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Good evening, I’m Elizabeth
and I live in Cornwall

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I’m Cornish and I speak
the Cornish language. I’m a Cornish speaker.

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So, I began to learn Cornish
when I was [?]

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My mother was learning
Cornish at evening classes

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and she came home
and taught me and my brother to speak the language.

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Then my father learnt it too.

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And we all spoke
the language together at home

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when we were eating together
and so on, ‘pass me the salt’ etc.

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And we went to lots of events together,
like Cornish Language Weekends

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These events were
for people who wanted to learn Cornish

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and I remember going there
with my brother

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and playing with all the other children
who were learning Cornish.

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There was a large group of us
in those days,

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and all those children
have now grown up, like me

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and some of them
are having children of their own now

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so that’s the next generation
of people learning Cornish as children

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from their childhood.
So that’s very good.

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The language did die out,
about two hundred years ago,

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but after a hundred years
of nobody speaking it as a community language

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people began to revive it

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and over the last century
more and more people have learnt it.

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well, I wanted to return to Cornwall
and do something, I didn’t know what

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but I was in the right place at the right time

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and in 2002 Cornish was recognised
as an official language

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under the European Charter
for Regional or Minority Languages,

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and for the first time ever

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there was funding,
some money for the language.

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And because of that there were
some new jobs, to do things with the language,

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and I was the second person
to get a job developing the language.

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So I was a language officer.

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But now, well, I live in Truro, here.

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I don’t work with the language any more

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I don’t earn my living from it,
but I still do things like this.

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Tonight I am leading a Yeth an Werin (conversation group)
with some people who are learning Cornish

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and some who are more fluent.

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Sometimes there are lots of us,
other times there aren’t so many,

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but people come every fortnight
to chat together.

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So I lead this.

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And also I present a radio programme,
‘The News’ on BBC Radio Cornwall,

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It’s the only programme
in Cornish on an official radio station.

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There’s another programme
but that’s only available online.

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Besides that, well,
I work at Truro Cathedral

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and I have a cat.
My cat is called Ted.

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And I have a partner called Ross.

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So yeah, that’s all from me,
I think. I can’t remember, I can’t think of what else to say.

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So yeah, that’s all. Goodbye!