The Standing Stones Don’t Speak

Kernewek, or Cornish, is the most endangered language in Britain. Despite popular belief, new research by Dr Kensa Broadhurst has shown that Cornish did not go extinct during the 19th century. Dr Broadhurst argues that “given there appear to be a few speakers with a small amount of intergenerational knowledge, we can certainly class Cornish as a heritage language during this period [the 1800s]”. This academic endorsement of what many already suspected is a significant step towards overcoming the ‘extinction myth’ that holds many people back from learning the language. For 120 years, people have been using Kernewek and yet we are constantly asked to prove that it is alive, and sometimes, even real. Why is Cornish missing from the general knowledge of most people? In these few words, we suggest the problem lies with a ‘heritage status’ that continues to haunt the revival.

Dr Broadhurst writes that heritage languages may be “dormant” and “used at a ceremonial level”. Think of how the Victorians used Latin, for example. And like Latin, Cornish survived the 19th century through its association with a higher social class. Cornish went from the fishing communities in Penwith to the dictionaries and letters of academics and vicars. By the 1920s, Cornish returned as a community language, but its tie to cultural elites did not go away. Cornish did not return to the farm, fishing boat or kitchen; instead, it took hold in a more tenuous community of poets, musicians, historians, linguists, and writers. Even today, there are no places on a map where a community lives through Kernewek. We can look back to the initial revival and see that the heritage status actually grew because we associated Cornish too heavily with certain customs, whether that’s folk traditions or academic practices.

This has left us with a problem. Yes, the language today is more embedded in everyday people. And yes, you can go to places to hear the language being spoken. But by-and-large, we haven't clocked the “ceremonial level”. From bilingual road signs, to pagan ceremonies, to ‘producing content’, we are living with a symbolic Cornish rather than a communicative Cornish. Visibility doesn’t affect the ears. The language remains ‘extinct’ in the public eye because it’s still associated with choreographed customs. We are at risk of placing Cornish into a well worn symbolic code; a code not only ripe for commodification, but which also makes it a struggle to bring Cornish into everyday use, politics or new cultural fashions. History has taught us that the heritage status of Cornish only distances Cornish from the everyday people whose heritage is the language.  

Without government funding, teacher training, and jobs, Cornish may take another 100 years to reach our general knowledge. The myth that Dolly Pentreath was the last speaker is dead, thank god. But we must remain vigilant to the lingering appetite for ceremonial use, particularly if this becomes a vehicle for tired symbols and nostalgia such as standing stones. Our neighbor, England, has a nostalgia problem. To counter it, Celtic struggles like ours must find a language to articulate this present moment. Kernow bys vykken! We must make our country, Cornwall, anew with the sounds of our modern language, Kernewek.