Cornish is part of the Celtic family of languages, traditionally spoken in Cornwall in the south-west of Great Britain. From the medieval period onwards, speakers in the region gradually shifted to English, leaving only a handful with knowledge of Cornish in the far west of Cornwall by the 18th and 19th centuries.
The 20th century saw a resurgence, and today, Cornish speakers are thought to number from around 400 to 4,000. Many are still based in Cornwall, although there is an active diaspora in mining areas of the US and Australia as a result of 19th-century migration.
