Talk:Cornish language

In case you're interested…

Hi, I wanted to let contributors to this article know that I have created a draft page about Cornish exonyms, called Draft:Cornish exonyms. Please feel free to add to the list. I hope it gets considered and added soon. Thanks! Gagana Ausetalia (talk) 12:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC) striked out edits by blocked sockpuppet –Austronesier (talk) 10:24, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Great work! Perhaps I'll contribute if I have time... we already have Welsh exonyms, and I'm sure that your draft will be considered and added as soon as it's decent enough for article space. 😁👍  Tewdar  20:34, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

@Tewdar I recently became auto-confirmed (today) and I have moved the article to an actual page. Thanks for your contributions and I hope more users help contribute too. Gagana Ausetalia (talk) 06:14, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@Gagana Ausetalia: Marvellous. Also well done for splitting the UK into its constituent nations - seems a sensible solution to me. The Williams UCR dictionary has a whole bunch of, erm, 'innovated' placenames in a divergent orthography, but I think his Desky Kernowek has a few too that could probably be adjusted to SWF orthography without too much controversy. Also, we could probably use a 'miscellaneous' section for stuff like seas and oceans. What do you think?  Tewdar  09:28, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately I hhad to delete it as block evasion. Graham87 12:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Revived language

How is the revival of Cornish going nowadays? The article mentions the efforts for reviving it in the 2000s and 2010s, mentioning the estimate of 557 speakers in 2011. Now, in the 2020s, can Cornish be added to the history of revived languages? The article states that there are already native speakers of Cornish, bilingual and also speaking English. If the language has native speakers after its extinction in the 18th century, can it be added to Language revitalization as a successfully revived language along with Modern Hebrew? 2804:14D:8084:8B09:E8BB:9B08:8CA2:CB69 (talk) 16:10, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Lowena dhis! (Hello!) I believe there is already a section for Cornish at the Language revitalization article. The number of speakers is still small, but hopefully growing rather than shrinking.  Tewdar  16:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

The results for the 2021 census should be released within the next couple of months. Covid lockdown resulted in a lot of interest in people learning the language online (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-60302511) so the language is certainly growing. I don't know about the number of native speakers, because speakers tend to be fragmented between different communities. Brwynog (talk) 10:09, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

The results have now been published. The number stating Cornish to be their "main language" was 564. Those may include L1 speakers as well as L2 speakers, but does not tell us how many fluent speakers there actually are. Cornwall Council states that "This figure should not be used to identify the number of Cornish speakers – it would be an underestimate as the Census only asked what people's main language is." Bodrugan (talk) 12:38, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The idea that the language died seems to have been disproved, it might have been fingernail hanging on and a patois at the time of Henry Jenner et however at the time of the start of the rivial there were still native speakers 85.10.117.114 (talk) 17:49, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Well that's what we call original research, taking matierial about the 2021 census and trying to exprapolate from that a new position (not found in the source material) that the Cornish language "must" never have really died out for a spell. In order for Wikipedia to say anything at all along the lines of "the idea that language died seems to have been disproved" we would need reliable sources that make this case convincingly, and even then we would have to attribute this idea as a statement of that/those source[s] viewpoint, since it directly conflicts with the view of previous reliable sources we've already cited.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:55, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Rod Lyon's book 'Cornish - the struggle for survival', published in 2001 by Taves an Werin, is a detailed look at who was able to speak Cornish from the time of Dolly Pentreath to the 1930s and at what level. Kensa Broadhurst at the University of Exeter is also conducting research into the same topic. Brwynog (talk) 04:22, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I see Rod Lyon is a notable person, although surprisingly he trained as civil engineer rather than as a linguist. Would his book be considered WP:FRINGE? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:18, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure it is quite fringe, but it is definitely one that needs careful evaluation. Does the writer and former Grand Bard have an agenda? Is there any peer evaluation of the claims? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

And having tried to access this source, it is not coming to anything. Couldn't find it listed for sale nor at any Library I have access to (haven't checked the National Library though). I found it in a Cornish archive though. [1] So it is a 22 page pamphlet written by a former Grand Bard, published by Taves an Werin, which has no web presence but the name translates as "Tongue of the people" (tongue as in language) so it is a very small Cornish language / Cornish interest publisher. This is hardly the kind of neutral secondary source we need to make bold claims. In fact, we have been here before. See Talk:Cornish language/Archive 4#Lead contradicts article where I tracked down another booklet that made these claims. That one didn't pass muster, and this one is not going to either. Nothing to see here.

So what about Kensa Broadhurst? Well this is more interesting. She is listed as a Ph.D. Student at University of Exeter here [2] and her bio tells us:

She researches the Status of the Cornish Language between 1777-1904. That is, the death of Dolly Pentreath, the so-called last speaker of Cornish, and the publication of Henry Jenner’s Handbook of the Cornish Language which began the language revival. Kensa is also considering what exactly we mean by, and how we define language extinction, and hopes to contribute to developing a function and status for the Cornish language within higher education. Outside of her PhD research, Kensa blogs and tweets in Cornish, and reads the news in Cornish on Sunday afternoons for BBC Radio Cornwall.

