Some trends in the Revival (GanS 8)

It may be useful to take a quick look at the fate of some of the Cornish language organisations, and see what's happened to them over the last few decades. This may help us to look ahead to what may develop with the Single Written Form, always bearing in mind the Danish proverb which says, 'Prediction is always difficult, but especially predicting the future'. Don'cha just love that under-stated Norse humour!

a. Kesva an Tavas ['Taves' in KK] Kernewek.
A body established in 1967 by Gorseth Kernow and the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies to promote the Cornish language, and all its speakers. In 1987, as detailed elsewhere in these pages, it was taken over by the Kernewek Kemyn coterie in their 'deniable' Truro Putsch, after which the organisation's policy was altered so that it only supported KK, and it actively tried to suppress all the other forms of the language. This change was reflected in the respelling of the body's name into Kemyn (Tavas –> Taves). These acts of sly treachery are something that their protagonists have tried to cover up ever since, with incomplete success, just as they've tried to cover up their later misdeeds.

b. Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek.
The Cornish Language Fellowship, Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek, was originally set up—like the Kesva—to support all Cornish speakers, However, like its sister organisation, it too was taken over and subverted in a similar way to the Kesva. At present, it is deliberately misleading about its policy towards non-Kemyn forms of the language: while it claims to support all forms of Cornish, the only one it actually supports is Kemyn, under the threadbare excuse that 'that is the form used by the majority of members'. All other forms of Cornish are marginalised, and are not printed in their magazine, An Gannas, or allowed to feature in any of their events or on any of their products or publications. These other forms are thus demoted into unofficial, lesser languages of hearth and home; even their very existence is denied: "Oh, nobody really uses that old stuff anymore".

c. Agan Tavas.
Agan Tavas was founded in 1987 for fluent speakers of Unified Cornish, but later widened its initial remit so as to support and promote all historically attested forms of the language. It is quite open about its views on the language: it does not support KK, or any other invented version of 'Cornish'. It actually does support and promote all these forms of the language, rather than just paying false lip-service to them. It is able and willing to do this, even if some of those forms are not those 'used by the majority of members', in sharp contrast to the Kowethas and its weasel-worded statements.

d. Towards the Single Written Form.
Interestingly enough, we tend to find that the followers of these historically-attested forms of the language are mostly able to coexist and cooperate. Why, even some of the followers of KK seem perhaps to have found a new spirit of compromise and a willingness to talk. Mind you, I don't know what their KK Kemynocrats will have to say about those seditiously democratic rumblings.

Gosh!—if everything goes all 'sweetness and light',
. . . and people start being nice to each other,
. . . I'd be out of a job, and that'd be catastrophic :(
. . . but then so'd the Kemynocrats as well!

:) :) :)