Cornish is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. Along with Welsh and Breton, Cornish is descended from the Common Brittonic language spoken throughout much of Great Britain before the English language came to dominate. For centuries, until it was pushed westwards by English, it was the main language of Cornwall, maintaining close links with its sister language Breton, with which it was mutually intelligible, perhaps even as long as Cornish continued to be spoken as a vernacular. Cornish continued to function as a common community language in parts of Cornwall until the mid 18th century, and there is some evidence for traditional speakers of the language persisting into the 19th century.
John of Cornwall, in Latin Johannes Cornubiensis or Johannes de Sancto Germano was a Christian scholar and teacher, who was living in Paris about 1176.
Nicholas Jonathan Anselm Williams, sometimes credited as N. J. A. Williams, is a leading expert and poet in the Cornish language.
Cornish literature refers to written works in the Cornish language. The earliest surviving texts are in verse and date from the 14th century. There are virtually none from the 18th and 19th centuries but writing in revived forms of Cornish began in the early 20th century.
Robert Morton Nance (1873–1959) was a British writer and leading authority on the Cornish language, a nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society.
Kesva an Taves Kernewek is an organisation that promotes the Cornish language. It was founded in 1967 by Gorseth Kernow and the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. It is represented on the official language body, the Cornish Language Partnership.
Brenda Wootton was a Cornish folk singer and poet and was seen as an ambassador for Cornish tradition and culture in all the Celtic nations and as far as Australia and Canada.
Bewnans Ke is a Middle Cornish play on the life of Saint Kea or Ke, who was venerated in Cornwall, Brittany and elsewhere. It was written around 1500 but survives only in an incomplete manuscript from the second half of the 16th century. The play was entirely unknown until 2000, when it was identified among the private collection of J. E. Caerwyn Williams, which had been donated to the National Library of Wales after his death the previous year. The discovery proved one of the most significant finds in the study of Cornish literature and language.
Kernewek Kemmyn is a variety of the revived Cornish language.
Michael Kenneth Paynter is a retired Cornish civil servant, trade union activist, and poet. Apart from a period of study at the University of Newcastle, he has lived in St Ives.
Tony Snell is a Cornish teacher, linguist, scholar, singer, waterman and poet born in England. He spent many years teaching at St. Edward's School, Oxford. He became a member of Gorseth Kernow in 1954 under the Bardic name of Gwas Kevardhu. During the 1970s, he led the folk group Tremenysy (Travellers).
Julyan Holmes is a Cornish scholar and poet. Born in 1948, Holmes has worked on such topics as Cornish placenames, the Prophecy of Merlin of John of Cornwall, and the writings of the Penwith School.
Haldreyn is the bardic name of William Morris. He is a Cornish poet, linguist, and painter. Haldreyn was an original member of Kesva an Taves Kernewek and is a bard of the Gorseth Kernow, appointed in 1966.
The Standard Written Form or SWF of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthography". It was the outcome of a process initiated by the creation of the public body Cornish Language Partnership, which identified a need to agree on a single standard orthography in order to end previous orthographical disagreements, secure government funding, and increase the use of Cornish in Cornwall.
The Cornish Language Partnership was a representative body that was set up in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, in 2005 to promote and develop the use of the Cornish language. and was dissolved in 2015. It was a public and voluntary sector partnership and consisted of representatives from various Cornish language societies, Cornish cultural and economic organisations and local government in Cornwall. The organisation was part-funded by the European Union's Objective One programme, the United Kingdom government's Department for Communities and Local Government and Cornwall Council.
Prophecy of Merlin, sometimes called The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings, is a 12th-century poem written in Latin hexameters by John of Cornwall, which he claimed was based or revived from a lost manuscript in the Cornish language. The original manuscript is unique and currently held in a codex at the Vatican Library.
Translations of parts of the Bible into Cornish have existed since the 17th century. The early works involved the translation of individual passages, chapters or books of the Bible. The first full translation of the Bible into the Cornish language was published in 2011. The New Testament and Psalms in another translation went online in 2014.
Loveday Elizabeth Trevenen Jenkin is a politician, biologist and language campaigner. She has been a member of Cornwall Council since 2011, and currently serves as councillor for Crowan, Sithney and Wendron.
The Cornish language revival 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.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Cornwall: Cornwall – ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. Cornwall is a peninsula bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall is also a royal duchy of the United Kingdom. It has an estimated population of half a million and it has its own distinctive history and culture.
