Helmiä

This one hurt, her work had such a profound effect on my life, thoughts, and politics.

May her memory be a blessing

♫ We could be free, free ♫

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Kernow has its own language, culture, history and identity. The language was forcibly removed by the English until the last monolingual speaker died in 1777–her name was Dolly Pentreath. It has existed as a kingdom before England had ever existed. Historically, Cornwall has been a place exploited for minerals and resources and labour. Currently, it still is. There are now ghost towns where once thriving fishing villages stood (Mousehole, Pentreath’s home, was one of these). Cornwall is now a playground for second home owners who drive up house and rent prices and drive out permanent residents and workers. Local businesses go out of business and struggle to stay afloat when the influx of tourists come who only purchase from supermarkets, putting nothing into the local economy. There is a long, long and often very gruesome and bloody history behind this—leaders of rebellions executed all the way into 1715.

If you are in the UK, and sign the petition to get this to a debate in Parliament.

And we’re all aware that when the government announced its budget, it conveniently didn’t mention Cornwall once. It in fact avoided the South West. But absolutely no funding gets to Kernow.

And we all also know that Cornwall is the 2nd poorest region in Northern Europe, correct?

And it has remained this way for a very long time.

Between the lack of British government funding, celebrities buying multi million pound mansions in Cornwall and leaving them empty 3/4 of the year, all the seasonal workers who companies hire from other counties to work during the tourist season, it should be obvious why Kernow should want some self-governance. It’s been fucked for centuries, a play pen for rich people, a novelty with their silly little language and silly little traditions, just look how quaint. Meanwhile the actual Cornish people swim in their shit and pay for their second homes while being driven out of theirs.

Crucially, no Cornish person I've ever met considers themselves English. And, every time I have ever been to Cornwall, I've been met with delight when I've said I'm Welsh. One pub we went in even had Welsh rugby memorabilia on the walls, because they support Wales over England. There's a real cousins vibe, and a definite Celtic-not-English identity

[ Link to survey ]

The 12th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 30th August 2025.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

If you can't wait for survey numbers, you can click here for a public spreadsheet of non-secret info with graphs as it comes in, updated manually a few times per day.

Thank you so much!

And now it is midnight and I should go to sleep. :D

MY GIRLSSS 🫶✨

"Not at all"

The "lain" form is now dated/poetic.

A variant of this is laisin/laisinkaan.

Luitko sitä lainkaan? - Did you read it at all? En huomannut lainkaan. - I didn't notice at all. Et ole kastellut kukkia lainkaan. - You haven't watered the flowers at all. No en lain. - Well no I didn't (at all)