User:Kerneweger/Sandbox

There was no sudden death of Cornish, but rather a decline in the knowledge of the language as onter-henerational transmission broke down and illiteracy cut off speakers from an education in the language. Each generation of native speakers knew less Cornish than the previous one, and by the turn of the 19th Century, knowledge of vocabulary and grammar became so fragmented that it could be said that there were no longer any fully-fluent speakers, despite many still retaining some vestigial knowledge, such as basic phrases, stories, songs and rhymes, and some still able to cpnduct conversation on basic topics. By the end of the 19th Century, this has reduced further to just a few people with some knowledge of simple words and sayings. These people were sought after during the period of antiquarian interest in the language known as the Celtic Revival, which formed the basis of the language revival movement.

Unesco's decision to reclassify the status of Cornish from extinct to critically endangered has veeb described as recognition of Cornish now being a revived, living language, rather than a language being revived.