Product Code Database
Cornish (Standard Written Form: Kernewek or Kernowek, ) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. Along with Welsh language and Breton language, Cornish descends from Common Brittonic, a language once spoken widely across Great Britain. For much of the Middle Ages Cornish was the main language of Cornwall, until it was gradually pushed westwards by the spread of English language. Cornish remained a vernacular in parts of Cornwall until the mid-18th century, and there is some evidence for traditional speakers persisting into the 19th century.
Cornish became extinct language as a living community language in Cornwall by the end of the 18th century; knowledge of Cornish persisted within some families and individuals. (2025). 9780203882481, Routledge. ISBN 9780203882481 A revival started in the early 20th century, and in 2010 UNESCO reclassified the language as critically endangered, stating that its former classification of the language as extinct was no longer accurate. The language has a growing number of second language speakers, and a very small number of families now raise children to speak revived Cornish as a first language.
Cornish is currently recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the language is often described as an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage. Since the revival of the language, some Cornish textbooks and works of literature have been published, and an increasing number of people are studying the language. Recent developments include Cornish music, , and children's books. A small number of people in Cornwall have been brought up to be multilingualism native speakers, and the language is taught in schools and appears on street nameplates. The first Cornish-language day care opened in 2010.
Joseph Loth viewed Cornish and Breton as being two dialects of the same language, claiming that "Middle Cornish is without doubt closer to Breton as a whole than the modern Breton dialect of Quiberon Kiberen is to that of Saint-Pol-de-Léon Kastell-Paol." Also, Kenneth Jackson argued that it is almost certain that Cornish and Breton would have been mutually intelligible as long as Cornish was a living language, and that Cornish and Breton are especially closely related to each other and less closely related to Welsh.
The earliest written record of the Cornish language comes from this period: a 9th-century gloss in a Latin manuscript of De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boethius, which used the words ud rocashaas. The phrase may mean "it the hated the gloomy places", or alternatively, as Andrew Breeze suggests, "she hated the land". Other sources from this period include the Saints' List, a list of almost fifty Cornish saints, the Bodmin manumissions, which is a list of Manumission and slaves, the latter with mostly Cornish names, and, more substantially, a Latin–Cornish glossary (the Vocabularium Cornicum or Cottonian Vocabulary), a Cornish translation of Ælfric of Eynsham's Latin–Old English Glossary, which is thematically arranged into several groups, such as the Genesis creation narrative, anatomy, church hierarchy, the family, names for various kinds of artisans and their tools, flora, fauna, and household items. The manuscript was widely thought to be in Old Welsh until the 18th century when it was identified as Cornish by Edward Lhuyd. Some Brittonic glosses in the 9th-century colloquy De raris fabulis were once identified as Old Cornish, but they are more likely Old Welsh, possibly influenced by a Cornish scribe.. No single phonological feature distinguishes Cornish from both Welsh and Breton until the beginning of the assibilation of in Cornish, which is not found before the second half of the eleventh century, and it is not always possible to distinguish Old Cornish, Old Breton, and Old Welsh orthographically.
[[File:Origo Mundi kynsa gwersow.jpg|thumb|right|The opening verses of Origo Mundi, the first play of the [[Ordinalia]] (the masterpiece]] of medieval Cornish literature), written by an unknown monk in the late 14th century]]
The Cornish language continued to flourish well through the Middle Cornish (Kernewek Kres) period (1200–1600), reaching a peak of about 39,000 speakers in the 13th century, after which the number started to decline. This period provided the bulk of traditional Cornish literature, and was used to reconstruct the language during its revival. Most important is the Ordinalia, a cycle of three mystery plays, Origo Mundi, Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini. Together these provide about 8,734 lines of text. The three plays exhibit a mixture of English and Brittonic influences, and, like other Cornish literature, may have been written at Glasney College near Penryn. From this period also are the Hagiography dramas Beunans Meriasek ( The Life of Meriasek) and Bewnans Ke ( The Life of Saint Kea), both of which feature as an antagonist the villainous and tyrannical King Tewdwr Mawr (or Teudar), a historical medieval king in Armorica and Cornwall, who, in these plays, has been interpreted as a lampoon of either of the Tudor kings Henry VII or Henry VIII.
