"Meanwhile we ALSO need a new or different word to describe newer songs that have become or are maybe becoming traditional (small t) by modern means (such as being "sung by a particular type of community over a long enough period"), but where the author IS known."

Non sequitur guest! You have given a very cogent and precise reason why only the orally transmitted tradition should be referred to as "Traditional", and with that I tend to agree.

However it does not follow that a new name is needed for anything else.   Traditional folk, and Contemporary folk, provide the class delineations between what we do, and commercial pop rather nicely, and we can add those subset titles that are needed to describe, for example, Blues.

Of course the traditional will have its own subsets, e.g. Irish, American, West Indian and so on.

Folk, to me has always represented the umbrella under which all the rest shelter, and I will never agree with those who reserve the word to the English traditional canon (if they are right, there is no sense in using the T-word at all).

Don T.