Thanks
Is there a memrise course for the vocab?
Hi Matanic, I have recently started to learn Cornish. I think that Kernewek Kemmyn (Common Cornish) is perhaps the most widely spoken one and this is based on the Middle Period (14 - 16 centuries). It is my belief that the SSIC course is based on this period. Another very popular variety is the Modern Cornish which is based on the Cornish that was last spoken in the 17 - 18 centuries. I personally am learning the Desky Kernewek course which is actually based on what is termed the ‘Tudor Period’ which is based on the crossover period between the two varieties i.e. (16 -17) centuries. I feel that this gives a good bridge between the two. The tutor who is helping to shape this course is called Dan Prohaska and he is so gifted and absolutely brilliant! If I email him with any questions or any problems or confusion he will always give a very speedy and straightforward answer with explanations about anything including on the different varients which I find invaluable, You can find him and download his course lessons on the Soundcloud, if they are not all there don’t worry, he will make sure you can get them all and he is a thoroughly nice bloke. I also am learning the SSIC variety too just in case I decide to go with this variety instead - it pays to keep one’s options open. But up until now I am finding the DK course the easier one. Hope this helps you and I wish you good luck!
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Lowena dhewgh, Chris,
Thanks for your kind words about my course, and me!
Dan
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Welcom o whei Dan. Chris
Hi Matanic having been involved with SSiC from the start and the many stalled initiatives surrounding the revival of Cornish in this century, I can honestly say that abandoning the concept of ‘forms’ and the notion of orthography is the best way forward.
There is, of course, a place for linguistic research and historical accuracy but it acts as a drag on meaningful revival in my opinion. The best form to my ears is that which my son’s godchildren (4 and 5) speak. When teaching we are pulled towards what young people ‘like’ and use in speech. For Cornish this leads to happy engagement in alliteration and a preference for Breton and Welsh loan words over English (although this could parental/teacher prejudice coming through).
For us SSiC is perfect because it allows a learner to dodge the arguments regarding what is ‘correct’ and ‘authentic’ in terms of form. Once a learner becomes proficient at understanding and speaking they can take their Cornish in whatever direction they like. I suppose if we have to pinned down on this subject we are putting prosody and language patterns to the fore and leaving orthography, in particular, for another time.
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The vocab for all the lessons is available in the course itself, if you click on “Vocabulary List” under the audio player. 
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Yn hwir, Mike yw ewn…
bomm bras - big bang, pysk pitsa - anchovy, kyv-kov - memory stick, klappkodh - mobile phone, ha popti-ping - microwave oven - ok we nicked that from Welsh but hardly use korrdonner these days. Pik-pik ‘fizzy’ we pinched from Breton. But we love alliteration and the vast majority of phrases are self generated here in Cornwall, e.g. dehen dens ‘tooth paste’ - lit. ‘tooth cream’ , lyver lavar ‘phrase book’ lit. ‘sentence book’, Kevin an kanker Kembrek in Orvil an Morvil books!
Oll an gwella, (internal rhyme with ll) - just can’t stop myself!
Pol
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Hi there Mike,
I do hope you’ll forgive this intrusion but I believe you are the Mike whom Aran was referring to when I was trying to find out something more about a further course in SSIC. Last I heard was that a second course was being compiled but that was over a year ago now and I have heard no further news regarding this since. I know Pol was having a job to find a replacement for Julia when she dropped out of doing further coursework. Have you any news on where things stand at this moment in time? Hope to hear something from you in the near future, until then, all the very best for the future. Chris.
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Thanks for your patience. We have all struggled with getting together at the same time since the office was closed then the new system we are using etc etc but hopefully we should get some recording done in April.
OaG
Mike
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I bet ya get fed up with this being mentioned lol…but its now September
Seriously though I understand people are busy and these things take time!
if I still lived in Kernow (I do miss her) I would attend the courses but I don’t so the audio courses are my best option. unless there is a kernewek speaker in Norwich who wants to come for a chat when I’m at work 
oll an gwella
Graeme
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We’ve had some ‘deal with the changing/growing software’ type questions going to and fro with Mike and Pol recently - they’ve definitely got things going on, so with luck it won’t be all that much longer before they can publish some more lessons…
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I might venture to say this whole saga is a good illustration of that famous Cornish dialect word “dreckly”… 
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Also, to be fair on Pol and friends, they have done a good job recently with the new Memrise course, which is a good complement to the SSi course and worth doing (there’s not that much overlap in content, but you get to practise different skills with each and get a good general feel for how the language works). I’d just love more SSiCornish because it gets you thinking and putting words together for yourself really fast — much more speaking practice than you get in most do-it-yourself language courses.
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I was in a meeting with Pol on Saturday, and he said they’ve done a full day of voice recording in the past week, so it is being actively worked on. I think what Aran said, about the changing/ growing software might be a contributing factor maybe. It will be worth the wait, I’m sure…
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A train of personal-curiosity-turned-burning-questions for my dear Cornish language counterparts: does there exist a purist conscientiousness or desire among speakers today to reproduce the presumed [native] pronunciation, prosody, phraseology of the pre-revival language in the absence of L1 speakers? What resources have been tapped and what efforts have been made in this vein? To what degree is modern Welsh considered an appropriate model? And is there a general consciousness/concern about widespread English substrate becoming canonical in the revived language (due to second language acquisition by L1 English speakers in adulthood), thus departing significantly from the original character of historical Cornish? (Think Yiddish substrate in Modern Hebrew). Any insight or further information is much appreciated
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I don’t mind waiting at all, just curious as to how close/far it could be. Meur ras
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Hi Afsheen,
Interesting questions… you’d probably have to ask someone with more knowledge of the Cornish language revival (and experience in teaching it) for definitive answers, if there are any. I’m aware there are and have been a lot of studies of the pre-revival texts and a lot of debates about pronunciation, grammar, spelling (probably the most contentious issue) and so on, but there’s a lot that’s hard to answer for sure.
