Learnenglish Magazine Kernewek Success Story Support Pack 0

8/13/2019 Learnenglish Magazine Kernewek Success Story Support Pack 0

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Magazine The Kernewek Success Story

Page 1 of 3The United Kingdoms international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations.We are registered in England as a charity.

IntroductionYou can listen to a recording of this article at:http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/magazine-articles/kernewek-success-story

This support pack contains the following materials:

the article that you can listen to

a vocabulary activity based on the article

Read the article

The Kernewek Success Storyby Linda Baxter

In the first lesson of any language course you'llprobably learn a mini dialogue like this. You'll find

the translation at the end of this article, but canyou guess what it means?

A: "Dydh da! Fatla genes?"B: "Yn poynt da, meur ras. Ha genes jy?"

What you probably can't guess is the language ofthe exchange above. It's actually Cornish, alanguage that is listed as 'extinct' in the UNESCORed Book on Endangered Languages but whichhas experienced a remarkable revival in recentyears.

What is Cornish?

It's a member of the Celtic family of languageswhich also includes Scots, Irish, Welsh andBreton. When Britain was invaded by the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century AD, the native Celticpeople were pushed to the West and North of thecountry and the language that they spokedeveloped differently in these separate areas.Some Celts left the country completely and went

to the West of France where their languagebecame known as Breton. Cornish (Kernewek) isthe language that people spoke in Cornwall(Kernow) which is the county in the extremeSouth West of England. Welsh and Breton are itsnearest relatives and the three languages have alot of similarities.

When did the language die out?

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 calledDolly Pentreath. She died in 1777 and somepeople say that the language died with her. But of

course, there were still people who spokeCornish as a native language, even if they also

knew English. And their children learned someCornish from them even if they spoke Englishmost of the time. The number of speakers gotsmaller and smaller and they knew less and lessof the language, but Cornish didn't disappear.There are stories of fisherman still using Cornishnumbers to count fish in the 1940s and 50s. Sosome people argue that the language never diedout completely, but survived until the Cornishrevival started at the beginning of the twentiethcentury.

What do you mean by 'Cornish revival'?

At the beginning of the twentieth centuryacademics became interested in Cornish andstarted to study some of the ancient texts thathad survived. From these old documents theyworked out the rules for spelling and grammarand people became interested in learning tospeak the language again and teaching it to theirchildren. Some people still say that Cornish diedwith Dolly Pentreath and this 'new' Cornish is an

artificial language, but the revival has continuedto this day.

So how many people speak it now?

Surprise surprise, people don't agree about thateither. It depends on what you mean by 'speak'.There are probably only a few hundred peoplewho speak it as their everyday language. Butthere are several thousand who can have aconversation 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 asmany as ten thousand. Not a lot admittedly, but alot better than a hundred years ago. And the


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numbers are growing every year. Some childrennow grow up bilingual and the language is offeredas an option in some schools. You can even

study the language to degree level at university.

But is i t really used in everyday life?

Yes it is. You'll see and hear a lot of it if you visitCornwall. You'll see road signs in Cornish for astart. Newspapers and radio stations haveregular articles and programmes in Cornish andthere are some magazines written entirely in thelanguage. There are bookshops which only sellbooks in Cornish and many businesses useCornish names. There is even a Cornish

language film industry.

Can I understand it if I speak English?

That doesn't help much I'm afraid. Some of themodern 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 whythere are so many River Avons in Britain. Somewords seem to be influenced by French, forexample, 'pons' (bridge), 'chambour' (bedroom),and 'eglos' (church). But you might have a fewmore problems with 'kenynen ewynek' (garlic)and 'scubylen dens' (toothbrush). And remember,if you see 'stevel omwolhy' on a hotel door it isn'tthe 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?


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Af ter reading

Exercise 1

In the table are 11 words from the text. Below are the definitions of these words. Can you match thewords to their definitions?

a. Celtic b. county c. degree

d. endangered e. everyday f. extinct

g. influenced h. invaded i. promote

j. revival k. survived

1. A political division of the UK or Ireland, forming the largest unit of local government2. An instance of coming or bringing (something) back to life, health, existence, or use3. At risk or in danger of being harmed, damaged or destroyed4. Continued to live or exist, esp. after coming close to dying or being destroyed or after being in a

difficult or threatening situation5. Encourage the popularity, sale, development or existence of (something)6. Entered (a place) when not wanted, often by using force or in large numbers7. Had an effect on people or things8. No longer existing9. Of an ancient European people whose modern relatives include the Irish, Scots, Welsh and Bretons,

or of their language or culture10. Ordinary, typical or usual11. The qualification given to a student who has completed a course of study at a college or university

AnswersExercise 1: 1. b; 2. j; 3. d; 4. k; 5. i; 6. h; 7. g; 8. f; 9. a; 10. e; 11. c

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Learnenglish Magazine Kernewek Success Story Support Pack 0