Cornish (Kernewek)

1. Introduction & endangerment status

Cornish (Kernewek) is an Insular Celtic language of the Southwestern Brittonic group, making it a very close relative of Breton and a cousin of Welsh. It is the heritage language of Cornwall (Kernow) in the far south-west of Britain. Cornish is unusual among the languages in this hub because it is a revived language: its last traditional first-language speakers died out around the late 18th to 19th century, and the language used today is the product of a deliberate, scholarly revival begun in the early 20th century.¹² Confidence: High.

Because Cornish is reconstructed and re-learned rather than passed down unbroken, speaker estimates vary widely and depend on how 'speaker' is defined: figures commonly cited are around 500 fluent speakers and perhaps 2,000 who can hold a conversation, alongside several thousand learners and pupils. In 2010 UNESCO reclassified Cornish from 'extinct' to 'critically endangered' in recognition of the revival — a rare upgrade in the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.²³ Confidence: High.

Cornish has won growing recognition: it was acknowledged under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, has a Standard Written Form (Furv Skrifys Savonek, agreed 2008) for official use, appears on bilingual signage in Cornwall, and is taught in some schools and adult classes and supported by bodies such as the Cornish Language Office (Akademi Kernewek). This makes it one of the most actively learnable revived languages.¹² Confidence: High.

This guide rises through the eight CEFR sub-levels, from the alphabet (A1.1) toward reading Cornish media and literature and joining the language community (B2.2). Each level is marked with a visible heading.

Modern Cornish is written in the Latin alphabet using the Standard Written Form (SWF) agreed in 2008. Spelling is broadly phonetic. Notable features include the digraph used for the 'gw' sound, the letter k where older spellings used c, and vowel length distinctions. Because the language was revived from historical texts, several spelling systems exist (e.g. Kernewek Kemmyn, Unified Cornish Revised), but the SWF is the agreed standard for education and public life.¹ Confidence: High.

A first set of greetings and polite expressions opens almost any conversation with a fellow learner or community member. All forms below are drawn from the cited reference materials.¹

The cardinal numerals one to ten are listed below, with twenty and one hundred. Like the other Celtic languages, the traditional higher numbers use a vigesimal (base-twenty) system.⁴

Cornish word order is verbal but flexible: like its Brittonic relatives it often places the verb early (VSO), but it very commonly fronts the most important element of the sentence for emphasis, with a particle following. There is a definite article an (used for all genders and numbers) but no indefinite article. Nouns have two genders (masculine and feminine).¹² Confidence: High.

A starter set of everyday words — family, common nouns and colours — for first sentences:

The signature Celtic feature is initial mutation: the first consonant of a word changes with grammar. Cornish has four mutation types (soft/lenition, breathed/aspirate, hard and mixed). So Kernewek 'Cornish' appears as an Gernewek after the article in some contexts, and tas 'father' becomes ow thas 'my father'. Learning the four mutations and their triggers is the central intermediate task.¹² Confidence: High.

Cornish verbs are frequently expressed with the verb bos 'to be' plus a verbal particle plus a verb-noun, and with the auxiliary gul 'to do' (My a wel 'I see' uses the particle a). The verb 'to be' has both a short/identity form and a long/locative form. As in the other Celtic languages, possession is built with prepositions rather than a single verb 'to have'. Cornish keeps singular ty and plural/polite hwi for 'you'.¹² Confidence: High.

Because Cornish is revived, an advanced learner navigates not dialect so much as orthographic and lexical variation between revival traditions (Kernewek Kemmyn, Unified Cornish Revised and the SWF), and decisions about how to coin or borrow vocabulary for modern concepts not found in the historical texts. Familiarity with the medieval mystery plays (the Ordinalia) and the Tregear Homilies underpins confident use.¹² Confidence: Moderate–High (revived-language variation is itself well documented).

At the top of the ladder the community is the classroom. The Cornish revival sustains festivals, a music scene, online courses and dictionaries (e.g. the Cornish Dictionary / Gerlyver Kernewek), the magazine and broadcast output of the language movement, children's media, and a growing body of original modern writing alongside the medieval corpus (the Ordinalia plays, Beunans Meriasek and Pascon agan Arluth). Reading goals at this level include modern Cornish prose and poetry.¹² Confidence: High.

Core phrases

Useful sentences for a first conversation, all drawn from the cited materials:¹

Example dialogue

A short model dialogue assembled from the greetings and phrases above:

Learning resources

• Cornish language and alphabet (Omniglot)A1–B1 — alphabet, pronunciation & phrases
• How to count in Cornish (Omniglot)A1–A2 — the numeral system
• Cornish language (Wikipedia)Background — history, revival, orthographies & status
• Akademi Kernewek / Cornish Language OfficeBackground — official body & Standard Written Form

Revitalization & preservation

Cornish is a flagship case of language revival: declared functionally extinct by the 19th century, it was reconstructed from historical texts through the 20th-century revival, recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, given a Standard Written Form in 2008, and upgraded by UNESCO in 2010 from 'extinct' to 'critically endangered'. It is supported by the Cornish Language Office (Akademi Kernewek), bilingual signage, adult classes and some school provision, and in 2025 was placed under Part III of the European Charter alongside Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The central challenge is moving from learned and ceremonial use toward stable intergenerational, home transmission.²³

Downloadable resources

A spaced-repetition vocabulary dataset for this guide (80 verified, sourced entries) is available below in four formats. Each row carries the target word, English translation, an example sentence and its translation where one is given, an (empty) audio placeholder, notes, and a category for beginner-first review. Only items that could be reliably sourced are included; no vocabulary has been invented. The dataset is eligible for additive expansion toward the 100-word target in future runs.

• Vocabulary — CSVAll levels — spreadsheet-friendly
• Vocabulary — TSVAll levels — tab-separated
• Vocabulary — Anki text importAll levels — tab-separated Anki import
• Vocabulary — Anki deck (.apkg)All levels — ready-to-import APKG