WIKITONGUES: Elizabeth speaking Cornish

Elizabeth speaks the Cornish language, known natively as Kernewek or Kernowek. Recorded in Truro, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom.

Good evening, I’m Elizabeth and I live in Cornwall, I’m Cornish and I speak the Cornish language. I’m a Cornish speaker.

So, I began to learn Cornish when I was... around about seven years old, I think. My mother was learning Cornish at evening classes and she came home and taught me and my brother to speak the language. Then my father learnt it too. And we all spoke the language together at home, when we were eating together and so on, ‘pass me the salt’ etc.

And we went to lots of events together, like Cornish Language Weekends organised by the Cornish Language Fellowship. These events were for people who wanted to learn Cornish and I remember going there with my brother and playing with all the other children who were learning Cornish. There was a large group of us in those days, and all those children have now grown up, like me, and some of them are having children of their own now, so that’s the next generation of people learning Cornish as children, from their childhood. So that’s very good.

The language did die out, about two hundred years ago, but after a hundred years of nobody speaking it as a community language people began to revive it and over the last century more and more people have learnt it.

When I came back from university I... well, I wanted to return to Cornwall and do something, I didn’t know what, but I was in the right place at the right time and in 2002 Cornish was recognised as an official language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and for the first time ever there was funding, some money for the language. And because of that there were some new jobs, to do things with the language, and I was the second person to get a job developing the language. So I was a language officer.
But now, well, I live in Truro, here. I don’t work with the language any more, I don’t earn my living from it, but I still do things like this. Tonight I am leading a Yeth an Werin (conversation group) with some people who are learning Cornish and some who are more fluent. Sometimes there are lots of us, other times there aren’t so many, but people come every fortnight to chat together. So I lead this. And also I present a radio programme, ‘The News’ on BBC Radio Cornwall, so I present that and that’s very, very good. It’s the only programme in Cornish on an official radio station. There’s another programme but that’s only available online. Besides that, well, I work at Truro Cathedral and I have a cat. My cat is called Ted. And I have a partner called Ross.

So yeah, that’s all from me, I think. I can’t remember, I can’t think of what else to say. So yeah, that’s all. Goodbye!

Help us caption & translate this video!

[theeastman]

This is very interesting; as a French speaker, before I learned how to speak English, this is what English sounded like to me. The rythm, the unfamiliar 'th" and "r" sounds, yes, everything sounds just like English then sounded to me.

[michaelschudlak]

I'm fluent in welsh and I understood a little over 30% of this.

[jackaylward-williams]

It's weird hearing someone speak with an English accent without speaking English.

[tegwenhafparry]

Wow as a native Welsh speaker, I understood most of that without the subtitles! Celts together forever!!!!

[thomas.gentil]

I'm from Brittany, and Cornish sounds just like Breton with an English accent. Brav eo !

[dannywithington]

There's quite a lot of similarities between Cornish & Welsh.
I was pleasantly surprised how much I could understand.

[gnelson]

This is so bitchin! I’m glad you are keeping your language alive. I’m learning my own dialect as well, Athabaskan-Navajo. It is danger of dying out so I learn new things as much as I can. Keep the little ones learning it for sure.

[yannschonfeld]

I speak Breton and even without subtitles and despite her English accent, I can understand at least half of what Elizabeth says here

[dukadarodear]

I'm Irish.
This sounds like Welsh to me.
Very interesting.
What I find more interesting is that while we Irish and Scots are forever talking (in English) about how important it is to speak Gaelic, more than a million Welsh never talk about it but get on with speaking it....and they live cheek to jowl with the Sasanachs.

[rpiereck]

Feels like I forgot all English and I am hearing it for the first time. Some sounds are unique, but many are very similar, I just can't understand anything! Unsurprisingly so, as Cornish and English have co-existed in the same area for centuries. Thank you for sharing!

[benl]

As a man of Cornish ancestry who has taught himself Welsh, this is astounding. I can understand Cornish (roughly) with my Welsh!

[williamsrhyn]

Wales, Cornwall and Brittany all have languages that somehow sound similar as they all come from the Brythonic branch, in order to piece together how we spoke 1500 years ago in Briton it's important to keep all the celtic languages alive and if possible, reintroduce old forgotten words back into our languages.

[Tsumami__]

How lovely to have been raised by an intelligent mother who took it upon herself to learn Cornish and then taught it to her whole family. She had an awesome mother

[vaegirshoop]

As a Scot, it sounds like her accent is half Scottish and half Irish. Strange.

[BeorEviols]

Sounds like English to a non English speaker.

[seancoleman]

I read library a book about the history of the Cornish language thirty years ago or more. I think it was by Peter Beresford  Ellis and I was stunned. Was it possible that a language existed in the far south-west of England that I hadn't even heard about? He used the metaphor (as I recall) of a fire. The flames died out but the revivalists blew on the embers and brought it back to life. I learnt the basics a few years ago; if you have an obsessive interest in languages you do this kind of thing. Two things about this speaker strike me: how English she sounds and how fluent. I didn't think it was possible to get so fluent when there are so few who (I presume) have a sufficient command of the language to hold a conversation. It is an odd thing how people in the British Isles look abroad for diversity and the exotic when there are ancient literary languages (Gaelic and Welsh) within the borders of their own countries.

[marsgal]

I'm hearing a strong English accent, but as a resurrected formerly-dead language it's hard to know what Cornish should sound like. I assume modern Hebrew had many of the same issues and many early revived speakers had strong Yiddish accents...

If she spoke with a Welsh accent it would sound like Welsh. But the English of Cornwall has a very different accent, so Cornish probably did too.

[davythfear]

I started learning Cornish just four months ago, and am really pleased that I can understand everything she speaks. She has a very clear accent and unambiguous way of expressing herself.

[tinterlight-iztl]

Important to keep these languages and cultures alive - makes the world more interesting and lovely

[happybluesplayer]

The fact that there are now about 2000 people are fluent fills me with great hope for humanity. Come on people of Cornwall, be proud of your unique language! As a tourist, I would much rather hear cornish spoken on the streets than english.