So there may be something there. But we appear to be too soon on this one. If she successfully defends a thesis that the language never died out, then yes, we can use that thesis here. But at this stage she is still apparently working on the thesis. We will need to wait. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Map, Britonia, etc.

The map appears to be based on a fictional book. I'll see if I can find a better one. If I can, it just needs to say 'probable Brittonic languages c. 600 AD', no need for any mention of textual evidenxe etc... what do others think?  Tewdar  12:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Whether it is annotated or not, the shading on Galicia is a strong piece of visual information. As it is disputed, perhaps it should just go? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

I have no problem with removing the map entirely until a better source is found. I'll get rid of it, unless there are any objections?  Tewdar  12:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

I replaced it with the existing map showing the decline of the language.  Tewdar  14:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Additional sources

This is material we should probably be using at some point:

• Lyon, Rodney Trevelyan (2001). Cornish: The Struggle for Survival. Tavas an Weryn. – A short 22-page work. Doesn't seem to have an ISBN and may be difficult to find outside the UK. Lyon put out several of books of potential interest, including Gorseth Kernow: The Cornish Gorsedd What it is and What it Does (2008), Everyday Cornish (updated ed., 1984), Road-Names in Cornwall (1997, with Graham Sandercock), Notes on the Penwith Dialect of Cornish (2001), Colloquial Doesn't Mean Corrupt: Observations on contemporary Revived Cornish (2019), Notes on Spoken Cornish (1987, with John Pengilly). Those all show up on AbeBooks.co.uk right now, except for Cornish: The Struggle for Survival, the one most likely to be of use here, though Google indicates it has been for sale there in the past, so keep checking.
• Spriggs, Matthew (2004). "The Cornish Language, Archaeology, and the Origins of English Theatre". In Jones, Martin (ed.). Traces of Ancestry: Studies in Honour of Colin Renfrew. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. pp. 143–161. ISBN 9781902937250 – via ResearchGate. – Free full text of chapter.
• Zadražilová, Dagmar (2010). Revival of the Cornish Language: Its Reasons, Challenges and its Relation towards the Cornish Identity (PDF) (Master's thesis). Institute of Political Studies, Charles University in Prague. – Free, full text. Weaker source, being only an MA thesis, but might have something of use, especially in its bibliography.
• See also bibliography in: Spriggs, Matthew (2003). Payton, Philip (ed.). "Where Cornish Was Spoken and When: A Provisional Synthesi". Cornish Studies. Second Series. 11. Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter Press: 228–269 – via ResearchGate. – Free full text of chapter. We're already citing this source itself, but it in turn cites many additional sources (may well be nearly all the relevant ones up to 2003; the bibliography is quite extensive).

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:52, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

In Devon

An anon added (with some punctuation correction imposed by me): Although it is spoken mainly in Cornwall, it also was spoken in the neighbouring County of Devon but went extinct in the 16th Century., with an edit summary of "I have added a new fact that is widely excepted and can be easily verified but searching it up on Google.I hope this edit is not undone as it is truthful and can be seen on a number of Websites". WP doesn't work on a "trust me, bro" basis, so of course this was reverted as unsourced. However, it is probably correct, in that Corwall used to include much of what is now Devonshire, and the language was surely spoken also in that area. So, something about this is probably worth sourcing and including.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:57, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

The lead would need to summarise something in the main text and at this point any such mention would contradict the main text which reads

The area controlled by the southwestern Britons was progressively reduced by the expansion of Wessex over the next few centuries. During the Old Cornish (Kernewek Koth) period (800–1200), the Cornish-speaking area was largely coterminous with modern-day Cornwall, after the Saxons had taken over Devon in their south-westward advance.

This is sourced to (George, 2009), who seems to be the source of the map on this page, and does indeed make the point that:

In the year 936, Athelstan fixed the boundary between the Saxons and the Celts as the River Tamar. In the north-east of Cornwall, however, the effective boundary was the River Ottery.

(page 491). He also uses toponymic evidence to demonstrate the linguistic difference. Although there were no doubt some Cornish speakers in Devon, the extent of that would be highly speculative. The addition to the lead was wrong.

• George, K. (2009) 'Cornish' in Ball, M. & Müller, N. eds. The Celtic Languages (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Taylor & Francis.

Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:29, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

W. Devon has much in common with Cornwall, from the Tamar-based industries, Stannary parliaments and the "mining culture", but to say it has some sort of shared history with the Cornish language is dubious. The Devonians did not have the language grievances of the neighbouring Cornish during the Prayer Book Rebellion, for example.--SinoDevonian (talk) 22:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Anyone know why there are six unsourced pronunciation variants in the infobox? It's not even comprehensive, e.g. SWF (M) [kɛrˈnɔwɛk] is not listed, among other possible variations. Do we really need every possible permutation of [ɾ] and [ɹ]?  Tewdar  11:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)