In the first lesson of any language course you'll probably learn a mini dialogue like this. You'll find the translation at the end of this article, but can you guess what it means?
A: "Dydh da! Fatla genes?"
B: "Yn poynt da, meur ras. Ha genes jy?"
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What you probably can't guess is the language of the exchange above. It's actually Cornish, a language that is listed as 'extinct' in the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages but which has experienced a remarkable revival in recent years.
It's a member of the Celtic family of languages which also includes Scots, Irish, Welsh and Breton. When Britain was invaded by the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century AD, the native Celtic people were pushed to the West and North of the country and the language that they spoke developed differently in these separate areas. Some Celts left the country completely and went to the West of France where their language became known as Breton. Cornish (Kernewek) is the language that people spoke in Cornwall (Kernow) which is the county in the extreme South West of England. Welsh and Breton are its nearest relatives and the three languages have a lot of similarities.
It really depends on your definition of 'died out'. The story goes that the last person who spoke Cornish (and no English) was a woman called Dolly Pentreath. She died in 1777 and some people say that the language died with her. But of course, there were still people who spoke Cornish as a native language, even if they also knew English. And their children learned some Cornish from them even if they spoke English most of the time. The number of speakers got smaller and smaller and they knew less and less of the language, but Cornish didn't disappear. There are stories of fisherman still using Cornish numbers to count fish in the 1940s and 50s. So some people argue that the language never died out completely, but survived until the Cornish revival started at the beginning of the twentieth century.
At the beginning of the twentieth century academics became interested in Cornish and started to study some of the ancient texts that had survived. From these old documents they worked out the rules for spelling and grammar and people became interested in learning to speak the language again and teaching it to their children. Some people still say that Cornish died with Dolly Pentreath and this 'new' Cornish is an artificial language, but the revival has continued to this day.
Surprise surprise, people don't agree about that either. It depends on what you mean by 'speak'. There are probably only a few hundred people who speak it as their everyday language. But there are several thousand who can have a conversation in Cornish even if they aren't fluent. And if you include all the people who know some words and basic phrases then it could be as many as ten thousand. Not a lot admittedly, but a lot better than a hundred years ago. And the numbers are growing every year. Some children now grow up bilingual and the language is offered as an option in some schools. You can even study the language to degree level at university.
Yes it is. You'll see and hear a lot of it if you visit Cornwall. You'll see road signs in Cornish for a start. Newspapers and radio stations have regular articles and programmes in Cornish and there are some magazines written entirely in the language. There are bookshops which only sell books in Cornish and many businesses use Cornish names. There is even a Cornish language film industry.
That doesn't help much I'm afraid. Some of the modern words are easy to guess, for example 'ayrplen' for aeroplane and 'pytsa' for pizza. Some words are similar to English: fas (face), mam (mother), onyonen (onion) and plat (plate). 'Avon' is Cornish for 'river' which may explain why there are so many River Avons in Britain. Some words seem to be influenced by French, for example, 'pons' (bridge), 'chambour' (bedroom), and 'eglos' (church). But you might have a few more problems with 'kenynen ewynek' (garlic) and 'scubylen dens' (toothbrush). And remember, if you see 'stevel omwolhy' on a hotel door it isn't the name of the manager - it's Cornish for 'bathroom'.
And here's the translation of the mini dialogue at the beginning of the article.
A: Hello! ("good day"). How are you?
B: Very well thank you. And you?
Obvious isn't it?
What do you think of this article? Are there any languages in your country that have been revived? Send us your texts/opinions.
John writes “John Davey of Zennor, who died in 1891 and learnt the language from his Grandfather ,is reported as one of the last speakers of Cornish, where upon the revival had started so I would say the language never became extinct - it just hit a very low ebb.”
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