Gorran Cornish Group – Bagas Kernewek Gorran

More about learning the Cornish Language

Cornish is a language going through a revival. It all but disappeared for over 100 years. As learners this gives us challenges. Firstly there are still only a few teachers and they are very busy. This means that we are going to have to be self-driven much more than you might initially expect. Luckily we have a lot of support from many teachers and Cornish speakers already, so we are not alone.

Secondly, during the 20th century various groups worked diligently to revive the language, their main sources were written Cornish documents created over a span of many hundreds of years. These sources had differences and so the revivalists had differences in approach. This is a rabbit hole we will not go down, but we need to be aware of it as learners. Our approach will be to follow the Standard Written Form which is endorsed by Cornwall Council and the bards of the Gorsedh. Please be careful when buying books and learning materials.

Thirdly, I understand there are maybe less than 10 people who have Cornish as their first language and relatively few people who speak Cornish fluently. In effect, teachers and pupils are all learners. We will need to plan and share opportunities to speak Cornish with other speakers.

Given these challenges, as a group we can develop an ethos that embraces the opportunity in front of us. We can learn with patience and kindness, to ourselves and others.