"Towards Authentic Cornish" is in the first place a rebuttal of the
defence of Kernowek Kemyn attempted by Paul Dunbar and Ken George in
"Kernewek Kemmyn: Cornish for the Twenty-First Century". In the present
work, Professor Williams demonstrates with examples from the Cornish
texts just how unconvincing is George's defence of Kernowek Kemyn. The
latter portions of the book offer a detailed critique of George's
"Gerlyver Kernewek Kemmyn" and of Wella Brown's "Grammar of Modern
Cornish". As companion volumes to "Towards Authentic Cornish", two
further works by Professor Williams have been published: "Cornish Today"
and "Writings on Revived 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 inter-national authority"
in the Cornish language.
