Cornwall in Focus News

Dynnargh dhe Wikipedya Kernewek!

Published 07 Feb 10 12:28

The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is now available in the Cornish language. Wiki, as it is affectionately known, is fully editable so that users can edit and translate news items and content into their own preferred language. Although this very feature is open to misuse, as the accuracy of some items is questionable, it is largely self policing: its members will soon put you right if you enter erroneous information.

'An godhoniador ryth' as it is known in Cornish, now has almost 2,000 articles in our native language and will continue to grow as wiki members use it and the general public learn of its existence. Jennifer Lowe of the Cornish Language Partnership recently stated that "It is a resource for learning, which is interesting because the availability of artcles for people to read, in Cornish, is something we need more of."

The encyclopedia is currently divided into eight sections, namely: Gonisogeth hag an Artys (Culture and the Arts); Dorioneth (Geography); Istori (History); Kernow (Cornwall); Skians (Science); Filosofi ha kryjyans (Philosophy and Religion); Pobel ha Kowethas (People and Society) and Teknoloji (Technology).

Here at Cornwall in Focus we are looking at ways of integrating the Cornish Language more fully into our resource. We already provide keywords and useful phrases in Cornish with plans for an online English-Cornish dictionary well advanced.