From The Times May 21, 2008
"After centuries, Cornish agree how to speak their language" - Simon de Bruxelles
" For hundreds of years the dwindling band of surviving Cornish-speakers have been so divided that they could not even agree what their language should be called.
Now after protracted and delicate neogtiations, Cornwall’s hardy linguistic scholars have set aside their differences to settle a standard written form for the language they treasure.
Since the early 20th century there has been a successful campaign to revive spoken Cornish, but the use of sources from different eras meant there were several versions of how it should be written. The result was a rivalry between proponents of Unified Cornish, Kernewek Kemmyn, Modern Cornish, Unified Cornish Revised, Kernowak Standard, Kernewek Dasunys and other variants that would have left speakers of the original language utterly bemused.
As a measure of the differences Cornish-speakers could not even agree whether the language should be called Kernowek, Kernewek or Curnoack.
Now after two years of negotiation, scholars from all the different factions have reached agreement on a Standard Written Form which will be used in future in education, in pamphlets and brochures, and on public signs.
A thousand years ago, Cornish, which is closely related to Breton and Welsh, was spoken by most of the population in southwest England. Its decline began in 1549 when the Latin prayer book was replaced by an English version, provoking a revolt by people who spoke only Cornish. The repression that followed culminated in the massacre of 4,000 rebels and left a bitterness that lingers to this day.
Cornish retreated down the peninsula. The last monoglot Cornish speaker is believed to have been a man called Chesten Marchant who died at Gwithian in 1676. Dorothy Pentreath, the last native speaker, died in 1777 at Mousehole. The last living link with the language was broken in 1891 with the death of John Davey, of Zennor, who took to the grave the Cornish phrases his grandfather had taught him.
By 1900 Cornish was a dead language that survived only in a few manuscripts and the notes of 18th and 19th-century linguistic scholars who had recorded what they could before it vanished completely.
Its reconstruction and revival began in the early 1900s with renewed interest in Cornish heritage and there are now about 300 people who can speak it fluently, with several thousand more who have at least a rudimentary grasp.
Cornish is unique among minority European languages because it was revived after having died out. A team of scholars led by a Norwegian linguist, Trond Trosterud, devised the standard written form under the auspices of the Cornish Language Partnership.
Its development officer Jenefer Lowe, who has been speaking Cornish since she was a girl, said: “There were scholastic disagreements and some pretty firmly held opinions but we managed to reach agreement in the end. The standard form draws on the forms already in existence. This means that users of any form will find much that is familiar, alongside some differences.”
Benjamin Bruch, a former lecturer in Celtic studies at Harvard University who helped to draw up the SWF, said: “It is a critical and extremely exciting time in the history of the language. There has been a huge change in perception and awareness of the language over the past ten years.”
He added that he hopes the move will encourage a stronger sense of Cornish identity. “If you have no language you have no land. A lot of people feel it is part of their identity, part of their heritage. Cornwall is lucky because people are working hard to use it more and more. It gives it a fighting chance when others are going.”
Cornwall County Council is now asking that Cornish be recognised by the EU as an official regional or minority language, like Welsh or Gaelic. That could ease the way for EU funding for teaching – which at present is restricted to DVDs in three secondary schools. Frances Bennett, a teacher of Modern Cornish, said: “Young children are really keen to learn the language. It’s like a secret code to them.”
AJC comments:
I was so pleased for the Cornish to read the above piece in The Times. Each language is unique and will have a unique way of perceiving the world and describing it. Now that Cornish has an agreed written form, there should be a great and very welcome increase in those who wish to learn it and to write in it.
Perhaps I should not bring politics into such an important cultural development, but Cornwall does very poorly out of the Union. I was incredulous, for example, to hear that Cornwall does not even have a single university: I recommend to the Cornish that they get behind a campaign for this to be rectified as an urgent priority.
The Free England Party offer to help the Cornish in such a campaign.
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Just what is the point if it is only going to be different and divisive? It is going backwards! I say this as someone whose bloodline connections with the South West peninsula goes back hundreds of years.
Having said this, I would not stop anyone from learning any lingo however obscure. Even so, I vehemently oppose the
public funding which has been inflicted on England and the English in respect of a number of minority and semi-moribund languages which have managed to hang on in the British Isles without a penny-piece of public money being expended on Old Englisc!
So, whatever excuse is being used to promote the
public funding of Cornish, Scotch, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic etc etc - because THIS is really what is at the core here - I firmly oppose it on the grounds of double standards and yet further discrimination against the English!
If the 'Cornish' - whoever THEY are? - are so determined to safeguard their 'culture', why don't they campaign for the restoration of Darkey Day?
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Originally Posted by Andrew Constantine:
Perhaps I should not bring politics into such an important cultural development, but Cornwall does very poorly out of the Union. I was incredulous, for example, to hear that Cornwall does not even have a single university: I recommend to the Cornish that they get behind a campaign for this to be rectified as an urgent priority.
Cornwall may not have a university per se, but there are institutions that offer Higher Education courses - such as Truro College - one of the top 'beacon' colleges in the land I might add. Also, to build a University in Cornwall may prove fruitless - when there is a perfectly good university in Plymouth.
Originally Posted by Wikipedia:
Truro College is located in Truro, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. It has Beacon College status, recognising it as one of the best colleges in the country, and it is within the top ten in league tables compiled by The Independent and The Guardian.
Truro College - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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