Cornish And The Other Celtic Languages

There are many forms of heritage, built and spoken amongst them.

That's why we are promoting the importance of Cornish language which the Westminster Government is trying to destroy by unlawfully breaching the charter agreement signed in 2002 and deliberately holding from us £150,000 of OUR tax money intended for language development.

Here is the petition raised by Dr Jon Mills: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/128474

MODERN CELTIC LANGUAGES

Modern Celtic languages are mostly spoken on the north-western edge of Europe, notably in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man, and can be found spoken on Cape Breton Island.

There is also a substantial number of Welsh speakers in the Patagonia area of Argentina.

Some people speak Celtic languages in the other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

In all these areas, the Celtic languages are now only spoken by minorities though there are continuing efforts at revitalisation.
Welsh is the only Celtic language not classified as 'endangered' by UNESCO.

So, how long have we been speaking Celtic? A whole lot longer than previously thought! The old idea of Celts originating in central Europe and "invading" Britain at the start of the Iron Age, c.800 BC, was kicked into touch 30 years ago and rightly so - it had all stemmed from someone 300 years ago misreading Herodotus, and no one picked up on that mistake for 300 years! There was no such invasion.

Recent work, particularly by Professor Barry Cunliffe and Professor John Koch, suggests that Celtic was first developed from Indo-European in south-western Iberia around 4,000 BC, and became a common language of the Atlantic sea-trading route that ran from Gibraltar to the Hebrides, and which was already established.

Prof. Cunliffe concludes that western Britain and Ireland were Celtic speaking by 3,000 BC, and the remainder of Britain by 2,000 BC. We thoroughly recommend his superb book "Britain Begins" (2012).

THE HERODOTUS MISREADING

Herodotus lived and wrote in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) c. 425 BC.

He wrote that the homeland of the Keltoi (Celts) was near the headwaters of the Danube.

As everyone knows, the Danube rises in Transalpine Europe so, therefore, that's where the Celts came from according to Edward Lhuyd and his contemporaries around 1700.

They didn't read on, for Herodotus also wrote that he believed the Danube to rise near the Pyrenees! Therefore the Celtic homeland was at least that far west!

Herodotus had been pretty close to the truth all along, and no one spotted it until fairly recently!

The Iron Age Mid-European Celtic origin story had never made a lot of sense, and a whole lot of pieces just didn't fit the jig-saw. The revised version makes absolute sense, and all those pieces slot perfectly into place. Three hundred years of misdirection means there's a fair bit of catching up to do!

Kernow Matters to You (KMTU) - speaking out for the real Cornwall!

kernowmatterstoyou@gmail.com

‪

#KernowMatters