January 2010: first nursery in the Cornish language begins operation

It took me three months to notice this, but better late than never. It's good news for the Cornish language, which has been on a bit of a roll since 2008 when the Standard Written Form was finally agreed upon, as before then it was at a double advantage through being not only so small but also with many conflicting written standards.

What will be interesting to see if Cornish is successfully revived as a native tongue for a large number of people is whether it will turn out to be easier to learn than other Celtic languages, as spending a long period of time without native speakers tends to prune out a lot of the idiosyncrasies languages have, ones that native speakers would feel attached to but simply fluent L2 speakers not quite as much.

Some other good news for the language from six months back - in November the Cornwall Council voted for signs in the region to be bilingual. It was an easy vote because they will not be taken down at once in order to do so; instead, the bilingual signs will simply be put up when signs wear down and need to be replaced anyway, so it's a gradual process that will not cost any extra money to implement. Setting up bilingual street signs is one of the easiest ways to aid in the revival of a language, as the cost is minimal to nonexistent, the amount of material that needs to be translated is also minimal, and once translated they can be reproduced forever.