Cussel an Tavas Kernuak
Encyclopedia
Cussel an Tavas Kernuak is an organisation promoting the revival of the Cornish language
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

, and is represented on the Cornish Language Partnership
Cornish Language Partnership
The Cornish Language Partnership is a representative body that was set up in Cornwall, United Kingdom in 2005 to promote and develop the use of the Cornish language in Cornwall...

. The CLC encourages research into the Cornish of all periods but supports the teaching and dissemination of modern (or Late)
Modern Cornish
Modern Cornish is a variety of the revived Cornish language. It is sometimes called Revived Late Cornish or Kernuack Dewethas, to distinguish it from other forms of contemporary revived Cornish....

 rather than medieval (or Middle) Cornish. The CLC sees itself as continuing the work of those who attempted to save the language in its last days in the 18th century.

The choice to use Late Cornish reflects the desire, shared by Henry Jenner
Henry Jenner
Henry Jenner FSA was a British scholar of the Celtic languages, a Cornish cultural activist, and the chief originator of the Cornish language revival....

 and others who began the revival of the language in the early 20th century, to pick up the language where it left off. However, in the 1920s this project had been abandoned and the leaders of the Revival decided to base Cornish on the religious literature of the 14th century, 15th century and early 16th century instead. During the 1980s some Cornish speakers revisited the aims of some of the early revivalists, encouraged by an increase of knowledge of the later phase of Cornish as well as by the fact that this is also the only period of Cornish that possesses a record of how it was pronounced (namely the transcriptions of Edward Lhuyd
Edward Lhuyd
Edward Lhuyd was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He is also known by the Latinized form of his name, Eduardus Luidius....

).

The CLC also argues that Late Cornish is most desirable basis for revival as it represents the historic forms of Cornish in the period when Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

was beginning to industrialise and a modern Cornwall was being born. Cornish as used by the CLC aims to follow the latest historical spellings and pronunciation, unlike Jenner's spellings which followed his own adaptations.

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