Can you read Kernuach Nowedga? It's a doddle. Well, that may be going a bit far for those who are not native and to the grammar born. But it has just become easier because of the decision to unify and standardise the script of the ancient Cornish language, which we report today.

Until now Cornish has been this or that, hemma bo henna, and as fissiparous as its county's granite cliffs. The West Cornish spoke a different dialect from the East. The original Britons have been squeezed farther and farther down the leg of England by the men of Wessex and then the centralisers from Loundres. Their language is most like Breton. The Battle of Deorham in 577 separated them from their closest Ancient British-speakers, the Welsh, by the Bristol Channel.

Cornish is the only European language that has died and is being revived from written sources. Boethius first recorded it in 525: “Ud rocashaas” (The mind hated gloomy places). Recovering it is as tricky a job as remaking a broken mirror. There are four main dialects of the language, and hundreds of variants of vocabulary or grammar. The city of Truru has at least 50 historic spellings, and Cornish itself can be Kernewek, Curnoach, Kernow, Kernowek, Kernuak ...

The single standard form of the language will make it easier for learners, road signs, publications - and EU grants. Cornishmen are famously fair-red-haired, blue-eyed, piratical and determined. Will Standard Cornish be able to hold back the tide of English? Syns dha glapp: Shut up. It has been doing so for 16 centuries. So why ever not now? So dyw genes - God be with you.