Dydh da Courtney
In the end I take heart from my son’s God Daughter Caitlin. At 5 years old she flits in and out of Cornish without self-conciousness. There will be major influences tugging at the way she uses Cornish in the future despite what her immediate family group might want. I’ll settle for her being capable of communicating fluently with other Cornish speakers in the future (and effectively with Breton speakers after an hour or so - not sure how this pans out with Welsh).
As to Pol and Julia - yep they do, on occasion, have different ways of pronouncing similar things. But with Cornish we have to work with the ‘revivalists dilemma’. I have witnessed classes where huge amounts of time has been wasted on beginners ‘explaining’ and coaching correct pronunciation. I’d rather concentrate on creating a critical mass that can talk to each other effectively and refine pronunciation later(ish)…
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I thought that I’d just give an update to this conversation in the light of what has happened during Covid-19 etc. Online language classes have seen a big surge in numbers, at every level. People from all over the world have taken the chance to learn Cornish and add to the Cornish speaking community. In my 1st grade course this year (organised by An Kylgh Kernewek - http://almora.org.uk/Kylgh/ ) there were learners from the USA, Wales, Yorkshire and Devon, as well as Cornwall. Several had used SSIC as well as other methods, e.g. Memrise and Tamm ha Tamm to get started. It seems likely that this surge will continue next year, radically changing the way that people gain entry to the language. This was reflected in a large attendance at the Pennseythen Kernewek online. Many learners have attended Yeth an Werin Warlinen sessions online via Facebook. There has been an effort to get learners involved in writing Cornish as well, e.g. to add Cornish wikipedia pages. Although most learners use SWF, I have seen a lot less acrimony this past year regarding past arguments than I expected, and the learners I’ve talked to seem to acknowledge that both a knowledge of Middle and Late Cornish is a good way forward for gaining fluency in both written and spoken Cornish.
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