Others are the Charter Fragment, the earliest known continuous text in the Cornish language, apparently part of a play about a medieval marriage, and Pascon agan Arluth ( The Passion of Our Lord), a poem probably intended for personal worship, were written during this period, probably in the second half of the 14th century. (2025). 9781782011828, Evertype. ISBN 9781782011828 Another important text, the Tregear Homilies, was realized to be Cornish in 1949, having previously been incorrectly classified as Welsh. It is the longest text in the traditional Cornish language, consisting of around 30,000 words of continuous prose. This text is a late 16th century translation of twelve of Edmund Bonner's thirteen homilies by a certain John Tregear, tentatively identified as a vicar of St Allen from Crowan, and has an additional catena, Sacrament an Alter, added later by his fellow priest, Thomas Stephyn. In the reign of Henry VIII, an account was given by Andrew Boorde in his 1542 Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge. He states, "In Cornwall is two speches, the one is naughty Englysshe, and the other is Cornysshe speche. And there be many men and women the which cannot speake one worde of Englysshe, but all Cornyshe."
When Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity 1549, which established the 1549 edition of the English Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal form of worship in England, including Cornwall, people in many areas of Cornwall did not speak or understand English. The passing of this Act was one of the causes of the Prayer Book Rebellion (which may also have been influenced by government repression after the failed Cornish rebellion of 1497), with "the commoners of Devonshyre and Cornwall" producing a manifesto demanding a return to the old religious services and included an article that concluded, "and so we the Cornyshe men (whereof certen of us understande no Englysh) utterly refuse thys newe Englysh." In response to their articles, the government spokesman (either Philip Nichols or Nicholas Udall) wondered why they did not just ask the king for a version of the liturgy in their own language. (2014). 9781137306340, Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 9781137306340 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer asked why the Cornishmen should be offended by holding the service in English, when they had before held it in Latin language, which even fewer of them could understand. Anthony Fletcher points out that this rebellion was primarily motivated by religious and economic, rather than linguistic, concerns. The rebellion prompted a heavy-handed response from the government, and 5,500 people died during the fighting and the rebellion's aftermath. Government officials then directed troops under the command of Anthony Kingston to carry out pacification operations throughout the West Country. Kingston subsequently ordered the executions of numerous individuals suspected of involvement with the rebellion as part of the post-rebellion reprisals.
The rebellion eventually proved a turning-point for the Cornish language, as the authorities came to associate it with sedition and "backwardness". This proved to be one of the reasons why the Book of Common Prayer was never translated into Cornish (unlike Welsh language), as proposals to do so were suppressed in the rebellion's aftermath. The failure to translate the Book of Common Prayer into Cornish led to the language's rapid decline during the 16th and 17th centuries. Peter Berresford Ellis cites the years 1550–1650 as a century of immense damage for the language, and its decline can be traced to this period. In 1680 William Scawen wrote an essay describing 16 reasons for the decline of Cornish, among them the lack of a distinctive Cornish alphabet, the loss of contact between Cornwall and Brittany, the cessation of the miracle plays, loss of records in the Civil War, lack of a Cornish Bible and immigration to Cornwall. Mark Stoyle, however, has argued that the 'glotticide' of the Cornish language was mainly a result of the Cornish gentry adopting English to dissociate themselves from the reputation for disloyalty and rebellion associated with the Cornish language since the 1497 uprising.
Most of the inhabitants can speak no word of Cornish, but very few are ignorant of the English; and yet some so affect their own, as to a stranger they will not speak it; for if meeting them by chance, you inquire the way, or any such matter, your answer shall be, "Meea navidna caw zasawzneck," "I will speak no Saxonage."The Late Cornish (Kernewek Diwedhes) period from 1600 to about 1800 has a less substantial body of literature than the Middle Cornish period, but the sources are more varied in nature, including songs, poems about fishing and curing Sardine, and various translations of verses from the Bible, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed. Edward Lhuyd's Archaeologia Britannica, which was mainly recorded in the field from native speakers in the early 1700s, and his unpublished field notebook are seen as important sources of Cornish vocabulary, some of which are not found in any other source. Archaeologia Britannica also features a complete version of a traditional folk tale, John of Chyanhor, a short story about a man from St Levan who goes far to the east seeking work, eventually returning home after three years to find that his wife has borne him a child during his absence.
