14.2.1 Decline and Death

There are three broadly accepted historical periods of Cornish (see also Russell, this volume), based on grammatical and lexical divergences in extant manuscripts: Old Cornish (eleventh century), Middle Cornish (c. fifteenth–sixteenth centuries), and Late Cornish (from the mid-sixteenth century ‘to the end’, i.e. the 1800s) (Jenner Reference Jenner1904:49; cf. Mills Reference Mills1999:47). To explain the decline of Cornish, some authors highlight clerical imposition of English and population decline after wars and uprisings in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries (e.g. P. B. Ellis Reference Ellis1974:52–69); royal retaliation was swift and barbaric, reducing an already small population (Mills Reference Mills and Partridge2010:199). These persecutions also imperilled the existing literature of Cornish; for example, during the ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’ of 1549 (a Catholic revolt against Protestant imposition) the Privy Council ordered that ‘mass books of the old superstitious service’ should be destroyed, ‘giving order that people do use the service appointed by his Majesty’ (cited in Rose-Troup Reference Rose-Troup1913:287). This is likely to have included Cornish translations. Especially detrimental was the suppression in 1535 of Glasney College (Mills Reference Mills and Partridge2010:197), ‘the intellectual and literary centre of Cornwall in the later Middle Ages’ (Evans Reference Evans1969:295).

If the beginning of the end was explosive and violent (uprisings and retaliations), the final end was more mundane, with huge in-migration during mining booms from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries (Pounds Reference Pounds1943:45) (see Figure 14.1). The Cornish people, having been separated from their Celtic cousins in Wales and Brittany centuries before, now found themselves in a dizzying churn of new residents arriving from far and wide. This thoroughly and terminally diluted the Cornish language, and indeed also created a sociolinguistically fertile mix of English dialects from these disparate hinterlands: the nineteenth-century dialectologist A. J. Ellis (Reference Ellis1889:171) notes of English in Cornwall: ‘The mode of speech is said to vary … not more than ten or twelve miles apart … The miners, who abound, are a mixed race.’ The sheer scale of this diversification in the population leaves its mark today in a genetic composition ‘quite different from that of the Welsh clusters, and much closer to that of Devon, and Central/S. England’ (Leslie et al. Reference Leslie, Winney and Hellenthal2015:314).

Figure 14.1 Population per square mile in Cornwall, 1672 and 1801.

Source: Pounds, N. J. G. (Reference Pounds1943: 38–9). Population movement in Cornwall, and the rise of mining in the 18th century. Geography, 28(2): 37–46. Copyright © Geographical Association, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, https://tandfonline.com on behalf of Geographical Association.

There are some partial accounts of ‘last speakers’ of Cornish, though no definitive record of a final user of the vernacular language (as is recorded for Manx). For details of some accounts, see for example, Jago (Reference Jago1882:9, 332), Treenoodle (Reference Treenoodle1846:3), Ellis (Reference Ellis1974:120), Pool (Reference Pool1982:28), Kent (Reference Kent and Tristram2007:206) and Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén (Reference Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén2015).

14.2.2 Revival

The final decline of Cornish was actually quite well known at the time, motivating early revivalists. Nicholas Boson in the mid-seventeenth century learned Cornish as an adult from fishermen, and taught his son John, partly using prose he wrote himself (Ellis Reference Ellis1974:85). Edward Lhuyd (Reference Lhuyd1707) reconstructed a basic grammar from extant manuscripts. Edwin Norris (Reference Norris1859) and Robert Williams (Reference Williams1865) continued that effort. Williams’ work was especially influential in the twentieth century (Mills Reference Mills1999:45). But overall it was an esoteric endeavour (see Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén Reference Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén2015). Henry Jenner, considered the spearhead of the twentieth-century revival, had previously abandoned Cornish in the 1870s for lack of interest, but was persuaded back during the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century ‘Celtic renaissance’ (an ethno-nationalist vogue, see Lowenna Reference Lowenna and Payton2004) by enthusiasts who wanted learning materials (Ellis Reference Ellis1974:152; Jenner Reference Jenner1904:xiii).

Lhuyd underlined the extreme scarcity of extant Cornish manuscripts, ‘not above three or four Books’ (1707: preface, cf. Evans Reference Evans1969:296). Jenner (Reference Jenner1904:24) adds fifteen more texts, mostly fragments in the margins of English documents, with some longer religious dramas. But even with additional later discoveries, the corpus remains only ‘about 176,000 words’ (George and Broderick Reference George, Broderick, Ball and Müller2009:754). This figure is simply a raw count of words, including repetitions and variations in spelling; if we count only distinct lexical items, we have only around 7,000 (Mills pers. comm.). The corpus is also largely confined to literary genres – stylistically and structurally distinct from spoken vernacular language (see Biber and Conrad Reference Biber and Conrad2009:85), of which there is simply no clear record.

