October 15, 2022 • 69 mins
Language, authenticity and the Celtic revival are among topics discussed when Sovay is joined by Grand Bard, Pol Hodge, Deputy Grand Bard, Jenefer Lowe and Cornwall Council’s Principle Culture Lead, Mark Trevethan, for the first episode in the MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh 2022 podcast series.
MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh (tr. Mussel Gathering | Precious Fragments) is a multi-platform project using sculpture-making and conversation to explore contemporary Cornish cultural identity. To find out more please visit www.sovayberriman.co.uk/MESKLA-Brewyon-Drudh.
Through workshops, podcasts, a symposium and an exhibition the project invites people to share their experiences of identity and Cornwall, and their views on Cornish culture and its relationship to land, language, heritage, tourism, the Cornish diaspora and much more.
These podcasts record conversations between me, Sovay Berriman, and guests whose research or lived experienced touches on the project themes. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own. All conversations are carried out with a spirit of generosity and openness, creating space for the discussions to twist and turn.
Please note: These podcasts were recorded in different locations and with a range of equipment. As such the sound quality varies and at times external factors are more present than ideal in the recordings.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:16):
Dydh da ha dynnargh pub huni dhe bodkastow MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh ostyes genev, Sovay Berriman
Hello and welcome everyone to the MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh podcasts hosted by me Sovay Berriman.
MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh is a multi platform project using sculpture making and conversation to explore contemporary cornish cultural identity through workshops,
(00:47):
podcasts,
a symposium and an exhibition.
The project invites people to share their experiences of identity and cornwall and their views on cornish culture and its relationship to land language,
heritage,
tourism,
the cornish diaspora and much,
much more.
(01:10):
These podcasts recalled conversations with guests whose research or lived experience touches on the project themes,
the views,
thoughts and opinions expressed at the speaker's own All conversations are carried out with a spirit of generosity and openness,
creating space for the discussions to twist and turn and I'm very grateful to all who have taken part for this first podcast in the series.
(01:42):
I'm joined by Pol Hodge Grande Bard of Gorsedh Kernow,
Jenefer Lowe,
Deputy Grand Bard of Gorsedh Kernow and Mark Trevethan,
also a bard and principal culture lead for cornwall council. During his tenure as Cornish language lead at the council.
(02:02):
Mark was involved in the Kernewek contribution to the IndyLan project.
IndyLan is a virtual learning app for indigenous languages.
We joined the conversation with Mark telling us more about the project.
Govenek a'm beus hwi dhe omlowenhe goslowes orto.
(02:25):
I hope you enjoy listening.
Yeah,
so it was um that's a project involving six languages from across europe basque galley.
Thean Sammy Scots Scots,
Gaelic and court cornish.
So we were actually asked to take part because they were developing this app already and wanted a critically endangered language.
(02:47):
So they could sort of look at the impact of the app on a smaller language.
So basically we were treated like a charity case that sort of needed a bit of help.
But actually it's been quite interesting learning process,
meeting those other language communities and seeing that actually we've got a lot of things already in place that they haven't thought about and yeah,
(03:10):
that we can sort of take part in projects like that as equals.
Really,
That sounds fantastic.
Um and do you feel like it makes me feel more confident and secure somehow to hear that?
Yeah,
well,
I think one of the surprising things about my work and just sort of getting involved in cornish language generally is you think,
(03:33):
oh,
okay,
not many people speak this language,
it's just a few 1000 but I've met people from around the world through that language.
Um it's not just cornish speakers,
I mean,
other Celtic language speakers,
speakers of minority languages.
So it's for me,
it's just really opened all sorts of doors to meeting people from around the world and and people from communities have gone through similar things as well as you've got quite a,
(04:00):
like a cut through quite an instant connection then with people from,
say the Sami community in lapland at first sight is something quite different,
but actually their experience is quite similar.
So it's really interesting to meet those cultures and poll your,
(04:21):
your fluid cornish speaker,
can you speaker,
aren't you?
Castle?
Oh hath around I go Greg read me the or bury Golden Tree productions,
(04:43):
trilithium Castle Ganz will Coleman in europe.
So what I've just said there is,
yes,
I'm fluent speaker,
so is my cat,
I'm lucky that my wife's a cornish speaker as well,
so we speak a bit of cornish at home and I work as the cornish language officer for Golden Tree Productions and that means that I'm able to talk cornish for an hour or two and work with my boss will Coleman,
(05:16):
that sounds great.
I really want to meet your cat now.
And jennifer,
do you do you speak cornish also?
Yes,
I'm also a speaker and I've worked with cornish for a number of years,
so I started learning as a teenager,
so that's been all my life really great.
(05:38):
And is that a thing like within the gorse?
Like I've always known about the golf,
but like from a teenager really,
I found out about it,
but it also seemed like some sort of mystical thing that's just a bit distant.
So is it a thing that all bards speak cornish?
(05:58):
I would like to pick that one up,
please.
No,
they don't.
We have language bards,
but we have bars that are experts in music dialect,
visual arts,
the full gamut,
really,
obviously not all of them use an OIC in their artistic endeavors,
(06:21):
I'm gonna have to meet the visual art bard obviously,
and you mentioned dialect there and that was a question I was going to bring up.
What what do you think about the differences or the importance of dialect and language to and how they connect to identity?
(06:43):
I suppose we'll certainly with the gorse if we have separate awards for them,
but in mainstream funding thing of the arts,
there's very little money for cornish language,
there's no money for cornish dialect.
So it all just tends to be ghetto wise is over that cornish stuff.
So you get a lot of funders or english people generally don't understand the difference between english and dialect.
(07:11):
So I don't know,
can you speak a bit of speak broad for a little bit so people can understand the difference can answer,
but it always feels a bit false when somebody asks you to talk in the dialect and it feels like to me it just feels like something I talk with my family,
(07:32):
but then I,
you know,
I went away for a long time,
but even before I went away,
people at school would sort of laugh if you said something with with a strong accent or something and over time you sort of think,
okay,
I just want to get my point made,
so you kind of moderated.
Um but so I think it's a real shame for me personally that,
(07:54):
you know,
like here now I'm not speaking with that accent,
but we need to work for the council.
Yeah,
because of that work for the council,
I didn't know,
but I think it's a shame that there's a bit of a split between that,
that dialect and the language where,
(08:16):
you know people,
it tends to be people who've got an education and are able to go and learn the language,
whereas other people who sort of feel daunted by learning a language might have the dialect.
It'd be great if we could bring the two together more.
I'd find that really exciting.
(08:39):
The Golden Tree Productions project of taking language in schools is really important.
I mean,
I can remember petitioning the council about that again,
early nineties sort of time and a fear or a bit of feedback I had at that time was well,
(09:01):
it might,
tourists might not like it,
they won't understand things.
I think that I think for me it's really,
it's only,
we're guilty of ourselves,
we only use it for,
you know,
for um like family or friends and stuff and you don't hear it being used in the news and I think it was that example of Birmingham when they had their new trams and they had a nice posh,
(09:26):
you know,
Queen's english announcements and they all reacted against it and got a nice browning accent on their triumph announcement,
you never,
you never hear that kind of thing happening here,
all our announcements should be with our accents really.
So you hear in different context rather than just dialect stories.
I mean the interesting thing too is when I've had students who are older students and several years ago,
(09:52):
particularly elderly people who were um learning cornish,
but who had strong dialect and then the,
the,
the similarities or where language went into dialect becomes really,
really obvious and they get incredibly excited at finding that the words they've used all of their lives Actually come from the language and you don't find it so much now because the generations are losing it.
(10:16):
But back in the,
in the 80s in particular,
I remember um sort of elderly,
a couple of elderly ladies shouldn't say that about my age now anyway,
at that point from San Ives who were,
and it was,
it was,
it was really interesting to teach that little group because they all had strong dialect.
(10:37):
And the other thing,
your point about tourists,
we did actually back in,
oh gosh,
I think about 2012 or something,
there was the tourist board actually put something managed to squeeze a couple of questions into their survey of tourists about what they thought about language um and cornish culture generally and it was a really positive response,
(10:57):
which should have really helped.
I'm not sure it was really um taken up that much,
but the,
but it was,
it was interest and you know,
would you like to learn a few words,
yes,
and it was,
it was sort of something that could do with being looked at a bit more.
I started learning cornish.
I get a good old while ago now and I'm certainly not a great speaker.
(11:21):
But what I really noticed the thing that was quite a sort of watershed sort of moment um was that as soon as we started learning it,
the kind of rhythm,
the cadence of it,
the structure of sentences,
they just all made sense in a way that I'd never like,
(11:46):
I'm also not a very good speaker of german and french but I've got G.
C.
S.
E.
S but I've never had that experience in trying to learn a language before but it just felt,
I don't know like it fit.
There was a fit that's probably because you're a cornish person and so you will pick up those hooks that are in dialect hooks in the place names and there are certain phonetics,
(12:15):
certain sounds that are common,
like a long long g comin to the language in common to the dialect.
So it'll be easy,
you will pick up those things and if you get somebody with a nice broad accent and they actually learn to a level of fluency um it'd just sound nice but was it you that said it's like a half remembered language for us,
(12:43):
we sort of think we've forgotten it.
But actually because of what you're saying that the rhythm in the way we speak the place names,
somebody said it's like a half remembered language.
So muscle memory.
Well we're just used to these,
you know these places like intrigue of ethanol,
(13:04):
these sort of long names that tumble out of our mouths and we're used to saying that without further thought that if I was to learn korean it would be completely fresh.
Whereas actually we've got this inbuilt memory of bits of the language.
We just can't string a sentence together.
And that for me was the revelation.
I just went to my first cornish class,
(13:25):
wanted to say I could tell the time or something and hearing it spoken was just such a revelation.
It hadn't occurred to me it could be used that way.
And yeah,
so it was sort of unraveling for me of,
I wanted to learn it but just hadn't heard it spoken and it really quite an emotional reaction to it really when when did you were proper cornish language for the first time?
(13:51):
For the first time.
Perhaps bits in the 80s.
But but properly it was when I went to the London class in its after the order in Alias in 2005 I'm interested in your thoughts on the connection of language and identity and the importance of language to retaining cultural identity or perhaps setting parameters for it.
(14:17):
So the reason I ask this is I hear,
you know,
it's not uncommon that I might hear.
Oh well the cornish language has been rebuilt Like in the late 19th,
early 20th century and so therefore it's almost invented and it seems to me like what we're touching on here,
(14:39):
not that,
but people still say a lot.
Every,
every language spoken today is invented to some,
some extent,
you know,
words like computer Internet website,
they've been invented in the English language.
We've invented things like gina Montiel case rolls with glee as v.
(15:03):
So we invented those words just as much as the english or people's or the anglo sphere,
invented words for technological things.
Anyway,
it's just a marker that cornish is a living language.
Yeah,
that seems to make sense.
(15:24):
And then so to think about the connection of it to one's cultural identity,
Identity.
I mean it feels really important to me as part of my identity,
that it exists and that I can say the occasional word,
I can sign off an email or greet someone or something.
Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
(15:46):
The importance of you must have come across this mark with the indian land project.
Well,
yeah,
but actually you saying that I was more thinking about,
you know,
like people in my family,
I had builders helping out on the house and they sort of none of them speak cornish,
but that knowledge of it and the first reaction is old I don't speak cornish.
