Make Bradford British

[The Hen]

If you know of any identifiable living person who learned or is learning Cornish as her or his first language, please bring that knowledge forward.

Your quoted source, Hen, provides no support for its assertion. On what is that assertion based?

I have heard that John Angarrack is teaching his children Cornish as their first language. There are others who are following a similar stubborn bent, but I don't know them.

There is no point in asking me for proof. There isnt any on-line.

This is the Cornish we are talking about.

Now, I am not going to bother getting into this issue of yours Andrew. I have other things on this Board that are slightly more important to me than whether you believe me or not.

[Gob]

Which is why I refused to indulge Andrew in the first place.

[Andrew D]

I should also point out that you decided to ignore the part in the linked article which clearly stated that Cornish is being taught as a first language even though Hen kindly quoted it for you.

Horseshit. Plain simple horseshit.

I posted:

Your quoted source, Hen, provides no support for its assertion.

That is not ignoring what Hen posted. That is responding directly to what Hen posted.

How can straightforwardly addressing something be ignoring that very same thing?

[Rick]

If you know of any identifiable living person who learned or is learning Cornish as her or his first language, please bring that knowledge forward.

Your quoted source, Hen, provides no support for its assertion. On what is that assertion based?

The only specific evidence which anyone has posted thus far for the proposition that Cornish is being learned by children -- a proposition which I have not disputed -- is that, as your quoted source puts it:

In 2010 a bilingual Cornish/English creche or Skol dy’Sadorn Kernewek (Cornish Saturday School) was set up.

But the guy who founded that school says flat-out that it is NOT teaching Cornish as a first language:

The project is run by Rhisiart Tal-e-bot, who cut his teeth in pre-school bilingual education while teaching English in the Basque country.

He said that several studies had proved there were considerable benefits to learning an additional language before the age of five.

"All research shows that children who learn a second language at an early age not only have a greater capacity for learning other languages in later life but find it easier to learn other subjects in general.

"This is the first time it has been tried with such young children in Cornwall and we are hopeful it will be a success.

"We begin by building routines in a homely atmosphere, with the aim of making Cornish part of their everyday lives."

That school, according to its own founder, exists to teach Cornish as "an additional language" -- "a second language".

Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek (the Cornish Language Fellowship) says that Cornish has been dead since the nineteeneth century. It traces the history of Cornish since then -- up through the publication in 2009 of "the most comprehensive Cornish-English / English-Cornish dictionary to date, containing detailed etymologies and historical references."

But the Cornish Language Fellowship makes no reference to any living person who learned or is learning Cornish as her or his first langauge. If there is such a person, wouldn't the Cornish Language Fellowship be likely to know about it?

I have looked around quite a bit. I looked around quite a bit before I ever posted what is, after all, a trivia question in the first place; and I have looked around quite a bit more since then. I have not found a single identifiable living person who learned or is learning Cornish as her or his first language.

Not one.

So, again:

If you know of any identifiable living person who learned or is learning Cornish as her or his first language, please bring that knowledge forward.

Current status
Some families are now bringing up their children with Cornish as their first language. Cornish names are popular for children, pets, houses and boats. People are writing and performing songs and poetry in Cornish, and the language is taught in some schools and at the University of Exeter.

There are a number of magazines solely in Cornish: An Gannas, An Gowser and An Garrick. BBC Radio Cornwall have regular news broadcasts in Cornish, and sometimes have other programmes and features for learners and enthusiasts. Local newspapers, such as the Western Morning News, often have articles in Cornish, and such newspapers as The Packet, The West Briton and The Cornishman also support the language. The first ever feature film entirely in Cornish, Hwerow Hweg (Bitter Sweet) was released in 2002, and a number of other films in Cornish have been made since then.

After much discussion, a Standard Written Form (SWF) of Cornish was agreed on in 2008. The SWF is intended for official use and for formal education. In other contexts people are free to choose the form of written Cornish they prefer.

In 2010 a bilingual Cornish/English creche or Skol dy’Sadorn Kernewek (Cornish Saturday School) was set up. The group is held on Saturdays at the Cornwall College in Cambourne and children between 2 and 5 years old are attending. The children are immersed in Cornish in one room, and their parents learn Cornish in another. The Cornish lessons for the parents focus particularly on language they can use with their children.

No body is named specifically though

[Andrew D]

Hen: I do not disbelieve you. You posted that you "have heard that John Angarrack is teaching his children Cornish as their first language," and I have no reason not to believe that you have heard exactly that.

As to this:

There are others who are following a similar stubborn bent, but I don't know them.

if you do not know them, how do you know that they exist?

Please, please, please notice that I am not saying that you do not know that they exist; I am asking how you know. If you are saying "I, Hen, have seen with my own eyes people who I myself know to be learning Cornish as their first language," that is one thing. I know of no reason not to take you at your word.

