The last speaker of the Cornish language died, it’s believed, in 1914, presumably yelling, “I’ve been bitten by several pit vipers; someone call a doctor” in Cornish, as everyone stood around wondering what the hell he was shouting about.
Yes, Cornwall once had its own language. A genuine, distinct language, too, not just English spoken through a mouthful of straw with additional ooh-arrs (I’m from Cornwall; I’m allowed to be rude about my people). At its peak, more than 40,000 people spoke Cornish as their mother tongue. Now, no one.
This is a shame, not least because Cornish could have offered some excellent additions to the TopGear road-test vocabulary. What review of an off-roader wouldn’t be improved by describing it as ummin and dappered (filthy, dirt-covered) after tackling the clingy…