(16:08):
So it's like an other thing to them and then let them speak a bit longer and they're really attached to and they really see it is quite important to their cornish nous and um they wouldn't probably put it into words that they value what the cornish language community is doing,
but if it was taken away,
they'd be really up in arms,
(16:29):
You know,
they definitely see it as such a feature of cornwall and there's,
I really,
um I kind of shared some of the experience,
she describes mark of having lived and worked away and finding that you needed to change or shift your language and like it just happens automatically.
(16:55):
That's what I found and there is a little grief there in that.
Well,
I think,
you know,
I could see that happening to other people when I lived in London.
That wasn't,
that wasn't specific school upsetting is coming home and finding that same experience here and you know that one example is that with friends,
(17:16):
you know,
in the pub and so you can't say that I can,
you know,
I think I just said,
well where is he too,
it wasn't anything upsetting.
It was like you can't talk like that if you're an educated person and it's quite deeply ingrained,
it's just,
it's not healthy.
The jennifer are,
(17:37):
you sounded like you were agreeing then Yeah,
I mean,
I think that's a change here too,
that it's become because it's the dialect has tended to disappear,
it's become weakened maybe that it's become less common and therefore it's,
it is and,
and it happens with in many places with dialect in particular and language to a certain extent that it gets seen as,
(18:00):
um,
because it's minority.
You need the majority language,
you need the majority way of speaking in order to advance.
And therefore it's seen as something,
um,
that will hold you back originally.
And as part of the decline of languages is when minority language,
when they seem to be,
um,
not not an asset and if anything,
the opposite.
(18:21):
And I think that's turned around an awful lot.
And you look at a lot of language communities where the language in particular has become more of an asset and to a certain extent the dialect,
I'm not sure we're quite there yet here,
but it is important.
The other thing is that languages actually reflect the land and the culture and the environment that they come from.
You know,
(18:41):
that the numbers of words you have for particular things reflects the culture.
Um,
so you know,
there's a big emphasis that there's lots of words for,
for country or parts of country and so on in cornish in the same way as another.
Um,
you know,
the old adage is the Eskimos have 26 words for snow.
You know,
it's that sort of thing that the,
(19:01):
that the language and the culture are inextricably mixed.
It mirrors the culture part part of culture of course is history and something that all cornish people,
whether they speak dialect or not,
whether they speak colonel rick or not is a sort of PTSd from the historical trauma of what went on in the prayer book rebellion because basically most of cornwall was cornish speaking.
(19:31):
It had cornish as its mother tongue,
basically all west of Bodman and the southern edges of bodmin moor and one or two spots in north cornwall and that was wiped out overnight and everyone forced to learn english.
(19:51):
And that sort of trauma is sort of keenly felt by everybody.
We all,
we all speak english now,
but the majority of us used to speak and,
and the changes around that,
that's some kind of effect sort of a shock on,
(20:16):
on the,
on the cornish psyche and,
and that's something experienced by all people no matter what they speak.
It's interesting how different communities deal with re reviving languages or there's also a term actually supplied a lot to um,
in these days now by linguists to particularly aboriginal languages and native american language of reawakening,
(20:41):
Those languages that have been dormant for a while,
which is a much nicer term really of reawakening something which is really important and a part of your,
your past.
But there were,
there were very,
I was talking a few years ago to somebody from one of the,
and I can't remember which one of the first nation native american languages who said that their problem was that although the language had been passed down to a certain extent and there were still a number of speakers um it was seen as something really precious and ceremonial.
(21:13):
Therefore the speakers,
the last speakers of the language were really anti it being used for everyday life so that their their way they were reviving it against the odds in a way because they're feeling was it was this precious thing that shouldn't be sullied by using it to go down the shop and buy a point of,
you know,
go to the pub and buy a pint of beer.
Um whereas I think,
(21:35):
you know we would say our aim would be to to make it,
you know,
your normal everyday language.
So the different attitudes according to your history,
I think I think that was very true of the early days of the Gorsuch.
Yes that corniche was used exclusively in the ceremonies of the gore says but not in everyday life when are reawakening happened is debatable,
(22:01):
but I would probably place it around about the seventies um formation of the newly formed cornish language board because I think they're different stages because because you're revivals going back to the early 20th century,
late 19th century,
really seeds of it.
(22:23):
So it's just not as a community community language,
you're probably looking from the seventies on it wasn't hearing it sung,
I don't know,
I just get the impression hearing it sung particularly by Brendan then you're starting to lose that purely ceremonial thing,
it's starting to be more of a social thing.
(22:43):
And then did that feed down into be coming into more of a sort of everyday social language?
Quite,
quite possibly.
But Brenda wooden was a bard and all the cornish songs were written by Richard Kendall,
also a bard.
So it's quite interesting,
(23:05):
they were instrumental in in re awakening as a community language.
I think it's partly about critical mass to the interest when the interest grows to a certain amount,
then you've got enough people that answer isolate,
so isolated from each other to actually start speaking.
And there were Children being talked to in the seventies and the music revival was going alongside the language revival.
(23:28):
So I think there was a bit of a touch paper point then,
because you actually had enough people to make that start to become a reality.
It's interesting what you say about that talking about,
you know,
the preciousness keeping the language just for precious moments or using it for the every day and just sort of connecting that to more contemporary politics.
(23:58):
I suppose that we've been going through this experience of a sort of protectionist populist set of attitudes within politics.
And that does that actually begin to sort of suffocate suffocate culture and suffocate things rather than allowing something to be mundane.
(24:25):
I mean,
I often say,
I think wondrous things are within the mundane,
they're not on a Plinth.
So if someone were to say later in kennewick,
in a,
in a shop,
I would be like that,
that's marvelous.
And particularly if it wasn't a tourist shops selling a cushion of Poldark on it,
(24:46):
But yeah,
just,
I don't know,
laundry or whatever.
I think that for me was the unexpected thing about learning cornish.
I sort of seen it as okay,
this is important to me as a cornish person.
But actually,
I think the exciting thing about it is that actually you meet people who want to do new things with it.
(25:08):
So like film,
songs,
music,
all sorts of things and you just think,
oh,
this is actually,
it's not just keeping our heritage,
it's actually creating new culture and you just don't know where it's going to go and that I find that really exciting and invigorating.
Maybe there's something in that as well around again,
(25:28):
connecting to how social attitudes are changing.
So rather than a sort of top down direction,
oh,
those poor people won't be able to understand this.
So we'll do it this way.
Kind of trusting audiences to,
as you say,
kind of just enjoy the sound and familiarize themselves with the sound and the cadence of it.
(25:54):
And slowly the language just becomes more commonplace.
It is,
it's about returning the language of the people,
basically because language is only known by its speakers,
you know,
it's,
it's not,
nobody owns the language,
it's in the mouths of speakers and it will change and it will develop and it should do otherwise.
It's not living absolutely,
(26:14):
but to achieve that,
to get it back to the people,
you have to overcome several centralist imperialistic forces government.
I was gonna say,
could you say a bit more about that pole?
So do you do you mean that you you need to one needs to work within the structures of of something that isn't yours?
(26:41):
Um It's sort of difficult to explain.
College has been recognized under the european charter of regional minority languages.
Sorry,
for using the E word to all our Brexit fans out there,
but it's also as a place under the framework convention for the protection of national minorities as well.
(27:05):
Now,
although the UK government ratified these Council of europe charters,
Glass,
Council of europe,
not european union.
Um the thing is,
is they've dragged their heels,
there's no central government funding for the cornish language.
So when we go and see our Celtic brothers and sisters in say Wales,
(27:31):
they have a fantastic amount of sort of resources and stuff.
So the very act of speaking cornish is it's almost like um,
your manifesting sort of independent spirit and that attracts a lot of people.
(27:51):
Um,
but the forces of Imperialism,
english imperialism are huge.
I think it's how you create the opportunities within existing systems,
so that the language is seen um,
is with the same intrinsic value as other languages and as the majority language and it's the ability to do that,
(28:14):
which which which helps.
Um because that when you can raise the value in people's perceived value in people's eyes and give the opportunities for them to simply come across it and not have to,
It's not somewhere in a box that you've got to go and unlock,
but it's around you.
That's when it starts to be owned again by people.
(28:37):
I had a funny experience.
I went to see Ramstein Inn in Munich and I found myself chanting Deutschland,
Deutschland with 50,000 other Germans having,
having just eaten a large sausage in a,
in a bit of bread.
(28:57):
It's that sort of collective,
you know,
it's a similar feeling you get when,
when we sing broke off at the end of the gore says it's that sort of collectivism realizing you're not alone.
Um I can't think of anything more lonely than learning a minority language in a bed set.
(29:25):
I hope lots of people are learning well in an english city that doesn't have enough people for a,
a thing wherein,
I mean,
I think it's written in the bible and man does not live by zoom alone.
Thinking about,
(29:46):
you mentioned about Celtic brothers and sisters,
could you mention something about that,
that connection of the Celtic nations.
I mean,
again,
it's something I've always felt really strongly,
but then learned was told about the sort of Celtic revivalists after I'd already been feeling Celtic just just because,
(30:13):
you know,
I grew up in,
in cornwall and and that's how people spoke.
What thing,
that's something that is really powerfully feel when you go to Brittany,
if you go to Wales or man partly the reception you get from the people there,
they were really,
you know,
they're just so excited and appreciate,
(30:36):
you know,
meeting people from cornwall as fellow Celtic,
um you know,
citizens,
but but also,
you know,
you sort of,
you see,
okay,
particularly in Wales and Brittany,
you see the place names,
you see very similar things.
Um and yeah,
I think it's,
it's to me it feels most powerful when you go there and it's a shame more young people don't have that opportunity to go and and take part in inter Celtic things because there is that shared,
(31:07):
that shared identity and everything once you experience it,
unfortunately we just don't have enough opportunities here in call to experience it directly,
really point of information.
The Celtic countries are Scotland Ireland Ireland man Wales Brittany and cornwall uh Information,
(31:31):
but we've got things like the Celtic Congress which was formed in 1904,
we have the Celtic Media festival,
we have the Celtic league,
there's lots of festivals around,
including our own brilliant Lawanda Perrin,
(31:53):
which for ordinary people in cornwall,
I think that's the first sort of maybe the first step of having the whole pack together,
I think things like that are more important to me than those organized structures because that doesn't,
that that means something to us who know about it,
but it's things like low end up Aaron there used to be an inter Celtic water sports sports festival,
(32:19):
things like that where you're bringing people together that aren't going to go to committee meetings but will take part in music,
dance sports and things and um and then you get a real appreciation.
Okay,
it's not just us sort of following something local.
It is Celtic,
it's also interesting if you take,
(32:39):
I mean I've taken,
I take performers and so on over to the big inter Celtic fest from Brittany for a year and also the pan Celtic when you take a young band or a young group of dancers or whatever over um and they are on a stage alongside Wales Brittany Scotland etcetera.
The effect in terms of the confidence in their own culture and actually it it validates what they're doing and what they feel at home and they bring that back with them and it's a real experience and it's it's a lovely thing to watch actually that,
(33:12):
you know that they,
how much they gain from that interaction with other Celtic nations.