In 1776, William Bodinar, who describes himself as having learned Cornish from old fishermen when he was a boy, wrote a letter to Daines Barrington in Cornish, with an English translation, which was probably the last prose written in the traditional language. In his letter, he describes the sociolinguistics of the Cornish language at the time, stating that there are no more than four or five old people in his village who can still speak Cornish, concluding with the remark that Cornish is no longer known by young people. However, the last recorded traditional Cornish literature may have been the Cranken Rhyme,Wojciech Lipoński (2025). 9788323231103, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM / Adam Mickiewicz University. ISBN 9788323231103 a corrupted version of a verse or song published in the late 19th century by John Hobson Matthews, recorded orally by John Davey (or Davy) of Boswednack, of uncertain date but probably originally composed during the last years of the traditional language. Davey had traditional knowledge of at least some Cornish. John Kelynack (1796–1885), a fisherman of Newlyn, was sought by Philology for old Cornish words and technical phrases in the 19th century.
The traditional view that Dolly Pentreath (1692–1777) was the last native speaker of Cornish has been challenged, and in the 18th and 19th centuries there was academic interest in the language and in attempting to find the last speaker of Cornish. It has been suggested that, whereas Pentreath was probably the last fluent speaker, the last native speaker may have been John Davey of Zennor, who died in 1891. (2025). 9780511130892, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511130892 However, although it is clear Davey possessed some traditional knowledge in addition to having read books on Cornish, accounts differ of his competence in the language. Some contemporaries stated he was able to converse on certain topics in Cornish whereas others affirmed they had never heard him claim to be able to do so. Robert Morton Nance, who reworked and translated Davey's Cranken Rhyme, remarked, "There can be no doubt, after the evidence of this rhyme, of what there was to lose by neglecting John Davey."
The search for the last speaker is hampered by a lack of transcriptions or audio recordings, so that it is impossible to tell from this distance whether the language these people were reported to be speaking was Cornish, or English with a heavy Cornish substratum, nor what their level of fluency was. Nevertheless, this academic interest, along with the beginning of the Celtic Revival in the late 19th century, provided the groundwork for a Cornish language revival movement.
Notwithstanding the uncertainty over who was the last speaker of Cornish, researchers have posited the following numbers for the prevalence of the language between 1050 and 1800.
| 1050 | 16,000 | 15,000 | |
| 1110 | 21,000 | 20,000 | |
| 1150 | 28,000 | 26,000 | |
| 1200 | 3,270 | 35,000 | 30,000 |
| 1250 | 43,000 | 34,000 | |
| 1300 | 2,780 | 52,000 | 38,000 |
| 1350 | 48,000 | 32,000 | |
| 1400 | 2,360 | 55,000 | 34,000 |
| 1450 | 2,360 | 62,000 | 33,000 |
| 1500 | 1,890 | 69,000 | 33,000 |
| 1550 | 76,000 | 30,000 | |
| 1600 | 1,400 | 84,000 | 22,000 |
| 1650 | 910 | 93,000 | 14,000 |
| 1700 | 530 | 106,000 | 5,000 |
| 1750 | 160 | 140,000 | "Very few" |
| 1800 | 0 | 192,000 | 0 |
The revival focused on reconstructing and standardising the language, including coining new words for modern concepts, and creating educational material in order to teach Cornish to others. In 1929 Robert Morton Nance published his Unified Cornish (Kernewek Unys) system, based on the Middle Cornish literature while extending the attested vocabulary with neologisms and forms based on Celtic roots also found in Breton and Welsh, publishing a dictionary in 1938. Nance's work became the basis of revived Cornish (Kernewek Dasserghys) for most of the 20th century. During the 1970s, criticism of Nance's system, including the inconsistent orthography and unpredictable correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, as well as on other grounds such as the archaic basis of Unified and a lack of emphasis on the spoken language, resulted in the creation of several rival systems. In the 1980s, Ken George published a new system, Kernewek Kemmyn ('Common Cornish'), based on a reconstruction of the phonological system of Middle Cornish, but with an approximately morphophonemic orthography. It was subsequently adopted by the Cornish Language Board and was the written form used by a reported 54.5% of all Cornish language users according to a survey in 2008, but was heavily criticised for a variety of reasons by Jon Mills and Nicholas Williams, including making phonological distinctions that they state were not made in the traditional language , failing to make distinctions that they believe were made in the traditional language at this time, and the use of an orthography that deviated too far from the traditional texts and Unified Cornish. Also during this period, Richard Gendall created his Modern Cornish system (also known as Revived Late Cornish), which used Late Cornish as a basis, and Nicholas Williams published a revised version of Unified; however neither of these systems gained the popularity of Unified or Kemmyn.
