Cornish language revival
language revival project
The Cornish language revival (Cornish: dasserghyans Kernewek, lit. ''resurrection of Cornish'') is an ongoing process to revive the use of the Cornish language of Cornwall, England. The Cornish language's disappearance began to hasten during the 13th century, but its decline began with the spread of Old English in the 5th and 6th centuries. The last reported person to have full knowledge of a traditional form of Cornish, John Davey, died in 1891. The revival movement started in the late 19th century as a result of antiquarian and academic interest in the language, which was already extinct, and also as a result of the Celtic revival movement. In 2009, UNESCO changed its classification of Cornish from "extinct" to "critically endangered", seen as a milestone for the revival of the language.
Revival
During the 19th century, the Cornish language was the subject of antiquarian interest and a number of lectures were given on the subject and pamphlets on it were published. In 1904, the Celtic language scholar and Cornish cultural activist Henry Jenner published A Handbook of the Cornish Language. The publication of this book is often considered to be the start of the current revival movement. The spelling in this book was based on that used when Cornish was last a community language in the 18th century.
Unified Cornish
The first project to codify Cornish spelling and provide a regular orthography for the revived language was that of Robert Morton Nance who outlined his work in Cornish for All in 1929.
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