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. BBC launches new Cornish-language podcast 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. …