Talk:Cornish language

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Section sizes Section size for Cornish language (42 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 13,842 13,842 278 278 Classification 2,019 2,019 143 143 History 1,380 34,042 101 2,542 Old Cornish 5,804 5,804 325 325 Middle Cornish 11,306 11,306 803 803 Late Cornish 4,450 4,450 424 424 Decline between 1300 and 1800 4,665 4,665 383 383 Revived Cornish 6,437 6,437 506 506 Speakers 8,490 8,490 421 421 Culture 4,673 42,018 314 2,637 Cultural events 4,264 4,264 201 201 Study and teaching 6,175 6,175 423 423 Cornish studies 6,551 6,551 586 586 Literature 48 8,375 0 428 Recent Modern Cornish literature 8,327 8,327 428 428 Media 4,325 4,325 383 383 Music 1,336 1,336 88 88 Place-names and surnames 6,319 6,319 214 214 Legal status and recognition 1,865 6,520 179 359 Within the UK 4,655 4,655 180 180 Phonology 3,633 3,633 234 234 Orthography 101 7,555 0 716 Old Cornish orthography 1,232 1,232 152 152 Middle Cornish orthography 1,779 1,779 148 148 Late Cornish orthography 732 732 95 95 Revived Cornish orthography 3,711 3,711 321 321 Grammar 466 8,555 60 518 Morphology 19 4,459 0 265 Mutations 1,458 1,458 62 62 Articles 541 541 51 51 Nouns 1,093 1,093 58 58 Verbs 940 940 64 64 Prepositions 408 408 30 30 Syntax 3,630 3,630 193 193 Vocabulary 5,508 5,508 478 478 Sample texts 2,428 2,428 16 16 See also 587 587 0 0 References 35 1,545 0 0 Bibliography 1,510 1,510 0 0 Further reading 2,302 2,302 0 0 External links 1,869 3,101 0 39 Dictionaries 1,232 1,232 39 39 Total 142,145 142,145 8,381 8,381

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) [reply ]

Recent book:

Kensa Broadhurst, The Cornish Language in the Nineteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan)

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-90371-7 Yogiwallah (talk) 20:37, 15 September 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

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) [reply ]

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) [reply ]

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) [reply ]

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) [reply ]

The UK government has announced its intention to adopt full protection yesterday.^[1] Culloty82 (talk) 19:09, 29 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I think its inaccurate to say itw as extinct in the 18th century. alot of modern studies on cornish dispute it

https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-humanities-arts-and-social-sciences/cornish-continued-to-be-used-throughout-the-19th-century-long-after-the-death-of-dolly-pentreath-new-book-shows/ https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3327 Last speaker of the Cornish language goes over accounts of cornish speakers post-1777

even this article refers to dolly pentreath as "so-called" https://www.academia.edu/63358133/The_Death_and_Subsequent_Revival_of_the_Cornish_Language

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0m4k7q3

I wouldn't even say it was ever a dead language. Gorgonopsi (talk) 12:00, 27 March 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

the way I see it is like a Coelocanth of a language, thought to be extinct due to external pressures, speakers of Celtic languages were frowned upon, and whilst Henry Jenners book led the way to a revival, as it lacked writing, i think even at that time there was still cornish speakers, he was inspired by hearing cornish speakers Gorgonopsi (talk) 12:09, 27 March 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Broadhurst's book will be the best bet of good referencing for the non-extinction, and I have been planning on getting a copy ever since she first announced she was working on a book on this topic. Though with the costs of academic books and other priorities, I've not got a copy yet, but having checked the libraries I use, they now offer access to the ebook, so I look at working on this in the coming year. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 16:13, 16 April 2026 (UTC) [reply ]