Can I ask you just to clarify that's really positive to hear,
jennifer,
but I just wanted to ask a clarifying point,
my understanding was that Guy Alethea or other parts of northern Spain had been welcomed into the Celtic nations family.
(33:39):
Um It well,
yes,
that depends on a standpoint,
I mean the DeLorean festival includes Galicia and Asturias who both consider themselves Celtic,
the,
the the the core Celtic countries that that,
that paul was describing all have speaker Celtic language.
Um Kallithea historias do not,
(34:01):
they have their own um own languages which are dialects of spanish to to a greater or lesser extent they share some cultural links in terms of,
well,
certainly in terms of prehistory,
but then,
you know,
actually,
so does a lot of europe really Celtic originally um and traditions around bagpipes etcetera,
(34:22):
they were welcomed in um particularly to Lorien um spectacular and and and simply because they felt that way.
Uh so if you're a purist about it,
you will tend to stick with the six core countries um but certainly themselves feel very strongly so I think,
(34:44):
I think the thing is um the cornwall wasn't considered a Celtic country until 1904 when we were actually let into the Celtic congress,
Henry Henry Jenner published a handbook of the cornish language and he went to Brittany to less 11 and made a speech in cornish and loads of Britain ran up to him and said,
we understood that that all happened in 1904 and then after that we were considered a Celtic country,
(35:10):
but we're going back to that,
that language thing again.
So I'm not being purist about it,
but in modern times,
the cults really know how to have a party and we produce some of the most astonishing art in every media known and there's a lot of people say,
(35:35):
oh yeah,
well,
you know,
we'd love to belong to that Celtic family.
It's a really strange thing.
I don't understand why there's not like a Germanic festival where the english get together with the dutch and the Germans and I don't know,
roast meat and drink beer.
I mean,
I think maybe parts of my identity considered english might might be dusted off if I could join in such a Germanic festival,
(36:07):
but I mean that's all hypothetical,
the fact is that,
that there there are brilliant inter Celtic festivals all over and just thinking about that as well and thinking about these dates etcetera.
Again,
I,
you know,
I hear it in,
(36:29):
I hear it in pharmacy,
I also work as a plumber,
so I go in,
go into people's homes and just get chatting and it's really common that people might say,
yeah,
but it's not really an authentic cultural identity,
is it?
Like how can you evidence that?
Um what,
(36:49):
what's your view on that?
I mean,
I can almost guess,
but for the same for the sake of our conversation about this nation of authenticity.
Um well I would say for a start actually,
if you look at commentators from Karu onwards and and probably before that um the notion of cornwall as um and as,
(37:16):
as a country,
as a nation was there very early on,
you know,
you look at your charters,
Judah times,
it was sort of England Scotland Wales and cornwall.
Um so there's obviously a notion there and and right through the history and the commentators all the way through,
comment on the,
(37:36):
the,
the,
the,
the sense of identity,
the sense of foreignness of the writing from an english perspective,
the sense of otherness of cornwall.
So I think it's always been there and you can see that reflected in all of those commentaries from writers,
both internal and external,
um for the last 500 years.
So I think there's that side to it and then there's simply that sort of intrinsic feeling,
(38:00):
You come into sort of ethnicity and issues around chosen ethnicity to that,
you know,
people feel that sense of kinship and attachment to this piece of land and stronger than that.
I kind of feel cheated as well because I sort of flip the question really,
(38:21):
Um I felt partly the ordinary Leah when that was performed in what 2002-2005 and I think,
you know,
people like my mom and my dad went to see it and started talking about,
well there were these plays written in cornish,
that really changed my perception about what the language was about then learning the language and finding out there were more plays,
(38:43):
there was literature,
there was a culture and actually we were,
we were never told about any of this.
So rather than being challenged,
that is this authentic is actually nobody told me about that this authentic heritage and history and that whole narrative is very much taught from the english perspective and it's us that need to reclaim that and be confident to say yes,
(39:09):
it is authentic and it's very rich and that's something you actually hear from.
A lot of,
a lot of people,
I think a lot of people feel that and you also get particularly that I never had the chance to explore that,
but I want my Children and my grandchildren do because it is that sense of having lost something and needing to its sort of through a glass.
Darkly bits of it back.
(39:31):
I think Mark's use of the word cheated is very relevant and pertinent.
Absolutely.
It is cheated.
Um it's not a case of responding to people that tell you that your culture and the way you live is somehow not authentic or any kind of nonsense like that.
(40:01):
It just exists.
Um cornish cornish language,
cornish identity,
cornish history,
cornish politics exists.
Get over it.
The interesting thing to me is when people seem to feel threatened by that,
why it's as if you're challenging a status quo or a frame of reference they have in their heads that then says,
(40:28):
we don't like this and we're threatened by it.
And I've always found it really strange when people seem to be extremely anti against and dismissive of cornish culture,
cornish language and take that view that almost as I say,
almost as if they're threatened by it.
Well,
the elephant in the room again,
(40:49):
is english imperialism,
which,
which,
you know,
with BBC spotlight southwest,
you know,
the,
the english stuff is rammed down your throat every time.
You know,
there's a de facto ban on cornish language,
BBC spotlight give an example of that.
(41:11):
People have been given interviews and they put the odd word of cornish in the middle of something and they've been asked to repeat the segment without the cornish.
That's fascinating.
That's fascism.
That's too strong.
I think actually,
most people just don't know how to deal with it.
It's not just cornish,
(41:32):
you don't,
you don't hear welsh being spoken on mainstream BBC or anything and you don't hear Tamil or immigrant languages either.
And I just don't think Britain is set up to deal with other languages really well,
there again,
an argument that Britain,
(41:52):
do you mean the United Kingdom or do you mean Britain?
Well,
either,
because what I do mean is that we need,
I think we're getting better at being more confident and being more positive about what we're about and actually saying this is this is how we want to present ourselves.
And I think that's part of the that,
you know,
for me that's really important to be able to say,
(42:14):
look,
we've got these things,
I don't think people are really interested in other people's histories,
i ours,
but they might be more willing to engage with,
you know,
new things that we're doing different stories.
It's always that human story that people can click with easier than a challenge of identity.
(42:35):
Um,
so yeah,
I'm interested in how do you actually,
rather than get the BBC to show a few words on a news clip,
how do we get whole programs on the BBC tom from our perspective,
it's a strange thing cornwall,
isn't it?
It's different in terms of its constitutional position in our head of state is the Duke of cornwall,
(43:01):
not her majesty,
the queen.
And I don't know,
millions of pains go into the duchy of cornwall every year,
but at the same time we don't have a team in the commonwealth games,
you know?
So we're,
I don't know,
it just seems one minute we're a shire came to when it suits the powers that be and,
(43:26):
and the next,
we're something something different,
but we're always on the losing end of it.
Um,
just look at them.
Well,
lots of things.
Everyone says,
oh,
if you talk to anybody around the UK and they saw was a lovely part of the world.
Why haven't we got any national parks?
If it's lovely,
(43:48):
why don't we got any national parks not lovely enough to have those,
the way they run or whether you want them or not is irrelevant.
The fact that we don't have them,
even though everyone agrees there are bits of cornwall are very beautiful,
right?
Um,
other things like prisons,
I know this may be a bit left of field,
(44:10):
there are three prisons in devon and there's none in cornwall and having,
you know,
if your life goes,
if if your life goes off the rails and you being,
you get sent to prison doing custodial time,
people in cornwall suffer twice once for the sentence and once for having a complete cut off from,
(44:35):
from support from friends and family.
I agree things are important,
but I don't,
I don't,
I think you could sort of say you could still just be a county of England and argue that services like that hospitals,
prisons,
whatever should be local.
But I don't really see that that's doing anything to change our constitutional status for me.
(44:57):
That's,
that should need to be grounded on our culture identity.
And actually saying there's particular things here that are different that are not being fully recognized and actually we want,
we want those put in place.
And I think it's really interesting seeing what's happened in Wales,
You know,
if you went back 2030 years,
they didn't have that confidence that swagger that they have now,
(45:22):
are you suggesting we do like the welsh did know,
well the element that I am suggesting we do,
I think they've been very clever in using media to project their culture and create all sorts of opportunities.
So if you're a young person in Wales now,
it's not like what learning welsh is pointless.
(45:43):
I know not everybody wants to learn welsh,
but there is a point to learning welsh because you can get a job,
you can take part in those industries and be a part of further projecting that.
I just think it's something that's inclusive.
You can see there's a future for it.
It can grow and do all sorts of things and yeah,
(46:04):
you can see that there's potential for that here,
but our culture is repressed and we have lack of services in,
in education,
prison service,
health service.
We only got one general hospital,
uh,
when they,
I think all of those things are linked in that we don't have any very low degree of self determination things are done to us.
(46:30):
And that includes media and culture as as well.
Well,
that,
that's,
that's true.
But then I think that's um,
that's not just us.
And I think it's been,
if you look at this really interesting,
certainly not,
you know,
and it's really interesting just watching as Mark says Wales same with Scotland and Ireland before that,
about how they have a changed perceptions of the country from outside And by the way in which they presented themselves and also given confidence to young people and young people involved in the debate and I think that's,
(47:05):
that we need to look at those for,
in terms of how that's how that's worked,
because it is quite stark over the last 10,
20 years.
And that's,
I mean,
it seems to me,
well,
I love a murder mystery and Wales has got some fabulous crime dramas that really show off the landscape.
(47:31):
I'm not sure if we should have things showing off the landscape,
but just thinking like they compete with these scanned in oir kind of stuff and they come across as intelligent.
They deal with tough issues that that do affect people's lives.
Like,
yeah,
needing to go to prison or certain medical situations,
(47:52):
isolation,
gender,
sexuality,
they encompass a whole host of things,
whereas,
and the programs we have,
for instance,
around corn ball,
I mean,
I can remember when Wickliffe was on telly,
and then of course,
dr martin,
I mean,
(48:13):
neither of those really had any interest for me at all,
so,
just vastly disappointing.
So,
it's often being presented as a cozier place,
but that's because that's being that's being done by companies outside.
The difference is that the welsh,
those welsh productions are being produced from within Wales with the attitudes that they wish to put there and coming out of welsh culture and welsh experience,
(48:43):
they're not a company coming in and doing it to Wales,
which is what has tended to happen if you look at mainstream productions like Wickliffe and dr martin,
that's what I mean about stereotypes.
It's about changing how you're seen and dismantling those stereotypes and you can only do that from within.
And part of that is actually,
(49:03):
I mean Wales has built up its film culture and and and we've improved quite considerably indigenous culture,
the indigenous film provision if you like,
and and media,
but they also have the ability to do that and influence it and put the,
put the enticements there as well.
(49:25):
And we know that we've got fantastic writers,
we always have done really good at telling stories and at the same time,
we know that there's that interest from around the world because we've got all those lifestyle programs,
things like doc martin that shows that people love things set here,
but we just don't get to tell our stories in film and tv enough so that,
(49:50):
you know,
I just think that's got very powerful opportunity there.
We can't talk about this without mentioning and did demonstrate the kind of um the rougher around the edges,
you know,
(50:11):
aspects that an awful lot of,
I'd say almost the majority of cornish people or people who may not identify as corners that have lived here for a very long time.
Maybe schools here can relate to a lot more than just pasties and cream not to knock Brenda and that's coming off and that's independent productions,
(50:32):
independent shorts.
