A Czech woman in Prague has won recognition for achieving the highest level of fluency in Cornish, an ancient Celtic language spoken by about 100 people and last used as a mother tongue in the 18th Century.
Leona Machackova, 28, was recognized as a Cornish Bard at the recent Gorsett, an annual ceremonial meeting in Bude, Cornwall, England, and a high point in the Cornish cultural calendar.
Machackova, a language student at the University of Prague, spent seven years studying Cornish at home through a taped correspondence course run by the Cornish Language Board.
“I am very interested in ancient languages,” she said, “and Celtic languages in particular. But it has taken me a long time to learn Cornish.” She never has visited Cornwall, a picturesque rural county in the southwest corner of England, and did not have the airfare to attend the ceremony.
Machackova, who still is looking forward to a two-way conversation in Cornish, also speaks English, Spanish, Latin and Sanskrit as well as her native Czech. The language course judged her on tape-recorded dialogue and written examination papers.