The revival entered a period of factionalism and public disputes, with each orthography attempting to push the others aside. By the time that Cornish was recognised by the UK government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, it had become recognised that the existence of multiple orthographies was unsustainable with regards to using the language in education and public life, as none had achieved a wide consensus. A process of unification was set about which resulted in the creation of the public-body Cornish Language Partnership in 2005 and agreement on a Standard Written Form in 2008. In 2010 a new milestone was reached when UNESCO altered its classification of Cornish, stating that its previous label of "extinct" was no longer accurate.
The Cornish Language Strategy project commissioned research to provide quantitative and qualitative evidence for the number of Cornish speakers: due to the success of the revival project it was estimated that 2,000 people were fluent (surveyed in spring 2008), an increase from the estimated 300 people who spoke Cornish fluently suggested in a study by Kenneth MacKinnon in 2000.
Jenefer Lowe of the Cornish Language Partnership said in an interview with the BBC in 2010 that there were around 300 fluent speakers. Bert Biscoe, a councillor and bard, in a statement to the Western Morning News in 2014 said there were "several hundred fluent speakers". Cornwall Council estimated in 2015 that there were 300–400 fluent speakers who used the language regularly, with 5,000 people having a basic conversational ability in the language.
A report on the 2011 Census published in 2013 by the Office for National Statistics placed the number of speakers at somewhere between 325 and 625. In 2017 the ONS released data based on the 2011 Census that placed the number of speakers at 557 people in England and Wales who declared Cornish to be their main language, 464 of whom lived in Cornwall. The 2021 census listed the number of Cornish speakers at 563. (UK 2021 Census)
A study that appeared in 2018 established the number of people in Cornwall with at least minimal skills in Cornish, such as the use of some words and phrases, to be more than 3,000, including around 500 estimated to be fluent.
The Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter is working with the Cornish Language Partnership to study the Cornish language revival of the 20th century, including the growth in number of speakers.
In 2014, the Cornish people were recognised by the UK Government as a national minority under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The FCNM provides certain rights and protections to a national minority with regard to their minority language.
In 2016, British government funding for the Cornish language ceased, and responsibility transferred to Cornwall Council.
As a revitalised language, the phonology of contemporary spoken Cornish is based on a number of sources, including various reconstructions of the sound system of middle and early modern Cornish based on an analysis of internal evidence such as the orthography and rhyme used in the historical texts, comparison with the other Brittonic languages Breton and Welsh, and the work of the linguist Edward Lhuyd, who visited Cornwall in 1700 and recorded the language in a partly phonetic orthography. (2025). 9781891271144, Celtic Studies Publications – Cymru Cyf. ISBN 9781891271144
Several Celtic or Brittonic words cannot be reconstructed to Proto-Indo-European, and are suggested to have been borrowed from unknown substrate language(s) at an early stage, such as Proto-Celtic or Proto-Brittonic. Proposed examples in Cornish include coruf 'beer' and broch 'badger'.
Other words in Cornish inherited direct from Proto-Celtic include a number of toponyms, for example bre 'hill', din 'fort', and bro 'land', and a variety of animal names such as logoden 'mouse', mols 'sheep', mogh 'pigs', and tarow 'bull'.
During the Roman occupation of Britain a large number (around 800) of Latin loan words entered the vocabulary of Common Brittonic, which subsequently developed in a similar way to the inherited lexicon. These include brech 'arm' (from British Latin bracc(h)ium), ruid 'net' (from retia), and cos 'cheese' (from caseus).