And then working through film festivals and things rather than the broadcast media and that's why the push around cornish tv and cornish broadcasting because the difference is that,
those sort of productions would be broadcast where there's a possibility within say Wales or Scotland and then maybe networked out.
(50:53):
We don't have that to start with.
So,
so the opportunities and therefore the way of generating the returns on those is not there to enable the bigger productions to happen from within cornwall.
But having said that,
we've got a brilliant independent film sector and we've always punched above our weight and won quite a few prizes at the Celtic Media Festival,
(51:18):
but it's,
but it's quite,
but the,
the audience for that or the ability to get that out to a wide audience is different.
That's that's the thing.
And like you said,
getting getting the income from that,
that's all commissioned and broadcast in other places.
And that's the bit where we've not got the industry,
(51:39):
it's still that extraction really of our our creativity.
So you're,
you're saying,
our creativity is mind and taken away just as much as tin and copper.
Yeah,
I mean,
that's my that's one of my sort of pivots around tourism and the tourist industry.
(52:01):
Um that is an extraction industry.
Um poll jennifer.
D what do you have any thoughts on that?
The tourist industry is just completely out of control at the moment.
It's a very,
very complex issue.
Airbnb,
(52:23):
small hotels pop up campsites are not the same thing.
Um it's just completely,
it's a bit like a gold rush out in the Yukon at the moment.
There's,
there's very little rules,
very little regulation and it's a very complex issue.
(52:45):
Um Like I say,
a small hotel is not the same as a pop up campsite.
I mean,
I I see where you're coming from,
I would agree with you on the extraction.
I think part of that is that the uh the emphasis on tourism,
(53:06):
which when you actually look at the figures,
it's only 11 or 12% of GDP,
it's not the major industry,
but it has a disproportionate effect on on all other industries because of the problems that it does,
because it's out of balance.
Perhaps we've always had tourism and tourism is important part of the economy,
but it's,
it's,
it feels like it's it's out of balance.
(53:27):
The investment being mainly into tourism,
It doesn't give us the kind of um working structure and jobs that allow our young people to stay either.
So you've got that continual move out,
which is not a bad thing if they can come back again,
it's always good to go away and get experience and all the rest of it,
but it's,
it's sort of,
and we've all done it.
(53:48):
Um but we're not,
we're not providing the opportunities and there is a prevailing view of tourism as being the only and the major important industry for cornwall,
which is not correct,
but is fueled by the media and it means your investment isn't going into the areas,
(54:10):
it should be going into the balance the economy.
It's also a very unevenly spread.
I come from true near cam burn,
funny enough,
we don't,
we don't have many sort of rows of second homes and stuff in the middle of Cameron.
(54:34):
Yeah.
But there are other places on the coast which have had their community completely devastated up to 75% of of houses in places like Crown Talk or second or second homes that just holiday,
let's,
so you get the thing where families can't live there,
(54:58):
the school dies completely devastated and at the same time you only got to move a little bit in land and all of that sort of wealth and opportunity or whatever.
It just,
it just,
it isn't,
isn't there,
but it still pushes price,
house prices and everything.
So there are knock on effects right through cornwall now.
(55:18):
Um,
I mean I feel torn about the issues.
I just think it is a problem that's experienced in lots of places and I think it's,
you know,
the nature of tourism in the 20th 21st century has changed and I go on holiday,
I'm equally part of the problems to other communities and if you look at other communities in Wales,
(55:40):
they're talking about a 300% increase.
So for me that's more things were always going to be a destination.
We're lucky enough to live in a beautiful place and that's part of it that people want to come here.
I don't think we're very good at managing and actually trying to yeah,
(56:00):
either tax second homes,
I would personally favor some sort of congestion charge because I think a lot of the impacts from transport and on services,
there's other things.
But you know those,
there's lots of ways if you actually look look outside someone at the lake District,
I mean the bulk of their tourism actually occurs within a national park again.
(56:25):
And so they have control,
they can sort of regulated,
but only up to a point.
I mean,
I I think it is becoming,
it's not just for men,
it's not just Wales,
it's now percolating a lot of other areas and for that reason there's more notice being taken off it.
But the problem is you need the control and the planning control to be able to ensure that the balance is there.
(56:46):
You used the word,
I didn't understand there in cornwall planning because there is such a thing,
you know,
there had,
there have been moves and there have been in cornwall about having,
uh,
for instance,
having to have change of use to take home out of residential use into either a second home or holiday let.
(57:08):
So you could at least cap within communities,
but that requires legislative change that's not within our power and that's part of the problem.
You need more local control in order to be able to do that.
Um,
and you need to actually have a degree of a greater degree of transparency around the figures and the benefits and the losses because the,
(57:31):
so that the importance of it and how far it's out of balance and what you can do is understood more widely and that's not there either.
So you,
are you calling for more control?
I would have said more control,
but also more data,
I think,
you know,
meeting yesterday talking about this that basically we,
we need that the messages that go out all the time is we have,
(57:53):
we must depend on tourism and the actual levels of,
of second homes,
the levels of holiday lets the levels of property and empty properties and so on are not well understood generally because the figures are not out there.
I think there's a recognition that over the last couple of summers there's been too much and actually it's more that it's,
(58:16):
you know,
the spring and autumn where actually you might sustain those businesses a bit,
you know,
a bit more through the years,
the shoulder a month then.
Yeah.
But I suppose that in terms of today's discussion,
i it's interesting looking at Ireland where you go there and you'd expect to go to a lovely pub,
have a Guinness,
see some irish dancing and stuff that's something that we completely,
(58:39):
you know,
that is just people come here for the beaches maybe for the doc marten,
you know tour or whatever And it does feel like that's something that I would like to see us work on to sort of say,
you know,
you're coming here to a very different place and I think like you mentioned the 2012 survey where people did see the language,
(59:00):
the place names,
I think it was 1890% of people saw that as part of the experience and um yeah,
you sometimes get asked or where can I see the cornish language and I don't know how you do that,
but we don't even have a shop or a cafe or there's one cafe in Yuki,
more of that kind of thing where people could experience our culture and that's learning from elsewhere because that is that cultural tourism is important.
(59:30):
It actually fulfills,
its also tends to be around rather than focused on the summer,
but actually being able to make that the experience of the culture is acknowledged outside.
It would be really,
I think that's part of the threat.
I mean obviously it's the numbers,
the physical impact of tourism,
but it's also that sense that,
(59:50):
you know,
you're losing things because it's a sort of international kind of tourism,
you could be anywhere kind of thing going on.
Whereas actually,
if part of the visit is more clearly that you're going to this different place,
I think that would be helpful,
positive that not there's something around that that concerns me around the the chocolate boxing of culture commodification of culture.
(01:00:22):
Yes,
quite so if we make that the culture is part of the destination.
Yes,
that does seem to be sensible.
However,
yeah.
Does the culture get watered down to an extent or made a bit more palatable?
I don't mean like going to Andalusia and then seeing,
(01:00:44):
you know,
flamenco,
flamenco dance and then going back to your english fish and chips or whatever.
It's just sort of just more of a sense that you're aware of it there.
I would,
I'm sure the majority of visitors wouldn't want to go to a cornish wrestling display for example,
but actually if we had those events on and people who were genuinely interested in the culture could come and find out more and the majority of people at least were aware of it.
(01:01:14):
For me that would be okay.
I'd rather that than everybody sort of seeing a fake display or something.
It's also about how you promote yourself as a destination.
This is the thing to are you just simply promoting your beach tourism or are you actually promoting cornwall as a distinct place and with a distinct culture and that's about how we present ourselves,
(01:01:37):
not necessarily putting individual things on,
but actually putting the information out there and that sense of what what cornwall is and encompasses that's uh I think I really like that,
it's come back a few times there,
how we present ourselves and us taking responsibility as a,
(01:02:01):
as a place,
as the people of cornwall and obviously thinking around tourism and the impacts of tourism and sort of overarching cultures of setting the parameters where there's so much linked to like climate change and climate disasters that are happening around the world and other other areas that really suffer from over the top tourism.
(01:02:30):
Um,
I,
we we've not got much time left.
I wondered if there was any sort of last thing anyone had like a burning like I want to say,
I think you're talking about that climate change stuff.
And I think that's another thing where um with cornwall that that link with the land,
(01:02:51):
the landscape isn't just beaches,
it's,
you know,
all of our stories,
you were asking about the authenticity of the culture and I think right from,
you know,
from a baby,
I was always taught,
you know,
the giant built that hill and things like that and I think there's that really soulful connection with the environment here,
(01:03:13):
that that is a part of our culture and it's not just how it looks,
it's just something that came out of the ground.
And so I think there's a really deep connection there that resonates with people around the world in telling stories in creating films and you know,
people coming to visit.
So I think we've got something really positive that that fits with the age now that perhaps like in the last century was seen as us sort of trying to be all hippie ish actually actually feels that we've got something that we can be proud of and be more confident with really,
(01:03:51):
it's quite interesting to Professor Lovelock actually came up with the Gaia hypothesis while he was walking over bodmin moor,
which,
which is,
I know he's fallen out of favor because he supports nuclear power but were virtually an island and we embraced wind generation.
(01:04:18):
The first commercial wind farm in,
in,
in Britain was actually available in north cornwall.
Um,
but we haven't had this subsequent investment in our national grid structure to allow us to have offshore arrays.
Why haven't we got offshore arrays of windmills and lots of jobs being created in our ports.
(01:04:41):
Um,
so we're always at the cutting edge,
but when it comes to the rewards were always at the back of the queue.
Um,
which I find strange.
I think the only thing I'd like to add in really is is that these discussions can often sound a bit not xenophobic,
(01:05:04):
but a bit insular.
And that,
I mean Cornell has always been at the crossroads.
It's always been in the middle of all sorts of connections,
whether it's with Celtic countries with diasporas abroad,
it's always been a welcoming culture and I think it still is the language,
culture is very welcoming of anybody who chooses to engage with it.
And I think it's important that we were still saying that our culture is ours,
(01:05:28):
but it's a welcoming culture.
That's a good point.
We forget to say that because we live with the fact that we're a very outward looking society.
Yes,
we have deep roots,
we are a cornish yet,
but that makes us part of the Celtic family and we haven't been touched on the diaspora all around the world,
(01:05:51):
but it's also people who come to choose to be in corn will choose to engage with cornish culture are very much welcomed.
It's not it's not a sort of closed community in any way really.
Thank you.
And yeah,
there's a huge there's so much more we could talk about with the diaspora and the responsibilities of the diaspora.
(01:06:15):
Um and yeah,
cornish miners relationship with that overarching sort of um colonialism that took them elsewhere,
but I'll have to book you in for another hour basically.
Thank you all so so much,
(01:06:38):
really,
really fascinating and really generous of you to give your time and chance.
Castle resource doc martin,
(01:06:59):
nah and well again of eu correlation street.
Meur ras, a’gas goslowes. thank you for listening.
Further episodes of the MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh podcast can be found on my website.
(01:07:21):
Sovayberriman.co.uk
That's S O V A Y B E R R I M A N dot CO dot U K where you also find guest biographies and resource page of links to further reading on the topics discussed.
(01:07:47):
If you feel inspired to join the mescal conversation about contemporary cornish cultural identity,
please get in touch with me,
Sovay Berriman via my website or social media.
