Cornish isn't dead when so many are speaking it

JANE! A vynn'ta kavoes te?" It's half past eight on a Saturday and I'm reaching for the coffee. As an ex-arts worker I have a caffeine habit. I'm not too pleased when the phone rings. "Piw yw henna?" screams the missus. "Ny won," I shout back and I haven't had a sip or sniff of the three cupfuls of Santos and Java I take each morning.

My displeasure turns to annoyance when I pick up the phone and find it's a BBC journalist. Annoyance turns to mild anger when she tells me that United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has declared that Kernewek is a dead language. Do I want get into an argument with a journalist or drink coffee? I panic and give out the home numbers of Dyghtyer Displegya Kernewek (Cornish Language Development Manager) and the Soodhek Displegya Kernewek (Cornish Language Development Officer). Drog yw genev Jenefer hag Elizabeth.

Half a cup in and I reflect on Friday, when I attended the funeral of one of the students in my Kernewek class. It was held at Penmount Crematorium. Brian Davidson was a good old boy and he had been learning to sing Kan an Sider, a Breton drinking song translated into Kernewek. His good friend Ann Kennedy-Trusscott sang a song in Kernewek – Farwel by Richard Gendall – as a tribute to Brian. It was very moving.

I took the children into gym, passing the "Truru a'gas dynnargh" sign on the way, and then went to Plen an Gwari – Playing Place – to speak with Kernewek speaking film-maker, Paul Farmer, who is making a film in Kernewek about gig-rowing. I use the bilingual name because nearly every street sign in Plen an Gwari – Playing Place – is bilingual. That's one name in English and another in this "dead language". Meur ras rag an koffi Paul.

After dropping the children back home I met up my sister and her grandchildren. She is a Language Bard as well. We exchanged a word or two in Kernewek before I had to rush back to Truro for the annual meeting of Kesva an Taves Kernewek – The Cornish Language Board.

Three hours with 20 top Kernewek speakers debating complex matters such as marketing, the future structure of the examination system and developing a brand may be a bit rarefied for most people in Cornwall – but it is anything but "extinct". Anyway, the meeting was all very positive and of course all conducted in Kernewek.

I finish off the evening by picking up my reading partner Bert Biscoe and going down to Mullion to read poems in Kernewek to supporters of National Coast Watch. On the way we plan our trip to London for a book launch where I will be reading poetry in Kernewek to The Poetry Society.

On Sunday and I wrote a column for Living Cornwall – the Cornish section in WMN2 every Tuesday. Perhaps Unesco doesn't read the Western Morning News on a Tuesday.

I also answered an e-mail in Kernewek from American academic Ben Bruch, who wants to transfer all the Cornish Language films from video to Blue Ray. This is a huge task and we're not talking archive here, just the broadcast quality stuff.

Finally I get around to writing a piece about a panel of 30 linguistic experts from Unesco, who in the obviously dodgy Atlas Of The World's Languages In Danger declare that Kernewek is "extinct".

Yes, they trot out that tired old English language supremacist lie about Dolly Pentreath being the last speaker. Surely this clap-trap belongs with the other historical un-truths concerning Cornish history such as Cornwall and Devon being one single Celtic kingdom, Athelstan was a good chap and didn't really ethnically cleanse Devon, Michael Joseph and Thomas Flamank were just tax protesters, the Cornish Holocaust never really happened, Cornwall fought for the king in the so-called Civil War and Methodism was not suppressed by the Church of England.

They have also declared that Manx Gaelic is also a dead language. These "linguists" need to get to Lowender Peran, where I've heard people freely talking in Manx and singing in their language as they dance Hotch En Ey (probably the spelling is wrong but I'm not Manx and I'm not a UN "linguist" but I know enough about Manx to know that it is certainly not dead). They've even got a Manx medium primary school on Mann.

I'm not saying that the Atlas Of The World's Languages In Danger contains falsified evidence such as the now-disgraced Historical Atlas Of South West England, but I question the method of the 30 linguists. I would never be so arrogant as to condemn a language as being "extinct" without at least Googling the fact first. They might have come up with Mathi Clarke's excellent pod-casts, splann dres eghenn yns i. They could have even checked with Mercator – an academic group that reports on the minority language of Europe, including Kernewek. Why didn't the Unesco group check with our own UK Government? The Government ratified the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages for Kernewek in 2003. So why didn't these UN linguists check with the Council of Europe?

Now every time I consider the UN's incompetence it takes two cups of coffee to dull my anger to annoyance. Surely these guys should be researching exactly how the people of Sudan, Iraq, Congo, Afghanistan, etc. can be helped and what we can do omma yn Kernow dh'aga weres i.

We don't not need the UN interfering with our language, helping extreme English nationalists and corrupt academics to bury it. But there are many small nations around the world that need UN help – with clean water, enough to eat, shelter and basic human rights.

Pol Hodge is a fully-qualified Kernewek teacher (PGCE and Language Bard)