Endangered Languages Project

ALSO KNOWN AS		Kernowek, Kernewek, Curnoack, Cornish
CLASSIFICATION		Indo-European, Celtic, Brythonic
CODE AUTHORITY		ISO 639-3
LANGUAGE CODE		cor
DOWNLOAD		As csv
MORE RESOURCES		OLAC search
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS		Cornish is a "revived" language; it once had no surviving native speakers, with the last known fluent speaker having passed away by the year 1800, but has been learned by many in more recent times.

Compare Sources (4)

Information from: “Phoenix from the Ashes: Reconstructed Cornish in relation to Einar Haugen’s four-step model of language standardisation” (17-38) . Dave Sayers and Zsuzsanna Renkó-Michelsén (2015)

Awakening
MORE ON SPEAKER NUMBERS
"Unusually for a minority language, despite some use in a small number of families (Renkó-Michelsén in prep.), almost all Cornish speakers are adult learners. Some have passed it to their children – a few of whom maintain it as adults – but there are no unbroken ancestral links to the spoken vernacular. These speakers are the result of a centuries-long effort to rebuild an almost lost language, and with it a new language community."

Awakening
~600
Native speakers worldwide
Ethnic population
468,425
MORE ON SPEAKER NUMBERS
"500 use Cornish; about 100 others who speak fluently (2003)." Data for the ethnic population is from the 1991 census.

MORE ON VITALITY

"Some under 20 years are L1 speakers."

PLACES: United Kingdom;

Endangered

20 percent certain, based on the evidence available
600
Native speakers worldwide

		1	2015	Phoenix from the Ashes: Reconstructed Cornish in relation to Einar Haugen’s four-step model of language standardisation	17-38			Sociolinguistica	29			Dave Sayers and Zsuzsanna Renkó-Michelsén					Awakening	"Unusually for a minority language, despite some use in a small number of families (Renkó-Michelsén in prep.), almost all Cornish speakers are adult learners. Some have passed it to their children – a few of whom maintain it as adults – but there are no unbroken ancestral links to the spoken vernacular. These speakers are the result of a centuries-long effort to rebuild an almost lost language, and with it a new language community."	A few hundred learners/speakers of revived version	Awakening ()
				World Oral Literature Project							http://www.oralliterature.org		"World Oral Literature Project." Online: http://www.oralliterature.org.			600	100-999			Endangered (20 percent certain, based on the evidence available)
0199255911			2005	The World Atlas of Language Structures		Bernard Comrie and David Gil and Martin Haspelmath and Matthew S. Dryer	Oxford University Press			New York			2005. "The World Atlas of Language Structures." edited by Bernard Comrie et al. Oxford University Press.										50.3333333333,-5.0
	16		2009	Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th Edition (2009)		M. Paul Lewis	SIL International			Dallas, TX	http://www.ethnologue.com/		Lewis, M. Paul (ed.). 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16 edn. http://www.ethnologue.com/home.asp. (15 February, 2011.)	ll_pub	468,425	~600	Awakening	"500 use Cornish; about 100 others who speak fluently (2003)." Data for the ethnic population is from the 1991 census.		Awakening ()	"Some under 20 years are L1 speakers."	United Kingdom;

Cornish

Language metadata

Language information by source

Awakening

Awakening

~600

Endangered

20 percent certain, based on the evidence available

600

Discussion

Cornish

Language metadata

Language information by source

Awakening

Awakening

~600

Endangered

20 percent certain, based on the evidence available

600

Discussion

Suggest information or improvement

Download language data

Sources of information

Compare Sources