An Outline of Cornwall's Language

Saxon invaders of Britain, coming from Northern Europe over the course of the 5th to 8th centuries, caused a displacement of Britons as they moved via their conquests increasingly westwards across the British Isles, and these were physically separated. The peoples' shared British language began to evolve in different ways. Thus, Brythonic, one of two major branches of the Celtic languages, gradually evolved as what are now known as Cymraeg, or Welsh, the language of Wales, and Kernewek, or Cornish, the language of a region known as Dumnonia in Roman times but which is today largely Devon and Cornwall. Later, in 932 A.D., after many bloody battles, King Athelstan set the border of England as the Devon bank of the River Tamar.

Saxon incursions, and possibly Irish pirate raids, may well have forced further numbers across the water to Brittany ('Little Britain'), to join earlier Welsh and Dumnonian settlers and thus Cornwall's closest sister language, Breton, evolved. The other Celtic branch, Goedelic, is to be found today in Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland in the form of Irish and Manx Gaelic, and Scots Gallic. The term 'Celtic' is largely regarded today as a linguistic term, though the races who brought the Celtic language to the British Isles are believed to have originated from the area of the lower Danube. Cornwall is nowadays regarded as one of six 'nations' which lay claim to an indigenous Celtic language. Its fellows are Scotland, Ireland, The Isle of Man, Wales and Brittany. Their Celtic ties and camaraderie have given rise to many shared cultural occasions and festivals today, especially at a musical and sporting level.

Gorseth Ceremony in the 20th Century at Lanuste, St Just
Photograph courtesy of Agan Tavas - Our Language

From the 5th Century therefore, when the story of Cornwall's language began to unfold, the number of speakers is believed to have reached a peak when Cornwall's population reached that of about 40,000 people. By the 14th , 15th and 16th centuries then, the language was enjoying its richest epoch, when miracle plays such as the Ordinalia, 'The Life of St Meriasek', 'The Passion of Our Lord' and 'The Creation of the World' were being written at Glasney College (a pre-Reformation seminary in Penryn) to further a knowledge of Christian tenets, and these plays were acted out by local communities in Cornish in round open-air theatres called a 'Plain an Gwarry'. Thanks to these and many other smaller documents, there remains a substantial corpus of literature, and therefore, vocabulary and grammar, upon which to build the revived Cornish language today.

Sadly, the Reformation in the 16th century and its consequent rejection of a prayer-book in Cornish caused a rebellion. The routing of thousands of supporters not only spelled death for many users of the language but sounded the death knell for the language itself. Cornish receded to the far west of the land and could only be encountered in remote fishing villages and farmsteads, having lost its status as a language over centuries in the face of Norman French and English. By the turn of the 19th century, the highly corrupted language had all but died out and a few dedicated philologists gathered the fragments of the language for posterity. However, even today, Cornwall's strange place names bear witness to a language that never died completely.

The revived language, studied, researched, preserved and propagated in the 20th century by the great Cornish linguists and patriots Henry Jenner and Robert Morton Nance, gathered momentum through their enormous enthusiasm and energy. Through its language, Jenner achieved recognition for Cornwall as a Celtic nation by the Celtic Congress. By the publishing of grammar books and particularly Nance's excellent dictionaries, the revived language took off. Gradually, through the interest and industry of a cross-section of Cornish teachers, evening classes, gatherings in pubs for conversation in Cornish and residential language meetings were organised. Since about 1900, Cornish gathered ground steadily and the number of really fluent speakers today has risen to something in the region of 200. This may seem few but those students with anything from a smattering to a passable knowledge of Cornish probably amount to more than 3000, and some of these may be found in pockets of Australia, the Czech Republic, the U.S.A. and Canada, in fact anywhere where the perennial Cornish folk have emigrated. There has been some disagreement in the last twenty years as to which of several forms of spelling should be used to represent the language but the mainstream system is Kernewek Kemmyn or Common Cornish used by at least 70% of speakers and recommended by Kesva an Taves (The Cornish Language Board). What is certain is that the spoken language is infinitely more important than any set of letters since this is what makes Cornish a living language once more.

Now, as we approach the centenary of Jenner's Cornish handbook in 2004, Cornwall's unique language, in the light of a rigorous Governmental investigation culminating in the McKinnon Report, has been granted official recognition and status as a language. This represents a century of passionate work and endeavour on the part of language revivalists and will surely accelerate the use of Cornish in education and in commerce as a means of stressing Cornwall's special identity.

Tan Goelowann

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