Recalling the three historical periods of Cornish noted earlier, Jenner’s reconstruction centred on Late Cornish. Robert Morton Nance, who after Jenner’s death became the principal figure in the revival, favoured Middle Cornish (‘the great days of Cornish writing’, Reference Nance1929:6), avoiding Late Cornish ‘broken forms’ (p. 7). Nance’s reconstructed variety was used in the first dictionaries aimed at would-be Cornish speakers. But the Late/Middle split was not simply resolved: on the contrary, it grew, and festered. Revivalists formed opposing groups favouring distinct orthographic systems (see Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén Reference Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén2015:26–7), and the debate intensified to an acrimonious peak in the 1980s–90s (see for example, Sayers Reference Sayers2012). Meanwhile, scholarly scrutiny also loomed: ‘modern Celticists … unite in ignoring any of Nance’s or Smith’s work and almost all of Jenner … [favouring] Williams’s [Reference Williams1865] Lexicon’ (Ellis Reference Ellis1974:194).

In November 2002, the UK government recognised Cornish under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Deacon Reference Deacon and Everson2007:69, cf. Council of Europe 1992). This led to funding in 2006–09 to agree on a single standard orthography for wider use, with hints of longer-term financial support (see Sayers Reference Sayers2012; Sayers, Davies-Deacon and Croome Reference Sayers, Davies-Deacon and Croome2019:8). This at last motivated compromise, and a reconciled ‘Standard Written Form’ (SWF) was published in 2008, albeit diplomatically including ‘variant graphs’ attending to alternative orthographies (Bock and Bruch Reference Bock and Bruch2008; see also Ferdinand Reference Ferdinand2013:212–14; Harasta Reference Harasta2013:28–39; Davies-Deacon Reference Davies-Deacon2020).

14.2.3 Current Position

Today, Cornish language activists identify with other Celtic language communities, despite ‘in the Cornish case no dialect [being] tied to a living community of speakers’ (Deacon Reference Deacon and Payton2006:19). Revived Cornish is still mostly acquired by adults through instruction, some of whom have raised ‘neo-native’-speaker children (McLeod Reference McLeod, Pertot, Priestly and Williams2008). This sets Cornish apart from Celtic languages with unbroken intergenerational transmission, which can see tensions between traditional and new speakers, for example in Ireland (Ó hIfearnáin and Ó Murchadha Reference Ó hIfearnáin, Ó Murchadha, Kristiansen and Coupland2011:101), Wales (Robert Reference Robert2009), Brittany (Hornsby Reference Hornsby2005) and Scotland (McEwan-Fujita Reference McEwan-Fujita2010).

Ferdinand (Reference Ferdinand, Bihan-Gallic, Lewin, Summers and Wilson2018:57) estimates that there are 600–650 self-described fluent speakers of Cornish, and 3000–4000 with some knowledge. The 2021 UK census records 567 using Cornish as their ‘main language’ (Office for National Statistics 2022), but these 567 are not concentrated in one area (which might enable such regular use). Moreover, the census question itself allows only one ‘main language’, so if one wants to mention Cornish, it is here or nowhere, meaning that this claim may be more a political act of identification. But whatever their actual use of the language, to these people, Cornish is a central part of who they are, and who they want to be. In any theory of minority rights, this deserves attention.

Agreement on the SWF led to annual funding from the UK government of around £120,000 per year, supporting the cross-sector Cornish Language Partnership (Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén Reference Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén2015:25–6). But the funding was not what it seemed, later being revealed as a tokenistic deal within the two-party governing coalition, political leverage for much larger cuts in other departments (Sayers Reference Sayers2017). With a change to single-party government, it was abruptly withdrawn in 2016, despite recognition of the Cornish people as a ‘national minority’ in 2014. Responsibility for Cornish was passed to Cornwall Council, which maintains a Cornish Language Office, produces policy documents (for example, Cornwall Council 2015), and is making some progress on its goals, for example continued use of Cornish in street signage. But most revival work is now voluntary or contingent on insecure grant funding, and in the context of wider central government cuts to basic welfare services (see also Sayers and Henderson, this volume), this seems likely to continue.

Despite the funding cuts, the 2010–16 period generally raised the profile of Cornish such that it is now fairly common to see Cornish used symbolically by businesses and private individuals, including some restaurants and supermarket branches. Regarding the SWF’s accommodation of Revived Middle and Revived Late Cornish in the ‘variant graphs’ noted above, most signage follows Middle variants (Davies-Deacon Reference Davies-Deacon2020:75), for various reasons, including Revived Middle Cornish users being the largest group and best represented in positions of authority in the revival movement. The factional unrest of the 1980s and 1990s has cooled but not disappeared.

