-vowel reduction, uses the historically attested pre-occluded mm → bm and nn → dn, favours more s-voicing, and allows greater weakening of gh.

These are pronunciation profiles, not rigid historical dates: several features varied by region, register and speaker.

Output notation and limitations

Fully long vowels are shown with ː; mid-length vowels with ˑ; primary stress with ˈ; syllable boundaries with .

Syllable boundaries are shown only where they can be inferred with reasonable confidence from the current rules. Doubled consonants are represented by consonant length, or by pre-occlusion in the later profile, rather than by inserting a boundary automatically. The converter does not yet implement a complete Cornish syllabification system, so some boundaries remain provisional.

The converter is broad/citation-form IPA. Connected-speech reductions, historically conditioned losses and many lexical variants are documented here but are not all automated.

Current rule model

Rule	Prototype behaviour
Dictionary first	Known words override all rules.
Stress	Multi-syllable unknown words are normally given penultimate stress; productive verbal nouns in `-he` are treated as finally stressed. Stress marks are placed at the inferred start of the stressed syllable, using a cautious Cornish onset-cluster inventory (e.g. `dis-pleg`, `om-ri`, `wor-zo`), rather than simply before the whole intervocalic consonant group. A `y` immediately before another vowel is treated as a consonantal glide /j/ rather than as a separate vowel nucleus, preventing false extra syllables in forms such as `deithiogyon`.
Nominal `-ans/-ians`	The productive noun suffixes `-ans` and `-ians` are treated as ending in /s/, including before plural `-ow`. In `-ians/-iansow`, the `i` is treated narrowly as a glide /j/ before `a`; this is not generalized to all adjacent `ia` spellings.
Final `-ia`	In word-final `-ia`, `i` is treated as a glide /j/ (for example `provia`), while other `ia` sequences remain untouched unless separately established.
Tested `-yow/-iow` forms	Known plural forms can use a glide rather than an extra vowel nucleus. In particular `prysyow → /ˈprɪsjɔw/` and `partiow → /ˈpartjɔw/`. This is still handled lexically rather than as a blanket rule for every written `-yow/-iow` sequence.
Foreign / English words	Known foreign forms such as `artificial`, `intelligence` and `Sheffield` use lexical overrides so that Cornish grapheme rules do not mechanically misread them.
Lexical quantity / stress exceptions	Known forms can override otherwise useful general rules. For example, `mysk` is kept short, `yn-mes` is right-stressed, and `estynna` preserves the morphological boundary `es-tyn-na`.
Hyphenated right-stressed compounds	For a small, explicitly listed set of compounds whose second element carries the main stress (currently including `-hir` and `-sawya`), primary stress is placed on the second element and the first element keeps secondary stress. A monosyllabic first element that was fully long in isolation is reduced to mid-length under secondary stress. Thus `skath-sawya` is treated approximately as `/ˌskaˑθ-ˈsawja/`. The list is deliberately cautious until a broader compound-stress lexicon is available.
`s` / `z`	Do not apply a blanket “final `s` = /s/” rule. Bruch gives /z/ as the usual value word-finally, while Williams gives a more contextual system: /z/ medially before a vowel, voiced consonant or glide and word-finally in a stressed syllable, with variable realization after a fully reduced vowel. Morphological and lexical exceptions are therefore handled separately.
Function words	Common function words such as `an/a'n → /an/`, `a → /a/`, `yn → /ɪn/`, `dhe → /ðɛ/`, `ma → /ma/` are built in and normally unstressed. The irregular form `yma` is lexicalized as `/ɪˈmaː/`, with final stress.
Unstressed vowels	All are short. Careful mode normally keeps fuller qualities. Later / reduced mode allows a cautious schwa reduction of unstressed `a/e/o` in rule-generated forms; `i/u/y` are not blanket-reduced because the sources show important colouring and lexical differences.
Stressed vowels before groups	Short before consonant groups, except `sp`, `st`, and `sk`.
Stressed vowels before double consonants	Short before double consonants, e.g. `hemma → /ˈhɛm.ma/`.
Stressed vowels in monosyllables	Fully long before a single consonant, `sp`, `st`, or `sk`: `ː`.
Stressed vowels in polysyllables	Mid-length before a single consonant, `sp`, `st`, or `sk`: `ˑ`.
Gemination / pre-occlusion	Careful mode treats `mm/nn` as genuine geminates (`mː / nː`). Later / reduced mode uses the historically attested pre-occluded `bm / dn`. Written `ss` is treated as the digraph /s/, not as a geminate. Lyon shows that pre-occlusion is not simply a late chronological innovation; it also varied by dialect. `ll/rr` remain conservative in this prototype because their later development is less safely reducible to one blanket rule.
Apostrophe spellings	Treat apostrophes as Cornish orthography, not IPA stress. They are removed from the IPA output, e.g. `dy'mergher → /dɪˈmɛrxɛr/`.
Revised `s`	Careful mode keeps initial single `s` as /s/. Later / reduced mode favours /z/ for initial `s` before a vowel, while preserving /s/ in clusters such as `sp/st/sk`. Intervocalic and final voicing remain context-sensitive; morphology and lexical exceptions are dictionary-controlled. This is deliberately more cautious than a blanket “all initial s → z” rule.
`gh`	Careful mode uses /x/ as a fallback where no lexical information is available. Later / reduced mode allows broad weakening (`/h/` medially, zero finally). This is only a fallback: Lyon shows that some revived `gh` spellings are historically problematic, while Williams allows /x/, /h/ or loss. Lexical overrides take precedence.
Connected speech	Lyon, Williams and Prohaska all point to reduction, assimilation or linking in fluent speech. This prototype remains primarily a word/citation-form converter and does not yet run a full phrase-level connected-speech pass.

Rule notes

Spelling	Approx. IPA
ch	/tʃ/
dh	/ð/
th	/θ/
gh	Careful fallback /x/; Later/reduced profile may weaken to /h/ or zero. Lexical/historical overrides are preferred.
hw, wh	/ʍ/
j	/dʒ/
y	/ɪ/ as a vowel; immediately before another vowel it is treated as consonantal /j/ (except established vowel/diphthong spellings such as `yw`).
ey	/ɛɪ/ as a single diphthong, e.g. `seythen → /ˈsɛɪθɛn/`.
intervocalic single s	/z/
fully long vowel	add /ː/, e.g. /ɛː/
mid-length vowel	add /ˑ/, e.g. /ɛˑ/
syllable boundary	`.` marks a boundary where it can be inferred with reasonable confidence. Consonantal `y` before a following vowel is not counted as a separate syllable. Boundaries help represent stress, vowel quantity and consonant behaviour, but the converter does not yet implement a complete Cornish syllabification system, so some boundaries are provisional.
historical losses	Lyon documents further conditioned loss of `th` and changes involving `r/rth`; these are too lexical/context-sensitive for a safe blanket rule and remain dictionary-controlled.
long a	Lyon and Williams both support more than one historical realisation. The automatic rule therefore remains only a broad default; raised/backed outcomes should be entered as dictionary overrides rather than guessed globally.
schwa / reduction	Williams and Kennedy explicitly support substantial unstressed-vowel reduction, while Sethir rejects schwa and Prohaska treats the amount of reduction as period/register dependent. The Later/reduced profile therefore uses only cautious automatic schwa reduction, not “every unstressed vowel → /ə/”.
r	Sources disagree: Williams specifies a retroflex approximant, Sethir favours a rolled/trilled sound, and Prohaska is cautious about reconstructing one universal historical value. The converter therefore keeps a broad `/r/` rather than enforcing one phonetic realization.

Exception-list format

Future corrections can be pasted straight into the override box, like this:

word = /IPA/
dhyd = /ðɪːd/
kemmeres = /kɛmˈmɛˑrɛs/

Sources consulted

The current rule model has been developed by comparing George, Bruch, Bock, Lyon, Williams, Kennedy, Sethir and Prohaska. Where their positions differ, the converter uses broad profiles and lexical overrides rather than treating one reconstruction as universally definitive.