I know in some publications and teaching materials I’ve seen, there are reminders that we can’t just translate English word-for-word and expect it to make “good” Kernewek — I think a lot of people are conscious of that. On the other hand, it’s important that new learners can get into speaking and writing the language without being put off by too much fear of getting it “wrong”…
I gather, where possible, Welsh and Breton are most often drawn on as models for words and phrases where we don’t have clear examples in the surviving Cornish texts, but there are probably some “Anglicisms” that have become accepted as well. I guess just like any other language, revived Cornish can afford to evolve and develop different ways of saying things that may or may not become accepted over time as part of the language — especially if it’s to be a living language, not just a verbal museum piece.
It doesn’t help that there’s nowhere (yet!) where Cornish is actually spoken and used continually day to day as a language in the community, but there’s more and more interest growing in it and I think in time it will become more widely used, if it has enough encouragement and support. Better for it to be badly spoken or interspersed with English than not spoken at all, really, provided there are plenty of good teachers, textbooks, books for reading, audio programmes and so on to set good examples of “proper” Kernewek. Which there increasingly are.
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Lowena dhewgh, Afsheen,
Courtenay already answered your questions, but i’d like to give you my perspective, too. I’ll try to answer your questions, which I repeat in quotes below, one by one.
Afsheen wrote:
“A train of personal-curiosity-turned-burning-questions for my dear Cornish language counterparts: does there exist a purist conscientiousness or desire among speakers today to reproduce the presumed [native] pronunciation, prosody, phraseology of the pre-revival language in the absence of L1 speakers?”
Yes, there does, though what constitutes a purism or purist consci(enti)ousness differs among revivalists. Throughout the revival there have always been people who have closely followed the traditional texts, trying to import the least amount of reconstructions and loans. Since traditional Cornish (i.e. pre-Revival Cornish) was heavily influenced by Latin, then Old English, then Norman French and possibly Breton, as well as Middle and Early Modern English through the ages, there was a lot of “foreign” influence in traditional Cornish to begin with. Some revivalists have shown some lexical purism in reviving words and roots found in Old Cornish (ca. 1000-1300), as well as the other Brythonic languages, that had most likely become obsolete by the Middle Cornish period in favour of the Middle and Early English borrowings. This mainly affected the written Revived language. Since the 1970s when the spoken word became more and more important to the Revivalists, there were many attempts to try and reconstruct an “authentic” phonology, some leaning more towards an early Middle Cornish phonology which relies heavily on comparison with Breton and Welsh, but also some who looked to the phonetic transcriptions Edward Lhuyd made of Cornish in the early 18th century. We are talking about a gap of 400 years with some significant changes on all linguistic levels. Suffice it to say that while the linguists and Cornish speakers that reconstructed these phonologies are largely capable of using their own recommendations, Revived Cornish today is heavily influenced by Modern English, on most linguistic levels, usually pronunciation (usually sound substitution from native English repertoires), prosody, as well as phraseology. In that it is similar to the way Ivrit (Modern Hebrew) has been influenced by the Yiddish of Ashkenazi Jews.
Afsheen wrote:
“What resources have been tapped and what efforts have been made in this vein?”
Basically, all resources that are available. From the traditional pronunciation of English speaking Cornishmen and Cornishwomen from West Penwith, where the Cornish language survived longest, down to all the available texts in the Cornish language throughout the ages. Of course rhyme schemes were analysed and compared with Breton and Welsh. Computer programs have been used to analyse spelling patterns in the traditional texts etc. to show the graphemes which may correspond to contrasting phonemes in the language. There is large consensus on the general phonological development of Cornish, though a few problematic areas remain, and they do have repercussions on preferred varieties in Revived Cornish.
Afsheen wrote:
“To what degree is modern Welsh considered an appropriate model?”
Within the Cornish Revival Welsh has of long been a “fall-back” option, especially in terms of coining new words, sometimes phrases, as of the 1980s Breton has served this purpose, too. The pronunciation has not played a huge part, except for some Cornish speaking individuals who have strong ties to Wales and are also Welsh speakers. Generally, however, a Welsh based pronunciation is felt to be unusual in Revived Cornish, with the exception of the word ‹unn› “one” (when used before a noun). In Revived Cornish one often hears [iːn] which would be a pronunciation that is heard in South Wales, but which is unlikely for traditional Cornish of any age.
Afsheen wrote:
“And is there a general consciousness/concern about widespread English substrate becoming canonical in the revived language (due to second language acquisition by L1 English speakers in adulthood), thus departing significantly from the original character of historical Cornish? (Think Yiddish substrate in Modern Hebrew). Any insight or further information is much appreciated”
Concern is uttered by a few, but most Revivalists don’t bother about it and feel it is important to speak as much Cornish as possible, be it with a Standard/Modern English influenced pronunciation, a Anglo-Cornish dialect influenced pronunciation, or a reconstructed “authentic” traditional Cornish pronunciation (as far as it is reconstructable).
Personally, I follow the approach of basing my Cornish pronunciation on the phonological reconstruction of the language in the later stages of its development, a rough time period of about 1550 to 1800. For examples, feel free to browse my website (http://kernowekbew.com) with links to my audio course.
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