You'll find MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh on facebook,
instagram and twitter.
(01:08:08):
The MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh podcast and project has been made possible due to a wealth of in kind help and support from many parties,
including the Wendy parent festival Goer Seth Colonel cornwall Council's cornish language office,
(01:08:28):
Cresson Kerney cornwall neighborhoods for change and farm with university Found with campus.
The project has been supported using public funding by the national lottery through Arts Council England and further funding has been gratefully received from historic England.
(01:08:54):
Meur ras dhywgh a'gas termyn, agas gweles. thank you for your time.
See you later.
Dydh da ha dynnargh pub huni dhe bodkastow MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh ostyes genev, Sovay Berriman
Hello and welcome everyone to the MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh podcasts hosted by me Sovay Berriman.
MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh is a multi platform project using sculpture making and conversation to explore contemporary cornish cultural identity through workshops,
(00:47):
podcasts,
a symposium and an exhibition.
The project invites people to share their experiences of identity and cornwall and their views on cornish culture and its relationship to land language,
heritage,
tourism,
the cornish diaspora and much,
much more.
(01:10):
These podcasts recalled conversations with guests whose research or lived experience touches on the project themes,
the views,
thoughts and opinions expressed at the speaker's own All conversations are carried out with a spirit of generosity and openness,
creating space for the discussions to twist and turn and I'm very grateful to all who have taken part for this first podcast in the series.
(01:42):
I'm joined by Pol Hodge Grande Bard of Gorsedh Kernow,
Jenefer Lowe,
Deputy Grand Bard of Gorsedh Kernow and Mark Trevethan,
also a bard and principal culture lead for cornwall council. During his tenure as Cornish language lead at the council.
(02:02):
Mark was involved in the Kernewek contribution to the IndyLan project.
IndyLan is a virtual learning app for indigenous languages.
We joined the conversation with Mark telling us more about the project.
Govenek a'm beus hwi dhe omlowenhe goslowes orto.
(02:25):
I hope you enjoy listening.
Yeah,
so it was um that's a project involving six languages from across europe basque galley.
Thean Sammy Scots Scots,
Gaelic and court cornish.
So we were actually asked to take part because they were developing this app already and wanted a critically endangered language.
(02:47):
So they could sort of look at the impact of the app on a smaller language.
So basically we were treated like a charity case that sort of needed a bit of help.
But actually it's been quite interesting learning process,
meeting those other language communities and seeing that actually we've got a lot of things already in place that they haven't thought about and yeah,
(03:10):
that we can sort of take part in projects like that as equals.
Really,
That sounds fantastic.
Um and do you feel like it makes me feel more confident and secure somehow to hear that?
Yeah,
well,
I think one of the surprising things about my work and just sort of getting involved in cornish language generally is you think,
(03:33):
oh,
okay,
not many people speak this language,
it's just a few 1000 but I've met people from around the world through that language.
Um it's not just cornish speakers,
I mean,
other Celtic language speakers,
speakers of minority languages.
So it's for me,
it's just really opened all sorts of doors to meeting people from around the world and and people from communities have gone through similar things as well as you've got quite a,
(04:00):
like a cut through quite an instant connection then with people from,
say the Sami community in lapland at first sight is something quite different,
but actually their experience is quite similar.
So it's really interesting to meet those cultures and poll your,
(04:21):
your fluid cornish speaker,
can you speaker,
aren't you?
Castle?
Oh hath around I go Greg read me the or bury Golden Tree productions,
(04:43):
trilithium Castle Ganz will Coleman in europe.
So what I've just said there is,
yes,
I'm fluent speaker,
so is my cat,
I'm lucky that my wife's a cornish speaker as well,
so we speak a bit of cornish at home and I work as the cornish language officer for Golden Tree Productions and that means that I'm able to talk cornish for an hour or two and work with my boss will Coleman,
(05:16):
that sounds great.
I really want to meet your cat now.
And jennifer,
do you do you speak cornish also?
Yes,
I'm also a speaker and I've worked with cornish for a number of years,
so I started learning as a teenager,
so that's been all my life really great.
(05:38):
And is that a thing like within the gorse?
Like I've always known about the golf,
but like from a teenager really,
I found out about it,
but it also seemed like some sort of mystical thing that's just a bit distant.
So is it a thing that all bards speak cornish?
(05:58):
I would like to pick that one up,
please.
No,
they don't.
We have language bards,
but we have bars that are experts in music dialect,
visual arts,
the full gamut,
really,
obviously not all of them use an OIC in their artistic endeavors,
(06:21):
I'm gonna have to meet the visual art bard obviously,
and you mentioned dialect there and that was a question I was going to bring up.
What what do you think about the differences or the importance of dialect and language to and how they connect to identity?
(06:43):
I suppose we'll certainly with the gorse if we have separate awards for them,
but in mainstream funding thing of the arts,
there's very little money for cornish language,
there's no money for cornish dialect.
So it all just tends to be ghetto wise is over that cornish stuff.
So you get a lot of funders or english people generally don't understand the difference between english and dialect.
(07:11):
So I don't know,
can you speak a bit of speak broad for a little bit so people can understand the difference can answer,
but it always feels a bit false when somebody asks you to talk in the dialect and it feels like to me it just feels like something I talk with my family,
(07:32):
but then I,
you know,
I went away for a long time,
but even before I went away,
people at school would sort of laugh if you said something with with a strong accent or something and over time you sort of think,
okay,
I just want to get my point made,
so you kind of moderated.
Um but so I think it's a real shame for me personally that,
(07:54):
you know,
like here now I'm not speaking with that accent,
but we need to work for the council.
Yeah,
because of that work for the council,
I didn't know,
but I think it's a shame that there's a bit of a split between that,
that dialect and the language where,
(08:16):
you know people,
it tends to be people who've got an education and are able to go and learn the language,
whereas other people who sort of feel daunted by learning a language might have the dialect.
It'd be great if we could bring the two together more.
I'd find that really exciting.
(08:39):
The Golden Tree Productions project of taking language in schools is really important.
I mean,
I can remember petitioning the council about that again,
early nineties sort of time and a fear or a bit of feedback I had at that time was well,
(09:01):
it might,
tourists might not like it,
they won't understand things.
I think that I think for me it's really,
it's only,
we're guilty of ourselves,
we only use it for,
you know,
for um like family or friends and stuff and you don't hear it being used in the news and I think it was that example of Birmingham when they had their new trams and they had a nice posh,
(09:26):
you know,
Queen's english announcements and they all reacted against it and got a nice browning accent on their triumph announcement,
you never,
you never hear that kind of thing happening here,
all our announcements should be with our accents really.
So you hear in different context rather than just dialect stories.
I mean the interesting thing too is when I've had students who are older students and several years ago,
(09:52):
particularly elderly people who were um learning cornish,
but who had strong dialect and then the,
the,
the similarities or where language went into dialect becomes really,
really obvious and they get incredibly excited at finding that the words they've used all of their lives Actually come from the language and you don't find it so much now because the generations are losing it.
(10:16):
But back in the,
in the 80s in particular,
I remember um sort of elderly,
a couple of elderly ladies shouldn't say that about my age now anyway,
at that point from San Ives who were,
and it was,
it was,
it was really interesting to teach that little group because they all had strong dialect.
(10:37):
And the other thing,
your point about tourists,
we did actually back in,
oh gosh,
I think about 2012 or something,
there was the tourist board actually put something managed to squeeze a couple of questions into their survey of tourists about what they thought about language um and cornish culture generally and it was a really positive response,
(10:57):
which should have really helped.
I'm not sure it was really um taken up that much,
but the,
but it was,
it was interest and you know,
would you like to learn a few words,
yes,
and it was,
it was sort of something that could do with being looked at a bit more.
I started learning cornish.
I get a good old while ago now and I'm certainly not a great speaker.
(11:21):
But what I really noticed the thing that was quite a sort of watershed sort of moment um was that as soon as we started learning it,
the kind of rhythm,
the cadence of it,
the structure of sentences,
they just all made sense in a way that I'd never like,
(11:46):
I'm also not a very good speaker of german and french but I've got G.
C.
S.
E.
S but I've never had that experience in trying to learn a language before but it just felt,
I don't know like it fit.
There was a fit that's probably because you're a cornish person and so you will pick up those hooks that are in dialect hooks in the place names and there are certain phonetics,
(12:15):
certain sounds that are common,
like a long long g comin to the language in common to the dialect.
So it'll be easy,
you will pick up those things and if you get somebody with a nice broad accent and they actually learn to a level of fluency um it'd just sound nice but was it you that said it's like a half remembered language for us,
(12:43):
we sort of think we've forgotten it.
But actually because of what you're saying that the rhythm in the way we speak the place names,
somebody said it's like a half remembered language.
So muscle memory.
Well we're just used to these,
you know these places like intrigue of ethanol,
(13:04):
these sort of long names that tumble out of our mouths and we're used to saying that without further thought that if I was to learn korean it would be completely fresh.
Whereas actually we've got this inbuilt memory of bits of the language.
We just can't string a sentence together.
And that for me was the revelation.
I just went to my first cornish class,
(13:25):
wanted to say I could tell the time or something and hearing it spoken was just such a revelation.
It hadn't occurred to me it could be used that way.
And yeah,
so it was sort of unraveling for me of,
I wanted to learn it but just hadn't heard it spoken and it really quite an emotional reaction to it really when when did you were proper cornish language for the first time?
(13:51):
For the first time.
Perhaps bits in the 80s.
But but properly it was when I went to the London class in its after the order in Alias in 2005 I'm interested in your thoughts on the connection of language and identity and the importance of language to retaining cultural identity or perhaps setting parameters for it.
(14:17):
So the reason I ask this is I hear,
you know,
it's not uncommon that I might hear.
Oh well the cornish language has been rebuilt Like in the late 19th,
early 20th century and so therefore it's almost invented and it seems to me like what we're touching on here,
(14:39):
not that,
but people still say a lot.
Every,
every language spoken today is invented to some,
some extent,
you know,
words like computer Internet website,
they've been invented in the English language.
We've invented things like gina Montiel case rolls with glee as v.
(15:03):
So we invented those words just as much as the english or people's or the anglo sphere,
invented words for technological things.
Anyway,
it's just a marker that cornish is a living language.
Yeah,
that seems to make sense.
(15:24):
And then so to think about the connection of it to one's cultural identity,
Identity.
I mean it feels really important to me as part of my identity,
that it exists and that I can say the occasional word,
I can sign off an email or greet someone or something.
Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
(15:46):
The importance of you must have come across this mark with the indian land project.
Well,
yeah,
but actually you saying that I was more thinking about,
you know,
like people in my family,
I had builders helping out on the house and they sort of none of them speak cornish,
but that knowledge of it and the first reaction is old I don't speak cornish.
(16:08):
So it's like an other thing to them and then let them speak a bit longer and they're really attached to and they really see it is quite important to their cornish nous and um they wouldn't probably put it into words that they value what the cornish language community is doing,
but if it was taken away,
they'd be really up in arms,
(16:29):
You know,
they definitely see it as such a feature of cornwall and there's,
I really,
um I kind of shared some of the experience,
she describes mark of having lived and worked away and finding that you needed to change or shift your language and like it just happens automatically.
(16:55):
That's what I found and there is a little grief there in that.