But if you are saying "I, Hen, am given to understand that there are such people," that is quite another thing. I still take you at your word -- that you are given to understand that there are such people -- but it does not follow that there actually are such people. (After all, as recent events have demonstrated, one can be told all sorts of things, and that does not make those things true.)

I am just asking for evidence to support the claim. Why is that so wrong?

(By the way, your reference to "YOUR definition of a resurrected language" is uncalledfor. I quoted definitions of "dead language" and "native language" verbatim from dictionaries, and I cited those dictionaries so that anyone can see for her- or himself that they say what I claim that they say. If you disagree with those dictionaries, fine; you can disagree with anything you want. But the insinuation that I made up those definitions -- that they are somehow "mine" rather than appearing in standard reference works -- is less than entirely forthright.)

keld feldspar: The source you quoted is the same source that Hen quoted. And this:

No body is named specifically though

is exactly the problem. I have continued to look around. I cannot find any identifiable living person who claims to have learned Cornish as a first language. I cannot find any identifiable living person who claims to be learning Cornish as a first language. I cannot find any identifiable living person who claims to be teaching any other person Cornish as that other person's first language.

Maybe such people are out there. I have posted repeatedly that evidence demonstrating the existence of such a person would change the conclusion which follows from the dictionary definitions of the terms at issue.

I have conducted my own searches, and I cannot find any such evidence. No one else -- whether he or she disputes my conclusion or not -- has adduced any such evidence. Why not?

[The Hen]

Andrew, I have other issues that I am more concerned about than your issue of resurrected languages. Cornish is being taught as a first language. I have provided a name for you for who is teaching their children Cornish first. Other people are also teaching their children Cornish first. I do not know their names as I am ignorant of them.

That is all I have to say on this subject.

Regards.

[Scooter]

I cannot find any identifiable living person who claims to have learned Cornish as a first language. I cannot find any identifiable living person who claims to be learning Cornish as a first language. I cannot find any identifiable living person who claims to be teaching any other person Cornish as that other person's first language.

You are moving the goalposts. You asked for evidence that people were learning Cornish as a first language. That has been provided, and you have proffered nothing to dispute it. Now you are asking that these people be identified by name. Nowhere in the definition you have provided is any such requirement posited. In spite of that fact, the name of an individual whose children were being raised with Cornish as a first language was provided to you.

The evidence originally asked for has been provided, and has not been refuted. Evidence has also been provided to satisfy your moving of the goalposts. Finished.

[Gob]

Of course Andrew's original supposition that Hebrew is a resurrected language is untrue too, it was used and kept alive via liturgy in Jewish religious services, some words were spoken in daily use, and never truly died out like Cornish did.

And even in the case of Hebrew, there is a theory that argues that "the Hebrew revivalists who wished to speak pure Hebrew failed. The result is a fascinating and multifaceted Israeli language, which is not only multi-layered but also multi-sourced. The revival of a clinically dead language is unlikely without cross-fertilisation from the revivalists' mother tongue(s).

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher- ... 5766141160

But let's just let him believe he's right.

[Andrew D]

You asked for evidence that people were learning Cornish as a first language. That has been provided ....

No. Assertions have been made.

And, again, I take Hen at her word -- i.e., what she posted. I have no reason to disbelieve her.

And, again, if she posts that she has direct, personal, percipient knowledge of people's learning Cornish as a first language, I will take her at her word. I have no reason to think that she would pretend to have such knowledge -- indeed, I have reason to believe that she would find the idea of pretending to have knowledge which she does not actually have repellent -- so if she has such knowledge and so states, I will take her at her word.

I just have not seen any direct, personal, percipient knowledge. And I don't mean just from Hen or Gob; I mean from anyone.

I have been unable to find a statement by anyone substantially similar to "I learned Cornish as my first language". Or "I taught my children Cornish as a first language." Or "my neighbor's children learned Cornish before they learned any other language." Or "this [named] school teaches children Cornish as their first language." Or anything else along those lines.

I cannot find anyone who claims to have learned Cornish as her or his first language, who claims to have taught anyone else Cornish as that other person's first language, who claims to have seen (or otherwise directly perceived) anyone's having learned Cornish as a first language or having taught anyone else Cornish as a first language.

In the absence of such evidence, should I accept the proposition as true? Would you? And if so, would you apply the same evidentiary reasoning to other propositions?

[Andrew D]

Well, Gob and I at last agree on something:

Hebrew ... had no native speakers for 2,000 years but was maintained in religious literature and worship ....

(Leanne Hinton and Ken Hale, eds., The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice (Academic Press 2001) at 415.)

[Rick]

keld feldspar: The source you quoted is the same source that Hen quoted. And this: