Nicholas Williams

Writings on Revived Cornish Nicholas Williams 1st edition

This book brings together in one convenient volume eight articles by Professor Nicholas Williams on the Cornish Revival. They range from his "A Problem in Cornish Phonology" (1990) in which he shows that the "phonemes" /dj/ and /tj/ of Kernowek Kemyn were unwarranted, to his review "'A Modern and Scholarly Cornish-English Dictionary': a Review of Ken George's Gerlyver Kernewek Kemmyn" of 2001 in which he demonstrates how at least 370 entries in George's dictionary are mistaken. "Writings on Revived Cornish" concludes with a short note on George's incon­sis­tent lexicographical practice with respect to geographical names, a discussion of the implications for the revived language of the recently-discovered play "Bewnans Ke" and the text of a lecture on Unified Cornish Revised given by Professor Williams in September 2006. As companion volumes to "Writings on Revived Cornish", two further works by Professor Williams are being published: "Cornish Today" and "Towards Authentic Cornish". Nicholas Williams was born in Essex. While still at school he taught himself Cornish and became a bard of the Cornish Gorsedd for proficiency in the Cornish language in Newquay in 1962, taking the bardic name Golvan. He won first prize in the Gorsedd verse competition in 1961, 1964, and 1965. He read classics, English language, and Celtic in Oxford and was awarded a PhD in Celtic in Queen's University, Belfast in 1972. He is currently Associate Professor in the School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Folklore and Linguistics in University College, Dublin. He has written widely on the Celtic languages and literatures, in particular Irish, Manx and Cornish. He published "Cornish Today" in 1995, "Clappya Kernowek" in 1997, "English-Cornish Dictionary" in 2000 (second edition 2006) and Testament Noweth in 2002. He won first prize in the Gorsedd verse competitions of 1997, 1998, and 1999. With Graham Thomas he has produced an editio princeps of the recently discovered Cornish play, "Bewnans Ke", which was published by the University of Exeter Press in October 2006. Philip Payton, Professor of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter, has described Nicholas Williams as "the foremost inter­national authority" in the Cornish language.