Maybe I’m just a fuddy-duddy, but I thought Cornish was dead. How can money be put into keeping it alive? But it seems I was ill-informed – see the Wikipedia link at the bottom.
bq. The government money is on the table and the political will in Whitehall and Europe is apparently growing to help Cornish speakers turn their native tongue into a viable, living language.
But there is one stumbling block: Cornish speakers cannot agree on how their language should be spelt.
Apparently there are three kinds of Cornish, and no progress is likely to be made until one of them is chosen to support.
bq. A conference is being organised in September at which the warring factions will again try to agree on how Cornish – or, depending on your fancy, Kernewek, Kernowek, Kernuak or Curnoack – should be spelt.
(from the Guardian)
Cornish is a hobbyiste’s langwidge with less currency than Klingon, but we live a world where betting against micronationalismes and their many offshoots is increasingly unwise.
Orthography is a pretty second-order something, though – I had acquired the impression that the splits between the Cornish Liberation Front and the People’s Popular Front of Cornwall flavours ran deeper, but I decline to actually care either way.