1. The final _e_ becomes _a_. [This is perhaps only a question of spelling, and need not imply a difference of sound. Probably a sound as of the German final _e_ is intended. { 50}]
2. _th_ and _gh_ have become mute, and are often interchanged. [In Modern Cornish _th_ is often omitted, or represented by _h_.]
3. _m_, _n_, become respectively _bm_, _dn_. [Probably the sounds existed long before they were recognised in spelling.]
4. _s_ becomes frequently a soft _g_ (_j_). [This _j_ sound also may have existed long before it was written as a _g_ or _j_. The _s_ of the earlier MSS. was probably never intended to represent in these cases a true _s_. Dr. Stokes might also have mentioned the similar cases of _she_ being used where the older MSS. write _sy_ for the second person singular.]
The apparent changes of vowel sounds in the still later Cornish, more fully discussed further on, are mostly these:
1. _a_ long sometimes becomes _aw_, especially before _l_, _n_, or _r_, and occasionally as a final; _a_ short, under similar circumstances, becomes _o_ short.
2. _u_, with (approximately) the French sound of that letter, becomes _ee_ (_î_), or else _ew_, as in the English word _dew_.
3. _eu_, _ue_, with the French sound of _eu_, or the German _o_, becomes _ê_ (=_ay_ in _may_).
4. _y_ of Middle Cornish, perhaps pronounced as _ĭ_, but sometimes obscurely, like the primary sound of the Welsh _y_, often became short _e_.
5. An open long _y_, which may have been sounded _ee_ (_î_) in Middle Cornish, often later became _ei_ (or as _i_ in _mine_), though there are inconsistencies in this respect, showing that the change was not universal.
6. In a considerable number of cases short _o_ became the “obscure vowel,” _o_ of _London_ or _u_ of _until_.
It does not follow that these were very distinct changes between Middle and Modern Cornish. Possibly the change in sound was a good deal less than on paper, and consisted in intensifying earlier changes. The Middle Cornish system of spelling looks very like an inheritance from an earlier time still.