WIKITONGUES: Elizabeth speaking Cornish

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

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

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

My mother was learning
Cornish at evening classes

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

Then my father learnt it too.

And we all spoke
the language together at home

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

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

These events were
for people who wanted to learn Cornish

and I remember going there
with my brother

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

There was a large group of us
in those days,

and all those children
have now grown up, like me

and some of them
are having children of their own now

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

from their childhood.
So that’s very good.

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

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

people began to revive it

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

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

but I was in the right place at the right time

and in 2002 Cornish was recognised
as an official language

under the European Charter
for Regional or Minority Languages,

and for the first time ever

there was funding,
some money for the language.

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

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

So I was a language officer.

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

I don’t work with the language any more

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

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

and some who are more fluent.

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

but people come every fortnight
to chat together.

So I lead this.

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

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

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

Besides that, well,
I work at Truro Cathedral

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

And I have a partner called Ross.

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

So yeah, that’s all. Goodbye!