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Ancient Language Clings to Life at Tip of Britain
(Reuters)
Tue Oct 26, 9:58 AM ET
By Ben Blanchard
TENCREEK HOLIDAY PARK, England (Reuters) - Lisa
Simpson, the spiky-haired U.S. cartoon character,
may just be the spark that revives an ancient
language and fuels a tiny political movement at
the tip of Britain's southwest coast.
The sister of bad-boy Bart and daughter of
bumbling Homer will appear in a special episode
of "The Simpsons" shouting out support for the
independence of Cornwall in the nearly dead
language of ancient Cornish as an alternative
broadcast to British Queen Elizabeth's
traditional Christmas address.
Matthew Clarke, Lisa Simpson's translator and a
member of the Cornish Language Fellowship, told
Reuters that news of the Christmas special has
ignited more than the usual mocking interest in a
language which some say was the lingua franca of
such British legends as King Arthur and Boadicea.
"Before you got a lot of people writing on the
Cornish language as a bit of a joke," he said.
Clarke said the way much of the media viewed
Cornish changed almost overnight when the press
discovered it would feature in a cartoon series
that is famed for lampooning American life and
gained international currency poking fun at other
stereotypes in Australia, Britain, Canada,
France, and elsewhere.
Clarke said the number of people using the Web
site he runs, www.cornish-language.org, doubled
after news got out on The Simpsons' Christmas
special.
"To have that connection with Cornish, everyone
who spoke to me treated it in a serious way which
has never happened before."
That was a big boost for a language which
predates English in the British Isles, almost
died out in the 19th century, and today has only
some 200 fluent speakers.
Cornish, related to Welsh and Breton -- spoken in
parts of France's Brittany -- is part of a larger
language family that includes Irish and Scots
Gaelic.
It has little official status, is barely taught
in Cornish schools and is struggling to make its
voice heard above the dominant sound of English.
Cornwall has no political autonomy, unlike Wales
and Scotland.
All today's Cornish speakers have learned it
since the melodic-sounding language began a
revival last century, and around 3,000 people
claim some knowledge of it -- less than half a
percent of Cornwall's population.
That compares to the roughly 20 percent of Welsh
who speak their native tongue, a mandatory
subject in Welsh schools and a language with the
same official status in Wales as English.
"There are 6,000 languages in the world. In 100
years' time it is thought 75 percent of them may
die out," said Ken George, a member of the
Cornish Language Board, who is fighting to
prevent it going the way of Latin and other dead
tongues.
"In Europe one sees straight away that people
tend to be multi-lingual. In parts of England
it's regarded as a curiosity," George told
Reuters at a Cornish language weekend camp
outside the seaside Cornish town of Looe.
FAMOUS SPEAKERS
The long decline of Cornish and other Celtic
languages began over 1,500 years ago, when
Germanic tribes invaded Britain at the end of the
Roman occupation, pushing back the native tribes
and bringing with them languages that eventually
became English.
The legendary King Arthur and his Knights of the
Round Table probably would have spoken Cornish.
Celtic Queen Boadicea spoke an early version of
the language that would eventually become
Cornish, Welsh and Breton.
The last reputed monoglot Cornish speaker, Dolly
Pentreath, died in 1777, though others claimed a
strong native command of the language up to the
end of the 19th century.
Modern speakers of Kernewek, as Cornish is also
called, are under no illusions about the state of
the language.
"There's the ordinary people who live in
Cornwall, and then there's the Cornish language
people," said Chris Wilson, 40, a speaker who
lives in Japan.
"They're quite separated and they think it's
strange to be a Cornish language speaker. It's
very much a minority."
But it is fighting back. The New Testament of the
Bible has just been published in Cornish, the
world's first Cornish-language cartoon will
premiere in November and there are hopes for
greater official recognition and teaching in
schools.
LANGUAGE OF POLITICS
Many Cornish language supporters have a bigger
goal -- devolved political power from London and
a separate assembly for Cornwall, like Wales and
Scotland have been granted.
"We should have at least as much independence as
Scotland does," said Loveday Jenkin, a councillor
for the Mebyon Kernow ("Sons of Cornwall")
political party.
Pawl Dunbar, who runs a Cornish language and
culture bookshop, said that letting people know
Cornwall even has -- or used to have -- its own
language is the first battle in the fight for a
wider political movement.
"We are denied our language, culture and history
in school," said Dunbar. "The so-called United
Kingdom is well past its sell-by date."
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