Well,
I think,
you know,
I could see that happening to other people when I lived in London.
That wasn't,
that wasn't specific school upsetting is coming home and finding that same experience here and you know that one example is that with friends,
(17:16):
you know,
in the pub and so you can't say that I can,
you know,
I think I just said,
well where is he too,
it wasn't anything upsetting.
It was like you can't talk like that if you're an educated person and it's quite deeply ingrained,
it's just,
it's not healthy.
The jennifer are,
(17:37):
you sounded like you were agreeing then Yeah,
I mean,
I think that's a change here too,
that it's become because it's the dialect has tended to disappear,
it's become weakened maybe that it's become less common and therefore it's,
it is and,
and it happens with in many places with dialect in particular and language to a certain extent that it gets seen as,
(18:00):
um,
because it's minority.
You need the majority language,
you need the majority way of speaking in order to advance.
And therefore it's seen as something,
um,
that will hold you back originally.
And as part of the decline of languages is when minority language,
when they seem to be,
um,
not not an asset and if anything,
the opposite.
(18:21):
And I think that's turned around an awful lot.
And you look at a lot of language communities where the language in particular has become more of an asset and to a certain extent the dialect,
I'm not sure we're quite there yet here,
but it is important.
The other thing is that languages actually reflect the land and the culture and the environment that they come from.
You know,
(18:41):
that the numbers of words you have for particular things reflects the culture.
Um,
so you know,
there's a big emphasis that there's lots of words for,
for country or parts of country and so on in cornish in the same way as another.
Um,
you know,
the old adage is the Eskimos have 26 words for snow.
You know,
it's that sort of thing that the,
(19:01):
that the language and the culture are inextricably mixed.
It mirrors the culture part part of culture of course is history and something that all cornish people,
whether they speak dialect or not,
whether they speak colonel rick or not is a sort of PTSd from the historical trauma of what went on in the prayer book rebellion because basically most of cornwall was cornish speaking.
(19:31):
It had cornish as its mother tongue,
basically all west of Bodman and the southern edges of bodmin moor and one or two spots in north cornwall and that was wiped out overnight and everyone forced to learn english.
(19:51):
And that sort of trauma is sort of keenly felt by everybody.
We all,
we all speak english now,
but the majority of us used to speak and,
and the changes around that,
that's some kind of effect sort of a shock on,
(20:16):
on the,
on the cornish psyche and,
and that's something experienced by all people no matter what they speak.
It's interesting how different communities deal with re reviving languages or there's also a term actually supplied a lot to um,
in these days now by linguists to particularly aboriginal languages and native american language of reawakening,
(20:41):
Those languages that have been dormant for a while,
which is a much nicer term really of reawakening something which is really important and a part of your,
your past.
But there were,
there were very,
I was talking a few years ago to somebody from one of the,
and I can't remember which one of the first nation native american languages who said that their problem was that although the language had been passed down to a certain extent and there were still a number of speakers um it was seen as something really precious and ceremonial.
(21:13):
Therefore the speakers,
the last speakers of the language were really anti it being used for everyday life so that their their way they were reviving it against the odds in a way because they're feeling was it was this precious thing that shouldn't be sullied by using it to go down the shop and buy a point of,
you know,
go to the pub and buy a pint of beer.
Um whereas I think,
(21:35):
you know we would say our aim would be to to make it,
you know,
your normal everyday language.
So the different attitudes according to your history,
I think I think that was very true of the early days of the Gorsuch.
Yes that corniche was used exclusively in the ceremonies of the gore says but not in everyday life when are reawakening happened is debatable,
(22:01):
but I would probably place it around about the seventies um formation of the newly formed cornish language board because I think they're different stages because because you're revivals going back to the early 20th century,
late 19th century,
really seeds of it.
(22:23):
So it's just not as a community community language,
you're probably looking from the seventies on it wasn't hearing it sung,
I don't know,
I just get the impression hearing it sung particularly by Brendan then you're starting to lose that purely ceremonial thing,
it's starting to be more of a social thing.
(22:43):
And then did that feed down into be coming into more of a sort of everyday social language?
Quite,
quite possibly.
But Brenda wooden was a bard and all the cornish songs were written by Richard Kendall,
also a bard.
So it's quite interesting,
(23:05):
they were instrumental in in re awakening as a community language.
I think it's partly about critical mass to the interest when the interest grows to a certain amount,
then you've got enough people that answer isolate,
so isolated from each other to actually start speaking.
And there were Children being talked to in the seventies and the music revival was going alongside the language revival.
(23:28):
So I think there was a bit of a touch paper point then,
because you actually had enough people to make that start to become a reality.
It's interesting what you say about that talking about,
you know,
the preciousness keeping the language just for precious moments or using it for the every day and just sort of connecting that to more contemporary politics.
(23:58):
I suppose that we've been going through this experience of a sort of protectionist populist set of attitudes within politics.
And that does that actually begin to sort of suffocate suffocate culture and suffocate things rather than allowing something to be mundane.
(24:25):
I mean,
I often say,
I think wondrous things are within the mundane,
they're not on a Plinth.
So if someone were to say later in kennewick,
in a,
in a shop,
I would be like that,
that's marvelous.
And particularly if it wasn't a tourist shops selling a cushion of Poldark on it,
(24:46):
But yeah,
just,
I don't know,
laundry or whatever.
I think that for me was the unexpected thing about learning cornish.
I sort of seen it as okay,
this is important to me as a cornish person.
But actually,
I think the exciting thing about it is that actually you meet people who want to do new things with it.
(25:08):
So like film,
songs,
music,
all sorts of things and you just think,
oh,
this is actually,
it's not just keeping our heritage,
it's actually creating new culture and you just don't know where it's going to go and that I find that really exciting and invigorating.
Maybe there's something in that as well around again,
(25:28):
connecting to how social attitudes are changing.
So rather than a sort of top down direction,
oh,
those poor people won't be able to understand this.
So we'll do it this way.
Kind of trusting audiences to,
as you say,
kind of just enjoy the sound and familiarize themselves with the sound and the cadence of it.
(25:54):
And slowly the language just becomes more commonplace.
It is,
it's about returning the language of the people,
basically because language is only known by its speakers,
you know,
it's,
it's not,
nobody owns the language,
it's in the mouths of speakers and it will change and it will develop and it should do otherwise.
It's not living absolutely,
(26:14):
but to achieve that,
to get it back to the people,
you have to overcome several centralist imperialistic forces government.
I was gonna say,
could you say a bit more about that pole?
So do you do you mean that you you need to one needs to work within the structures of of something that isn't yours?
(26:41):
Um It's sort of difficult to explain.
College has been recognized under the european charter of regional minority languages.
Sorry,
for using the E word to all our Brexit fans out there,
but it's also as a place under the framework convention for the protection of national minorities as well.
(27:05):
Now,
although the UK government ratified these Council of europe charters,
Glass,
Council of europe,
not european union.
Um the thing is,
is they've dragged their heels,
there's no central government funding for the cornish language.
So when we go and see our Celtic brothers and sisters in say Wales,
(27:31):
they have a fantastic amount of sort of resources and stuff.
So the very act of speaking cornish is it's almost like um,
your manifesting sort of independent spirit and that attracts a lot of people.
(27:51):
Um,
but the forces of Imperialism,
english imperialism are huge.
I think it's how you create the opportunities within existing systems,
so that the language is seen um,
is with the same intrinsic value as other languages and as the majority language and it's the ability to do that,
(28:14):
which which which helps.
Um because that when you can raise the value in people's perceived value in people's eyes and give the opportunities for them to simply come across it and not have to,
It's not somewhere in a box that you've got to go and unlock,
but it's around you.
That's when it starts to be owned again by people.
(28:37):
I had a funny experience.
I went to see Ramstein Inn in Munich and I found myself chanting Deutschland,
Deutschland with 50,000 other Germans having,
having just eaten a large sausage in a,
in a bit of bread.
(28:57):
It's that sort of collective,
you know,
it's a similar feeling you get when,
when we sing broke off at the end of the gore says it's that sort of collectivism realizing you're not alone.
Um I can't think of anything more lonely than learning a minority language in a bed set.
(29:25):
I hope lots of people are learning well in an english city that doesn't have enough people for a,
a thing wherein,
I mean,
I think it's written in the bible and man does not live by zoom alone.
Thinking about,
(29:46):
you mentioned about Celtic brothers and sisters,
could you mention something about that,
that connection of the Celtic nations.
I mean,
again,
it's something I've always felt really strongly,
but then learned was told about the sort of Celtic revivalists after I'd already been feeling Celtic just just because,
(30:13):
you know,
I grew up in,
in cornwall and and that's how people spoke.
What thing,
that's something that is really powerfully feel when you go to Brittany,
if you go to Wales or man partly the reception you get from the people there,
they were really,
you know,
they're just so excited and appreciate,
(30:36):
you know,
meeting people from cornwall as fellow Celtic,
um you know,
citizens,
but but also,
you know,
you sort of,
you see,
okay,
particularly in Wales and Brittany,
you see the place names,
you see very similar things.
Um and yeah,
I think it's,
it's to me it feels most powerful when you go there and it's a shame more young people don't have that opportunity to go and and take part in inter Celtic things because there is that shared,
(31:07):
that shared identity and everything once you experience it,
unfortunately we just don't have enough opportunities here in call to experience it directly,
really point of information.
The Celtic countries are Scotland Ireland Ireland man Wales Brittany and cornwall uh Information,
(31:31):
but we've got things like the Celtic Congress which was formed in 1904,
we have the Celtic Media festival,
we have the Celtic league,
there's lots of festivals around,
including our own brilliant Lawanda Perrin,
(31:53):
which for ordinary people in cornwall,
I think that's the first sort of maybe the first step of having the whole pack together,
I think things like that are more important to me than those organized structures because that doesn't,
that that means something to us who know about it,
but it's things like low end up Aaron there used to be an inter Celtic water sports sports festival,
(32:19):
things like that where you're bringing people together that aren't going to go to committee meetings but will take part in music,
dance sports and things and um and then you get a real appreciation.
Okay,
it's not just us sort of following something local.
It is Celtic,
it's also interesting if you take,
(32:39):
I mean I've taken,
I take performers and so on over to the big inter Celtic fest from Brittany for a year and also the pan Celtic when you take a young band or a young group of dancers or whatever over um and they are on a stage alongside Wales Brittany Scotland etcetera.
The effect in terms of the confidence in their own culture and actually it it validates what they're doing and what they feel at home and they bring that back with them and it's a real experience and it's it's a lovely thing to watch actually that,
(33:12):
you know that they,
how much they gain from that interaction with other Celtic nations.
Can I ask you just to clarify that's really positive to hear,
jennifer,
but I just wanted to ask a clarifying point,
my understanding was that Guy Alethea or other parts of northern Spain had been welcomed into the Celtic nations family.
(33:39):
Um It well,
yes,
that depends on a standpoint,
I mean the DeLorean festival includes Galicia and Asturias who both consider themselves Celtic,
the,
the the the core Celtic countries that that,
that paul was describing all have speaker Celtic language.
Um Kallithea historias do not,
(34:01):
they have their own um own languages which are dialects of spanish to to a greater or lesser extent they share some cultural links in terms of,
well,
certainly in terms of prehistory,
but then,
you know,
actually,
so does a lot of europe really Celtic originally um and traditions around bagpipes etcetera,
(34:22):
they were welcomed in um particularly to Lorien um spectacular and and and simply because they felt that way.