A substantial number of loan words from English and to a lesser extent French entered the Cornish language throughout its history. Whereas only 5% of the vocabulary of the Old Cornish Vocabularium Cornicum is thought to be borrowed from English, and only 10% of the lexicon of the early modern Cornish writer William Rowe, around 42% of the vocabulary of the whole Cornish corpus is estimated to be English loan words, without taking frequency into account. (However, when frequency is taken into account, this figure for the entire corpus drops to 8%.) The many English loanwords, some of which were sufficiently well assimilated to acquire native Cornish verbal or plural suffixes or be affected by the mutation system, include redya 'to read', onderstondya 'to understand', ford 'way', hos 'boot' and creft 'art'.
Many Cornish words, such as mining and fishing terms, are specific to the culture of Cornwall. Examples include atal 'mine waste' and beetia 'to mend fishing nets'. Foogan and hogan are different types of pastries. Troyl is a 'traditional Cornish dance get-together' and Furry is a specific kind of ceremonial dance that takes place in Cornwall. Certain Cornish words may have several translation equivalents in English, so for instance lyver may be translated into English as either 'book' or 'volume' and dorn can mean either 'hand' or 'fist'. Like other Celtic languages, Cornish lacks a number of verbs commonly found in other languages, including modals and psych-verbs; examples are 'have', 'like', 'hate', 'prefer', 'must/have to' and 'make/compel to'. These functions are instead fulfilled by periphrasis constructions involving a verb and various prepositional phrases.
Some nouns are collective or mass nouns. Singulatives can be formed from collective nouns by the addition of the suffix ⫽-enn⫽ (SWF -en):
When affirmative statements are in the less common VSO order, they usually begin with an adverb or other element, followed by an affirmative particle, with the verb inflected for person and tense:
In negative statements, the order was usually VSO, with an initial negative particle and the verb conjugated for person and tense:
A similar structure is used for questions:
Elements can be fronted for emphasis:
Sentences can also be constructed periphrastically using auxiliary verbs such as bos 'be, exist':
As Cornish lacks verbs such as 'to have', possession can also be indicated in this way:
Enquiring about possession is similar, using a different interrogative form of bos:
Nouns usually precede the adjective, unlike in English:
Some adjectives usually precede the noun, however:
There have been films such as Hwerow Hweg, some televised, made entirely, or significantly, in Cornish. Some businesses use Cornish names.
Cornish has significantly and durably affected Cornwall's place-names as well as Cornish surnames and knowledge of the language helps the understanding of these ancient meanings. Cornish names are adopted for children, pets, houses and boats.
There is Cornish literature, including spoken poetry and song, as well as traditional Cornish chants historically performed in marketplaces during religious holidays and public festivals and gatherings.
There are periodicals solely in the language, such as the monthly An Gannas, An Gowsva and An Garrick. BBC Radio Cornwall has a news broadcast in Cornish and sometimes has other programmes and features for learners and enthusiasts. Local newspapers such as the Western Morning News have articles in Cornish, and newspapers such as The Packet, The West Briton, and The Cornishman have also been known to have Cornish features. There is an online radio and TV service in Cornish called Radyo an Gernewegva, publishing a one-hour podcast each week, based on a magazine format. It includes music in Cornish as well as interviews and features.
The language has financial sponsorship from sources including the Millennium Commission. A number of language organisations exist in Cornwall: Agan Tavas (Our Language), the Cornish sub-group of the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages, Gorsedh Kernow, Kesva an Taves Kernewek (the Cornish Language Board) and Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek (the Cornish Language Fellowship).
There are ceremonies, some ancient, some modern, that use the language or are entirely in the language.
Since 1969, there have been three full performances of the Ordinalia, originally written in the Cornish language, the most recent of which took place at the plen-an-gwary in St Just in September 2021. While significantly adapted from the original, as well as using mostly English-speaking actors, the plays used sizable amounts of Cornish, including a character who spoke only in Cornish and another who spoke both English and Cornish. The event drew thousands over two weeks, also serving as a celebration of Celtic culture. The next production, scheduled for 2024, could, in theory, be entirely in Cornish, without English, if assisted by a professional linguist.
Outside of Cornwall, efforts to revive the Cornish language and culture through community events are occurring in Australia. A biennial festival, Kernewek Lowender, takes place in South Australia, where both cultural displays and language lessons are offered.
In 2015 a university-level course aiming at encouraging and supporting practitioners working with young children to introduce the Cornish language into their settings was launched. The Cornish Language Practice Project (Early Years) is a level 4 course approved by Plymouth University and run at Cornwall College. The course is not a Cornish-language course but students will be assessed on their ability to use the Cornish language constructively in their work with young children. The course will cover such topics as Understanding Bilingualism, Creating Resources and Integrating Language and Play, but the focus of the language provision will be on Cornish. A non-accredited specialist Cornish-language course has been developed to run alongside the level 4 course for those who prefer tutor support to learn the language or develop their skills for use with young children.
Cornwall's first Cornish-language day care, Skol dy'Sadorn Kernewek, was established in 2010 at Cornwall College, Camborne. The nursery teaches children aged between two and five years alongside their parents to ensure the language is also spoken in the home.
A number of dictionaries are available in the various orthographies, including A Learners' Cornish Dictionary in the Standard Written Form by Steve Harris (ed.), An Gerlyver Meur by Ken George, Gerlyver Sawsnek–Kernowek by Nicholas Williams and A Practical Dictionary of Modern Cornish by Richard Gendall. Course books include the three-part Skeul an Yeth series, Clappya Kernowek, Tavas a Ragadazow and Skeul an Tavas, as well as the more recent Bora Brav and Desky Kernowek. Several online dictionaries are now available, including one organised by An Akademi Kernewek in SWF.
Classes and conversation groups for adults are available at several locations in Cornwall as well as in London, Cardiff and Bristol. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic a number of conversation groups entitled Yeth an Werin Warlinen have been held online, advertised through Facebook and other media. A surge in interest, not just from people in Cornwall but from all over the world, has meant that extra classes have been organised.
Early Modern Cornish was the subject of a study published by Lhuyd in 1707, and differs from the medieval language in having a considerably simpler structure and grammar. Such differences included sound changes and more frequent use of auxiliary verbs. The medieval language also possessed two additional tenses for expressing past events and an extended set of possessive suffixes.
John Whitaker, the Manchester-born rector of Ruan Lanihorne, studied the decline of the Cornish language. In his 1804 work the Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall he concluded that: "The English Liturgy, was not desired by the Cornish, but forced upon them by the tyranny of England, at a time when the English language was yet unknown in Cornwall. This act of tyranny was at once gross barbarity to the Cornish people, and a death blow to the Cornish language." Originally published in Netherton and Worth, Truro.
Robert Williams published the first comprehensive Cornish dictionary in 1865, the Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum. As a result of the discovery of additional ancient Cornish manuscripts, 2000 new words were added to the vocabulary by Whitley Stokes in A Cornish Glossary. William C. Borlase published Proverbs and Rhymes in Cornish in 1866 while A Glossary of Cornish Names was produced by John Bannister in the same year. Frederick Jago published his English–Cornish Dictionary in 1882.
In 2002, the Cornish language gained new recognition because of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Conversely, along with government provision was the governmental basis of "New Public Management", measuring quantifiable results as means of determining effectiveness. This put enormous pressure on finding a single orthography that could be used in unison. The revival of Cornish required extensive rebuilding. The Cornish orthographies that were reconstructed may be considered versions of Cornish because they are not traditional sociolinguistic variations. In the middle-to-late twentieth century, the debate over Cornish orthographies angered more people because several language groups received public funding. This caused other groups to sense favouritism as playing a role in the debate.
A governmental policymaking structure called New Public Management (NPM) has helped the Cornish language by managing public life of the Cornish language and people. In 2007, the Cornish Language Partnership MAGA represents separate divisions of government and their purpose is to further enhance the Cornish Language Developmental Plan. MAGA established an Ad-Hoc Group, which resulted in three orthographies being presented. The relations for the Ad-Hoc Group were to obtain consensus among the three orthographies and then develop a "single written form". The result was creating a new form of Cornish, which had to be natural for both new learners and skilled speakers.