14.3.1 Decline and Death

In 1346, England claimed political control over the Isle of Man, though with minimal initial effect on the language. For centuries Manx continued as a vernacular, supported by clergy delivering translations, for example the Book of Common Prayer in 1610, and the full Bible in 1775 (McArdle Reference McArdle2016:7). By the early modern period, Manx was therefore both stronger and better supported than Cornish. Significant intergenerational use continued into the mid-nineteenth century, petering out into isolated and exceptional cases by the mid-twentieth. By this point, speaker numbers had also fallen significantly, amid out-migration of Manx speakers and in-migration of non-speakers (Broderick Reference Broderick, Ball and Müller2010:356).

Census figures for the decline of Manx are a little misleading. At first blush, they suggest it never died at all: a smooth decline from 4,419 in 1901 to 284 in 1971, after which the revival was underway and speaker numbers gradually grew. But this conceals an important distinction. The last known traditional speaker of Manx, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974. He and his generation were ‘essentially semi-speakers whose dominant language from childhood was … English’ (Lewin Reference Lewin2017b:143); Maddrell himself had moved to live with an elderly relative, an unusual circumstance and unlike conventional community transmission (Lewin pers. comm.).

From the 1930s onwards, there was a growing band of ‘enthusiasts who had learned from native speakers … [who then] taught others the language as well’ (McArdle Reference McArdle2016, after Stowell and Ó Bréasláin Reference Stowell and Bréasláin1996). By the 1970s, these new speakers comprised the majority of the Manx-speaking community, and upon Maddrell’s death, its entirety. So this was not a simple reinvigoration of Manx as a community vernacular. Even in the early twentieth century, the remaining traditional speakers mostly used English, the historical vernacular having ‘ceased to be spoken as a community language a century or more ago’ (Ó hIfearnáin Reference Ó hIfearnáin2015:100), and long before the rise of adult enthusiasts, who learned a distinct form of Manx undergoing reconstruction and revival.

14.3.2 Revival

Like Cornish, Manx today is a mosaic of features, a blend of historic written forms alongside recorded remnants of the spoken vernacular in its terminal stages (Lewin Reference Lewin2022:677). Some Manx revivalists see the disputes over Cornish (discussed earlier) as a ‘cautionary tale’ (Lewin Reference Lewin2022:668). However, there are still similar ‘purist’ and ‘authenticist’ Manx camps (Ó hIfearnáin Reference Ó hIfearnáin2015:112, after Lewin Reference Lewin and Sture Ureland2015), mostly debating lexicon (Lewin Reference Lewin2022:670). Lewin nonetheless emphasises that pragmatism prevails, perhaps because of the language’s more established role in public functions than Cornish, the existence of a standard orthography since the 1770s, and greater access to vernacular Manx in its late stages.

As above, the revival of Manx overlapped with its death. Some early revivalists learned from traditional speakers, but were sociolinguistically removed from them. This intriguingly echoes the seventeenth-century interest in Cornish, described earlier, with the likes of Nicholas and John Boson who learned Cornish following dealings with traditional speakers. So Manx today is a thing apart from its historical vernacular, its usage characterised by deliberate choice over spellings, pronunciation, and so on, more so than an intergenerationally acquired language. Adult learners and speakers pitch themselves

In 1985, Manx received a measure of official recognition. Tynwald, the island’s parliament, resolved to preserve and promote Manx, and the Manx Heritage Foundation ‘set up a voluntary Coonceil ny Gaelgey (Manx Gaelic Advisory Council) to establish official use of Manx Gaelic for government and local authorities’ (McArdle Reference McArdle2016:8). Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, the first Manx-medium primary school, was founded in 2001 (Clague Reference Clague2009:180).

14.3.3 Current Position

Manx, like Cornish, has been protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages since 2003: first under Part II (less expansive), then since 2020 under Part III (requiring more robust commitments). The Isle of Man is allied to the UK as an autonomous crown dependency and protectorate, but language policy is largely the prerogative of the Manx government, as well as grassroots groups and individuals.

Manx is now indisputably visible in civic and cultural life on the Isle of Man. Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, the first Manx-medium primary school (noted above), has been in operation since 2001. The language is used symbolically by heritage bodies and by the Manx parliament. All this helps normalise Manx and maintain awareness. However, beyond activist circles, there is less official attention to growth of the speaker community; it is seen as heritage worth preserving, not so much as a resource to be significantly cultivated. The 2021 Isle of Man census – which has a more precise question on Manx use than the UK census – shows 2,223 people with some knowledge of Manx, around 2 per cent of the population (Statistics Isle of Man 2022:28). Despite some growth, the age profile of speakers is advancing, with much work still falling on long-standing activists; recruiting a next generation is a perennial struggle (Wilson, Johnson and Sallabank Reference Wilson, Johnson and Sallabank2015:265). This will surely remain a focus.