Uh so if you're a purist about it,
you will tend to stick with the six core countries um but certainly themselves feel very strongly so I think,
(34:44):
I think the thing is um the cornwall wasn't considered a Celtic country until 1904 when we were actually let into the Celtic congress,
Henry Henry Jenner published a handbook of the cornish language and he went to Brittany to less 11 and made a speech in cornish and loads of Britain ran up to him and said,
we understood that that all happened in 1904 and then after that we were considered a Celtic country,
(35:10):
but we're going back to that,
that language thing again.
So I'm not being purist about it,
but in modern times,
the cults really know how to have a party and we produce some of the most astonishing art in every media known and there's a lot of people say,
(35:35):
oh yeah,
well,
you know,
we'd love to belong to that Celtic family.
It's a really strange thing.
I don't understand why there's not like a Germanic festival where the english get together with the dutch and the Germans and I don't know,
roast meat and drink beer.
I mean,
I think maybe parts of my identity considered english might might be dusted off if I could join in such a Germanic festival,
(36:07):
but I mean that's all hypothetical,
the fact is that,
that there there are brilliant inter Celtic festivals all over and just thinking about that as well and thinking about these dates etcetera.
Again,
I,
you know,
I hear it in,
(36:29):
I hear it in pharmacy,
I also work as a plumber,
so I go in,
go into people's homes and just get chatting and it's really common that people might say,
yeah,
but it's not really an authentic cultural identity,
is it?
Like how can you evidence that?
Um what,
(36:49):
what's your view on that?
I mean,
I can almost guess,
but for the same for the sake of our conversation about this nation of authenticity.
Um well I would say for a start actually,
if you look at commentators from Karu onwards and and probably before that um the notion of cornwall as um and as,
(37:16):
as a country,
as a nation was there very early on,
you know,
you look at your charters,
Judah times,
it was sort of England Scotland Wales and cornwall.
Um so there's obviously a notion there and and right through the history and the commentators all the way through,
comment on the,
(37:36):
the,
the,
the,
the sense of identity,
the sense of foreignness of the writing from an english perspective,
the sense of otherness of cornwall.
So I think it's always been there and you can see that reflected in all of those commentaries from writers,
both internal and external,
um for the last 500 years.
So I think there's that side to it and then there's simply that sort of intrinsic feeling,
(38:00):
You come into sort of ethnicity and issues around chosen ethnicity to that,
you know,
people feel that sense of kinship and attachment to this piece of land and stronger than that.
I kind of feel cheated as well because I sort of flip the question really,
(38:21):
Um I felt partly the ordinary Leah when that was performed in what 2002-2005 and I think,
you know,
people like my mom and my dad went to see it and started talking about,
well there were these plays written in cornish,
that really changed my perception about what the language was about then learning the language and finding out there were more plays,
(38:43):
there was literature,
there was a culture and actually we were,
we were never told about any of this.
So rather than being challenged,
that is this authentic is actually nobody told me about that this authentic heritage and history and that whole narrative is very much taught from the english perspective and it's us that need to reclaim that and be confident to say yes,
(39:09):
it is authentic and it's very rich and that's something you actually hear from.
A lot of,
a lot of people,
I think a lot of people feel that and you also get particularly that I never had the chance to explore that,
but I want my Children and my grandchildren do because it is that sense of having lost something and needing to its sort of through a glass.
Darkly bits of it back.
(39:31):
I think Mark's use of the word cheated is very relevant and pertinent.
Absolutely.
It is cheated.
Um it's not a case of responding to people that tell you that your culture and the way you live is somehow not authentic or any kind of nonsense like that.
(40:01):
It just exists.
Um cornish cornish language,
cornish identity,
cornish history,
cornish politics exists.
Get over it.
The interesting thing to me is when people seem to feel threatened by that,
why it's as if you're challenging a status quo or a frame of reference they have in their heads that then says,
(40:28):
we don't like this and we're threatened by it.
And I've always found it really strange when people seem to be extremely anti against and dismissive of cornish culture,
cornish language and take that view that almost as I say,
almost as if they're threatened by it.
Well,
the elephant in the room again,
(40:49):
is english imperialism,
which,
which,
you know,
with BBC spotlight southwest,
you know,
the,
the english stuff is rammed down your throat every time.
You know,
there's a de facto ban on cornish language,
BBC spotlight give an example of that.
(41:11):
People have been given interviews and they put the odd word of cornish in the middle of something and they've been asked to repeat the segment without the cornish.
That's fascinating.
That's fascism.
That's too strong.
I think actually,
most people just don't know how to deal with it.
It's not just cornish,
(41:32):
you don't,
you don't hear welsh being spoken on mainstream BBC or anything and you don't hear Tamil or immigrant languages either.
And I just don't think Britain is set up to deal with other languages really well,
there again,
an argument that Britain,
(41:52):
do you mean the United Kingdom or do you mean Britain?
Well,
either,
because what I do mean is that we need,
I think we're getting better at being more confident and being more positive about what we're about and actually saying this is this is how we want to present ourselves.
And I think that's part of the that,
you know,
for me that's really important to be able to say,
(42:14):
look,
we've got these things,
I don't think people are really interested in other people's histories,
i ours,
but they might be more willing to engage with,
you know,
new things that we're doing different stories.
It's always that human story that people can click with easier than a challenge of identity.
(42:35):
Um,
so yeah,
I'm interested in how do you actually,
rather than get the BBC to show a few words on a news clip,
how do we get whole programs on the BBC tom from our perspective,
it's a strange thing cornwall,
isn't it?
It's different in terms of its constitutional position in our head of state is the Duke of cornwall,
(43:01):
not her majesty,
the queen.
And I don't know,
millions of pains go into the duchy of cornwall every year,
but at the same time we don't have a team in the commonwealth games,
you know?
So we're,
I don't know,
it just seems one minute we're a shire came to when it suits the powers that be and,
(43:26):
and the next,
we're something something different,
but we're always on the losing end of it.
Um,
just look at them.
Well,
lots of things.
Everyone says,
oh,
if you talk to anybody around the UK and they saw was a lovely part of the world.
Why haven't we got any national parks?
If it's lovely,
(43:48):
why don't we got any national parks not lovely enough to have those,
the way they run or whether you want them or not is irrelevant.
The fact that we don't have them,
even though everyone agrees there are bits of cornwall are very beautiful,
right?
Um,
other things like prisons,
I know this may be a bit left of field,
(44:10):
there are three prisons in devon and there's none in cornwall and having,
you know,
if your life goes,
if if your life goes off the rails and you being,
you get sent to prison doing custodial time,
people in cornwall suffer twice once for the sentence and once for having a complete cut off from,
(44:35):
from support from friends and family.
I agree things are important,
but I don't,
I don't,
I think you could sort of say you could still just be a county of England and argue that services like that hospitals,
prisons,
whatever should be local.
But I don't really see that that's doing anything to change our constitutional status for me.
(44:57):
That's,
that should need to be grounded on our culture identity.
And actually saying there's particular things here that are different that are not being fully recognized and actually we want,
we want those put in place.
And I think it's really interesting seeing what's happened in Wales,
You know,
if you went back 2030 years,
they didn't have that confidence that swagger that they have now,
(45:22):
are you suggesting we do like the welsh did know,
well the element that I am suggesting we do,
I think they've been very clever in using media to project their culture and create all sorts of opportunities.
So if you're a young person in Wales now,
it's not like what learning welsh is pointless.
(45:43):
I know not everybody wants to learn welsh,
but there is a point to learning welsh because you can get a job,
you can take part in those industries and be a part of further projecting that.
I just think it's something that's inclusive.
You can see there's a future for it.
It can grow and do all sorts of things and yeah,
(46:04):
you can see that there's potential for that here,
but our culture is repressed and we have lack of services in,
in education,
prison service,
health service.
We only got one general hospital,
uh,
when they,
I think all of those things are linked in that we don't have any very low degree of self determination things are done to us.
(46:30):
And that includes media and culture as as well.
Well,
that,
that's,
that's true.
But then I think that's um,
that's not just us.
And I think it's been,
if you look at this really interesting,
certainly not,
you know,
and it's really interesting just watching as Mark says Wales same with Scotland and Ireland before that,
about how they have a changed perceptions of the country from outside And by the way in which they presented themselves and also given confidence to young people and young people involved in the debate and I think that's,
(47:05):
that we need to look at those for,
in terms of how that's how that's worked,
because it is quite stark over the last 10,
20 years.
And that's,
I mean,
it seems to me,
well,
I love a murder mystery and Wales has got some fabulous crime dramas that really show off the landscape.
(47:31):
I'm not sure if we should have things showing off the landscape,
but just thinking like they compete with these scanned in oir kind of stuff and they come across as intelligent.
They deal with tough issues that that do affect people's lives.
Like,
yeah,
needing to go to prison or certain medical situations,
(47:52):
isolation,
gender,
sexuality,
they encompass a whole host of things,
whereas,
and the programs we have,
for instance,
around corn ball,
I mean,
I can remember when Wickliffe was on telly,
and then of course,
dr martin,
I mean,
(48:13):
neither of those really had any interest for me at all,
so,
just vastly disappointing.
So,
it's often being presented as a cozier place,
but that's because that's being that's being done by companies outside.
The difference is that the welsh,
those welsh productions are being produced from within Wales with the attitudes that they wish to put there and coming out of welsh culture and welsh experience,
(48:43):
they're not a company coming in and doing it to Wales,
which is what has tended to happen if you look at mainstream productions like Wickliffe and dr martin,
that's what I mean about stereotypes.
It's about changing how you're seen and dismantling those stereotypes and you can only do that from within.
And part of that is actually,
(49:03):
I mean Wales has built up its film culture and and and we've improved quite considerably indigenous culture,
the indigenous film provision if you like,
and and media,
but they also have the ability to do that and influence it and put the,
put the enticements there as well.
(49:25):
And we know that we've got fantastic writers,
we always have done really good at telling stories and at the same time,
we know that there's that interest from around the world because we've got all those lifestyle programs,
things like doc martin that shows that people love things set here,
but we just don't get to tell our stories in film and tv enough so that,
(49:50):
you know,
I just think that's got very powerful opportunity there.
We can't talk about this without mentioning and did demonstrate the kind of um the rougher around the edges,
you know,
(50:11):
aspects that an awful lot of,
I'd say almost the majority of cornish people or people who may not identify as corners that have lived here for a very long time.
Maybe schools here can relate to a lot more than just pasties and cream not to knock Brenda and that's coming off and that's independent productions,
(50:32):
independent shorts.
And then working through film festivals and things rather than the broadcast media and that's why the push around cornish tv and cornish broadcasting because the difference is that,
those sort of productions would be broadcast where there's a possibility within say Wales or Scotland and then maybe networked out.
(50:53):
We don't have that to start with.
So,
so the opportunities and therefore the way of generating the returns on those is not there to enable the bigger productions to happen from within cornwall.
But having said that,
we've got a brilliant independent film sector and we've always punched above our weight and won quite a few prizes at the Celtic Media Festival,
(51:18):
but it's,
but it's quite,
but the,
the audience for that or the ability to get that out to a wide audience is different.
