BBC responds to interest in Cornish with new language podcast

Listeners tuning in to the BBC’s latest podcast offering on Friday may find themselves saying dydh da to a language that is enjoying something of a resurgence. The new programme called Learn Cornish will be fronted by the Radio 1 host Danni Diston and includes guests such as the Bafta-winning director Mark Jenkin.

Diston, who is from north Cornwall, said that she initially did not know any Cornish “other than small words that I’ve learned growing up and mainly dialect … [but] the idea would be to learn alongside other people”. She will be joined by co-presenter Sarah Buck, a fluent Kernewek speaker, throughout the weekly episodes that are designed to introduce basic phrases in the Cornish language.

Diston credits her student days in Cardiff as being “influential” in discovering the “Celtic connection” between Kernewek and Cymraeg, the Welsh language, through similar terms such as hireth (hiraeth in Cymraeg) that evoke an emotion difficult to encapsulate within a single English word. She said: “It doesn’t exist in the English language. It can’t be translated – and I think that’s really beautiful because you do feel a sense of belonging when you’re from these Celtic places. It feels like a completely different cultural experience … [and] I think it’s really cool how the language also feeds into that.”

The podcast launch takes place in the aftermath of Kernewek gaining enhanced protected status on a par with other languages such as Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Under the European charter for regional or minority languages, the awarding of part III status means that the government must actively promote Kernewek in sectors such as education and the media.

Currently, public service broadcasting in Kernewek is limited to weekly news bulletins on BBC Radio Cornwall, which will be producing the Learn Cornish podcast from its studios in Truro. In May last year, the Cornish Language Forum discussed “pressing the case for BBC Kernow”, in reference to the creation of a separate division akin to BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Alba.