[1] It was the outcome of a process initiated by the creation of the public body Cornish Language Partnership, which identified a need to agree on a single standard orthography in order to end previous orthographical disagreements, secure government funding, and increase the use of Cornish in Cornwall.
The negotiating teams comprised members of all the main Cornish language groups, Kesva an Taves Kernewek, Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek, Agan Tavas, and Cussel an Tavas Kernuak, and received input from experts and academics from Europe and the United States.
The agreement meant that Cornish became officially accepted and funded, with support from the UK government and the European Union.
[4] In 2021, a third edition of the SWF was published by the Akademi Kernewek, incorporating the decisions of the 2014 review and work over the subsequent decade.
The original 2008 Specification states that "[t]he orthography as a whole leans toward a Middle Cornish base, since in many cases the correct RLC or TC pronunciation can be deduced from an RMC form, but not vice versa".
Stressed vowels in polysyllables are short except in the case of conservative RMC speakers, who may pronounce vowels long before single consonants and st (and, for some, sk and sp), e.g. Cornish: gwagen RMC [gwa(ː)gɛn], RLC [gwægɐn] "a blank".
[7] ^4 Often realised as [əɪ] in RLC in stressed open syllables, in which case it is written with the variant graph ei.
When representing [ɤ], the 2013 Review suggests o could be written as ò for clarity in "dictionaries and teaching materials".
In a small number of words, u can represent [ʊ] when short or [uː] or [ɪʊ] when long in TC and RLC.
Some rules are common to almost all speakers, e.g. final s and medial s between vowels or a sonorant and a vowel are usually [z], whereas other rules are specific to certain varieties, e.g. RMC speakers usually realise initial s as [s] whereas RLC tend to prefer [z] (except in such clusters as sk, sl, sn, sp and st).
A number of strategies are employed in the Standard Written Form to deal with these differences and make the system usable for all.
The SWF does not stipulate that either only RMC or RLC variant graphs must be used, for instance, a typical TC speaker will choose the letters that best reflect their own pronunciation.