That's that's the thing.
And like you said,
getting getting the income from that,
that's all commissioned and broadcast in other places.
And that's the bit where we've not got the industry,
(51:39):
it's still that extraction really of our our creativity.
So you're,
you're saying,
our creativity is mind and taken away just as much as tin and copper.
Yeah,
I mean,
that's my that's one of my sort of pivots around tourism and the tourist industry.
(52:01):
Um that is an extraction industry.
Um poll jennifer.
D what do you have any thoughts on that?
The tourist industry is just completely out of control at the moment.
It's a very,
very complex issue.
Airbnb,
(52:23):
small hotels pop up campsites are not the same thing.
Um it's just completely,
it's a bit like a gold rush out in the Yukon at the moment.
There's,
there's very little rules,
very little regulation and it's a very complex issue.
(52:45):
Um Like I say,
a small hotel is not the same as a pop up campsite.
I mean,
I I see where you're coming from,
I would agree with you on the extraction.
I think part of that is that the uh the emphasis on tourism,
(53:06):
which when you actually look at the figures,
it's only 11 or 12% of GDP,
it's not the major industry,
but it has a disproportionate effect on on all other industries because of the problems that it does,
because it's out of balance.
Perhaps we've always had tourism and tourism is important part of the economy,
but it's,
it's,
it feels like it's it's out of balance.
(53:27):
The investment being mainly into tourism,
It doesn't give us the kind of um working structure and jobs that allow our young people to stay either.
So you've got that continual move out,
which is not a bad thing if they can come back again,
it's always good to go away and get experience and all the rest of it,
but it's,
it's sort of,
and we've all done it.
(53:48):
Um but we're not,
we're not providing the opportunities and there is a prevailing view of tourism as being the only and the major important industry for cornwall,
which is not correct,
but is fueled by the media and it means your investment isn't going into the areas,
(54:10):
it should be going into the balance the economy.
It's also a very unevenly spread.
I come from true near cam burn,
funny enough,
we don't,
we don't have many sort of rows of second homes and stuff in the middle of Cameron.
(54:34):
Yeah.
But there are other places on the coast which have had their community completely devastated up to 75% of of houses in places like Crown Talk or second or second homes that just holiday,
let's,
so you get the thing where families can't live there,
(54:58):
the school dies completely devastated and at the same time you only got to move a little bit in land and all of that sort of wealth and opportunity or whatever.
It just,
it just,
it isn't,
isn't there,
but it still pushes price,
house prices and everything.
So there are knock on effects right through cornwall now.
(55:18):
Um,
I mean I feel torn about the issues.
I just think it is a problem that's experienced in lots of places and I think it's,
you know,
the nature of tourism in the 20th 21st century has changed and I go on holiday,
I'm equally part of the problems to other communities and if you look at other communities in Wales,
(55:40):
they're talking about a 300% increase.
So for me that's more things were always going to be a destination.
We're lucky enough to live in a beautiful place and that's part of it that people want to come here.
I don't think we're very good at managing and actually trying to yeah,
(56:00):
either tax second homes,
I would personally favor some sort of congestion charge because I think a lot of the impacts from transport and on services,
there's other things.
But you know those,
there's lots of ways if you actually look look outside someone at the lake District,
I mean the bulk of their tourism actually occurs within a national park again.
(56:25):
And so they have control,
they can sort of regulated,
but only up to a point.
I mean,
I I think it is becoming,
it's not just for men,
it's not just Wales,
it's now percolating a lot of other areas and for that reason there's more notice being taken off it.
But the problem is you need the control and the planning control to be able to ensure that the balance is there.
(56:46):
You used the word,
I didn't understand there in cornwall planning because there is such a thing,
you know,
there had,
there have been moves and there have been in cornwall about having,
uh,
for instance,
having to have change of use to take home out of residential use into either a second home or holiday let.
(57:08):
So you could at least cap within communities,
but that requires legislative change that's not within our power and that's part of the problem.
You need more local control in order to be able to do that.
Um,
and you need to actually have a degree of a greater degree of transparency around the figures and the benefits and the losses because the,
(57:31):
so that the importance of it and how far it's out of balance and what you can do is understood more widely and that's not there either.
So you,
are you calling for more control?
I would have said more control,
but also more data,
I think,
you know,
meeting yesterday talking about this that basically we,
we need that the messages that go out all the time is we have,
(57:53):
we must depend on tourism and the actual levels of,
of second homes,
the levels of holiday lets the levels of property and empty properties and so on are not well understood generally because the figures are not out there.
I think there's a recognition that over the last couple of summers there's been too much and actually it's more that it's,
(58:16):
you know,
the spring and autumn where actually you might sustain those businesses a bit,
you know,
a bit more through the years,
the shoulder a month then.
Yeah.
But I suppose that in terms of today's discussion,
i it's interesting looking at Ireland where you go there and you'd expect to go to a lovely pub,
have a Guinness,
see some irish dancing and stuff that's something that we completely,
(58:39):
you know,
that is just people come here for the beaches maybe for the doc marten,
you know tour or whatever And it does feel like that's something that I would like to see us work on to sort of say,
you know,
you're coming here to a very different place and I think like you mentioned the 2012 survey where people did see the language,
(59:00):
the place names,
I think it was 1890% of people saw that as part of the experience and um yeah,
you sometimes get asked or where can I see the cornish language and I don't know how you do that,
but we don't even have a shop or a cafe or there's one cafe in Yuki,
more of that kind of thing where people could experience our culture and that's learning from elsewhere because that is that cultural tourism is important.
(59:30):
It actually fulfills,
its also tends to be around rather than focused on the summer,
but actually being able to make that the experience of the culture is acknowledged outside.
It would be really,
I think that's part of the threat.
I mean obviously it's the numbers,
the physical impact of tourism,
but it's also that sense that,
(59:50):
you know,
you're losing things because it's a sort of international kind of tourism,
you could be anywhere kind of thing going on.
Whereas actually,
if part of the visit is more clearly that you're going to this different place,
I think that would be helpful,
positive that not there's something around that that concerns me around the the chocolate boxing of culture commodification of culture.
(01:00:22):
Yes,
quite so if we make that the culture is part of the destination.
Yes,
that does seem to be sensible.
However,
yeah.
Does the culture get watered down to an extent or made a bit more palatable?
I don't mean like going to Andalusia and then seeing,
(01:00:44):
you know,
flamenco,
flamenco dance and then going back to your english fish and chips or whatever.
It's just sort of just more of a sense that you're aware of it there.
I would,
I'm sure the majority of visitors wouldn't want to go to a cornish wrestling display for example,
but actually if we had those events on and people who were genuinely interested in the culture could come and find out more and the majority of people at least were aware of it.
(01:01:14):
For me that would be okay.
I'd rather that than everybody sort of seeing a fake display or something.
It's also about how you promote yourself as a destination.
This is the thing to are you just simply promoting your beach tourism or are you actually promoting cornwall as a distinct place and with a distinct culture and that's about how we present ourselves,
(01:01:37):
not necessarily putting individual things on,
but actually putting the information out there and that sense of what what cornwall is and encompasses that's uh I think I really like that,
it's come back a few times there,
how we present ourselves and us taking responsibility as a,
(01:02:01):
as a place,
as the people of cornwall and obviously thinking around tourism and the impacts of tourism and sort of overarching cultures of setting the parameters where there's so much linked to like climate change and climate disasters that are happening around the world and other other areas that really suffer from over the top tourism.
(01:02:30):
Um,
I,
we we've not got much time left.
I wondered if there was any sort of last thing anyone had like a burning like I want to say,
I think you're talking about that climate change stuff.
And I think that's another thing where um with cornwall that that link with the land,
(01:02:51):
the landscape isn't just beaches,
it's,
you know,
all of our stories,
you were asking about the authenticity of the culture and I think right from,
you know,
from a baby,
I was always taught,
you know,
the giant built that hill and things like that and I think there's that really soulful connection with the environment here,
(01:03:13):
that that is a part of our culture and it's not just how it looks,
it's just something that came out of the ground.
And so I think there's a really deep connection there that resonates with people around the world in telling stories in creating films and you know,
people coming to visit.
So I think we've got something really positive that that fits with the age now that perhaps like in the last century was seen as us sort of trying to be all hippie ish actually actually feels that we've got something that we can be proud of and be more confident with really,
(01:03:51):
it's quite interesting to Professor Lovelock actually came up with the Gaia hypothesis while he was walking over bodmin moor,
which,
which is,
I know he's fallen out of favor because he supports nuclear power but were virtually an island and we embraced wind generation.
(01:04:18):
The first commercial wind farm in,
in,
in Britain was actually available in north cornwall.
Um,
but we haven't had this subsequent investment in our national grid structure to allow us to have offshore arrays.
Why haven't we got offshore arrays of windmills and lots of jobs being created in our ports.
(01:04:41):
Um,
so we're always at the cutting edge,
but when it comes to the rewards were always at the back of the queue.
Um,
which I find strange.
I think the only thing I'd like to add in really is is that these discussions can often sound a bit not xenophobic,
(01:05:04):
but a bit insular.
And that,
I mean Cornell has always been at the crossroads.
It's always been in the middle of all sorts of connections,
whether it's with Celtic countries with diasporas abroad,
it's always been a welcoming culture and I think it still is the language,
culture is very welcoming of anybody who chooses to engage with it.
And I think it's important that we were still saying that our culture is ours,
(01:05:28):
but it's a welcoming culture.
That's a good point.
We forget to say that because we live with the fact that we're a very outward looking society.
Yes,
we have deep roots,
we are a cornish yet,
but that makes us part of the Celtic family and we haven't been touched on the diaspora all around the world,
(01:05:51):
but it's also people who come to choose to be in corn will choose to engage with cornish culture are very much welcomed.
It's not it's not a sort of closed community in any way really.
Thank you.
And yeah,
there's a huge there's so much more we could talk about with the diaspora and the responsibilities of the diaspora.
(01:06:15):
Um and yeah,
cornish miners relationship with that overarching sort of um colonialism that took them elsewhere,
but I'll have to book you in for another hour basically.
Thank you all so so much,
(01:06:38):
really,
really fascinating and really generous of you to give your time and chance.
Castle resource doc martin,
(01:06:59):
nah and well again of eu correlation street.
Meur ras, a’gas goslowes. thank you for listening.
Further episodes of the MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh podcast can be found on my website.
(01:07:21):
Sovayberriman.co.uk
That's S O V A Y B E R R I M A N dot CO dot U K where you also find guest biographies and resource page of links to further reading on the topics discussed.
(01:07:47):
If you feel inspired to join the mescal conversation about contemporary cornish cultural identity,
please get in touch with me,
Sovay Berriman via my website or social media.
You'll find MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh on facebook,
instagram and twitter.
(01:08:08):
The MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh podcast and project has been made possible due to a wealth of in kind help and support from many parties,
including the Wendy parent festival Goer Seth Colonel cornwall Council's cornish language office,
(01:08:28):
Cresson Kerney cornwall neighborhoods for change and farm with university Found with campus.
The project has been supported using public funding by the national lottery through Arts Council England and further funding has been gratefully received from historic England.
(01:08:54):
Meur ras dhywgh a'gas termyn, agas gweles. thank you for your time.
See you later.
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