A few small publishers produce books in Cornish which are stocked in some local bookshops, as well as in Cornish branches of Waterstones and WH Smith, although publications are becoming increasingly available on the Internet.Examples of Kas ha Dial and Winni-an-Pou ebooks Printed copies of these may also be found from Amazon. The Truro Waterstones hosts the annual Holyer an Gof literary awards, established by Gorsedh Kernow to recognise publications relating to Cornwall or in the Cornish language. In recent years, a number of Cornish translations of literature have been published, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2009), Around the World in Eighty Days (2009), Treasure Island (2010), The Railway Children (2012), Hound of the Baskervilles (2012), The War of the Worlds (2012), The Wind in the Willows (2013), Three Men in a Boat (2013), Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (2014), and A Christmas Carol (which won the 2012 Holyer an Gof award for Cornish Language books), as well as original Cornish literature such as Jowal Lethesow ( The Lyonesse Stone) by Craig Weatherhill. Literature aimed at children is also available, such as Ple'ma Spot? ( Where's Spot?), Best Goon Brèn ( The Beast of Bodmin Moor), three Topsy and Tim titles, two Tintin titles and Briallen ha'n Alyon ( Briallen and the Alien), which won the 2015 Holyer an Gof award for Cornish Language books for children. In 2014 An Hobys, Nicholas Williams's translation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, was published.
An Gannas is a monthly magazine published entirely in the Cornish language. Members contribute articles on various subjects. The magazine is produced by Graham Sandercock who has been its editor since 1976.
Cornish television shows have included a 1982 series by Westward Television with each episode containing a three-minute lesson in Cornish. An Canker-Seth, an eight-episode series produced by Television South West and broadcast between June and July 1984, later on S4C from May to July 1985, and as a schools programme in 1986. Also by Television South West were two bilingual programmes on Cornish Culture called Nosweyth Lowen. In 2016 Kelly's Ice Cream of Bodmin introduced a light hearted television commercial in the Cornish language and this was repeated in 2017.
The first episode from the third season of the US television program Deadwood features a conversation between miners, purportedly in the Cornish language, but really in Irish language. One of the miners is then shot by thugs working for businessman George Hearst who justify the murder by saying, "He come at me with his foreign gibberish."
A number of Cornish language films have been made, including Hwerow Hweg, a 2002 drama film written and directed by Hungarian film-maker Antal Kovacs and Trengellick Rising, a short film written and directed by Guy Potter.
Screen Cornwall works with Cornwall Council to commission a short film in the Cornish language each year, with their FilmK competition. Their website states "FylmK is an annual contemporary Cornish language short film competition, producing an imaginative and engaging film, in any genre, from distinctive and exciting filmmakers".
A monthly half-hour online TV show began in 2017 called An Mis (The Month). It contained news items about cultural events and more mainstream news stories all through Cornish. It also ran a cookery segment called "Kegin Esther" ('Esther's Kitchen').
Several traditional Cornish folk songs have been collected and can be sung to various tunes. These include "An Awhesyth", "Bro Goth agan Tasow", and "Delkiow Sivy".
In 2018, the singer Gwenno Saunders released an album in Cornish, entitled Le Kov, saying: "I speak Cornish with my son: if you're comfortable expressing yourself in a language, you want to share it."
The following tables present some examples of Cornish place names and surnames and their anglicised versions:
| Three Roads |
| Mouth of Fal |
| Dunes of Pleustri |
| Head Holy i.e. Holy Headland |
| Ford Red |
| Camm (crooked) Hill |
| Saint Ostel |
| Abode of Monks |
| Court of Crossroads |
| Land of St Stephen |
| 'The White' |
| 'The Smith' |
| Either a dialectal variant of Hilary (from Latin Hilarius), or from the parish of Veryan]], meaning 'swan river'. |
| 'New house' (2025). 9780198605614, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198605614 |
| 'Easter/Passion' |
| 'Cornwall' |
| 'Fair/Beautiful' |
| Possibly 'Homestead of the doctor' |
| From gool-erewi, literally meaning 'feast-acre'. |
| 'Mean/Middle town' |
| y gila yn spyrys a vrederedh. | in a spirit of brotherhood. |
From Bro Goth agan Tasow, the Cornish anthem:
| 'Th on onan hag oll rag Kernow! | We are one and all for Cornwall! |
From the wrestler's oath:
| “Gwari hweg yw gwari teg”. | "Fair play is sweet play". |
|
|
