Ghost language of Kernow

My visit to Cornwall will be my first to that part of England.  Saying that I'm visiting Cornwall is a bit more exotic than saying that I'm visiting Sussex or Yorkshire.  Cornwall is, in some ways, a rather odd part of England, not quite England but not quite anything else either.  Its English name derives from the Cornish kernou ("headland) plus the Anglo-Saxon walh (foreigner).  Cornwall's name today in Cornish is Kernow.

Like all of England, Cornwall before the coming of the Roman Empire was occupied by a Celtic people usually called the Britons.  Cornwall is way off in the southwest corner of the island, and its form of Celtic eventually differed from that spoken elsewhere.  A major resource of Cornwall was its tin deposits, which played an important part in its economy until quite recently.

The Roman occupation had less impact on Cornwall than on other parts of the island.  The Romans had more critical thing to worry about than control of  the isolated Cornish peninsula.  When the Romans finally left Britain, the Germanic tribes moved in -- the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes.  They also had bigger fish to fry than subjecting isolated Cornwall.  Cornwall and neighboring Devon held out as the Celtic kingdom of Dumnonia until late in the ninth century when Dumnonia was finally brought under the control of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex.

The ascendency of Wessex caused some Celtic speaking people of Cornwall to flee across the channel to what then became known as Brittany, carrying their language with them.  The neighboring region of Wales was, of course, another Celtic holdout, and caused the English kings much more difficulty.  Celtic as spoken in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany was almost identical, with slight regional differences, as late as the twelfth century.  In fact, the Anglo-Saxons called Cornwall "West Wales," to distinguish it from the larger "North Wales."

Along with other regions, Cornwall became part of a unified Anglo-Saxon English nation by the eleventh century.  After the Norman Conquest, the Norman kings brought Cornwall under their control and appointed a Norman aristocrat as Duke of Cornwall.

Since 1421, to the present day, the eldest son of the English monarch has been automatically named Duke of Cornwall. 

Cornish continued to be widely spoken in Cornwall until Henry VIII not only abolished the use of Latin in the church, but required that all services be offered only in English.  The last native speakers of Cornish are believed to have died by 1800.  The language has enjoyed a small revival during the last hundred years.  I'm told I can expect to see occasional street signs written in Cornish as well as English, similar to the use of Gaelic in the Scottish Highlands.  Cornish (along with Welsh and Breton) is a Celtic language, as is Gaelic, but they constitute separate branches of Celtic and are mutually unintelligible.  (Today, I've read, even speakers of  closely related Cornish and Welsh would understand only "bits and pieces" of each other's conversation.)  In 2011, only 464 residents of Cornwall declared Cornish to be their first language.

Despite its rich local history, therefore, I doubt if I'll meet anyone who speaks (or understands) Cornish.  All Englishmen today speak English, even when their accents are mutually difficult to grasp.  And Cornwall has long been fully integrated into the English (now British) legal and political system, despite a modest political autonomy movement.  Such is the sadness, as well as the benefits, of a global civilization tied together by television and the internet.