Cornish people: Encyclopedia - Cornish people

Cornish people

The Cornish are a Celtic ethnic group primarily found in Cornwall.

Cornish people - Numbers of Cornish

The number of people living in Cornwall considering themselves primarily Cornish rather than English or British is unknown. Many in Cornwall consider themselves primarily British and then Cornish and use the term British to describe themselves. However many others use Cornish as a description of their ethnic/national identity and this is a phenomenon with a long historical precedent. Many indigenous Cornish also consider themselves to be English.

The question of different ethnic groups in the white population of the British Isles is difficult in itself, regardless of the Cornish question. The Celtic and Anglo-Saxon populations intermarried freely, and ethnicity in the islands is based on cultural identity as well as descent (witness the adoption of Highland Gaelic in the Scottish Lowlands, which historically were inhabited by Brythonic speakers). Similarly, as noted by Philip Payton (Professor of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter) in his book Cornwall - A History, descendants of non-Cornish people who came to live in Cornwall have adopted a Cornish identity.

The population of Cornwall was estimated to be 501,267 in the 2001 census^[1]. Cornish community organisations tend to consider half of these people to be ethnic Cornish, although such estimates are unreliable, the numbers considering themselves Cornish could be a lot lower.

A recent survey by the University of Plymouth found that, when given the opportunity, over a third of pupils in schools in Cornwall would identify as Cornish. A Morgan Stanley Bank survey indicated that when given one choice, 44 per cent of the inhabitants of Cornwall believe themselves to be Cornish, rather than British, English or European. This was the largest such figure in England (average of 21% identifying with county), but was not unusually high - in Derbyshire and East Sussex 37% identified with county first. [2]. This survey gives neither an upper or a lower bound on the number of Cornish people identifying as part of a Cornish ethnicity.

Another survey [3], (which gave people the option to choose between Cornish and English, but not both), found 35.1% of people in its (self-selected) sample of 15,000 chose Cornish, compared to 48.4% who chose English.

For processing responses to the question on ethnicity in the 2001 UK Census, the ONS for the first time granted the Cornish their own code number '06' like the English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish. Campaigners, although happy with this change, expressed reservations about the lack of publicity surrounding the issue, the lack of a clear tick box for a Cornish option on the census and the need to deny being British in order to write Cornish in the "others" box. A total of 37,603 people in the UK gave Cornish as a write-in answer. In Cornwall 33,932 people (6.8% of the population) did so, varying from 9% in Penwith to 5.57% in Caradon. Outside Cornwall an additional 3,671 put down Cornish, the highest proportion being in Plymouth, with 487 (0.2%).

Cornish people - The Cornish in history

• 878 : The drowned king Donyarth is recorded in the Annales Cambriae as rex Cerniu (King of Cornwall).

• 1485 : Polydore Vergil, an Italian cleric commissioned by King Henry VII to write a history of England, states that "The whole country of Britain is divided into four parts, whereof the one is inhabited by Englishmen, the other of Scots, the third of Welshmen, the fourth of Cornish people ... and which all differ among themselves either in tongue, either in manners, or else in laws and ordinances."

• 1497 : The Cornish Rebellion.

• 1509 : King Henry VIII's coronation procession includes "nine children of honour" representing "England and France, Gascony, Guienne, Normandy, Anjou, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland."

• 1531 : From the court of King Henry VIII, the Italian diplomat Lodovico Falier writes in a letter that "The language of the English, Welsh and Cornish men is so different that they do not understand each other". He also claims it is possible to distinguish the members of each group by alleged "national characteristics".

• 1538 : Writing to his government, the French ambassador in London, Gaspard de Coligny Chatillon, indicates ethnic differences thus: "The kingdom of England is by no means a united whole, for it also contains Wales and Cornwall, natural enemies of the rest of England, and speaking a [different] language".

• 1603 : Following Queen Elizabeth I's death, the Venetian ambassador writes that the "late queen had ruled over five different 'peoples': 'English, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish ... and Irish'".

• 1616 : Arthur Hopton [later ambassador to Madrid?] writes that "England is ... divided into three great Provinces, or Countries ... speaking a several and different language, as English, Welsh and Cornish".

During the eighteenth century, Samuel Johnson created a Cornish declaration of independence that he used in his essay Taxation no Tyranny [4]:

"We are the acknowledged descendants of the earliest inhabitants of Britain, of men, who, before the time of history, took possession of the island desolate and waste, and, therefore, open to the first occupants. Of this descent, our language is a sufficient proof, which, not quite a century ago, was different from yours."

Additionally, many maps of the isles prior to the seventeenth century showed Cornwall (Cornubia / Cornwallia) as a nation on a par with Wales, notably Gerardus Mercator (1512) [5], Sebastian Munster (1515) [6] [7], Abraham Ortelius [8] and Girolamo Ruscelli [9].

Cornish people - Contemporary Reference

In 1937 Bartholomew published a Map of European Ethnicity prepared by the Edinburgh Institute of Geography which featured "Celtic Cornish"[10].

More recently Jim Fitzpatrick MP, an ODPM Parliamentary Under Secretary in the current Labour government, said in the Commons in response to Andrew George MP, a Liberal Democrat representing the St Ives Constituency in Cornwall, I realise that the people of Cornwall consider that they have a separate identity.

Phil Woolas MP, Minister for Local Government, did the same in answer to a letter from Mebyon Kernow On your point about Cornwall’s desire to control its own future, the Government is very much aware of the strength of feeling about Cornwall’s separate identity and distinctiveness and The Government recognises that many people in Cornwall consider they have a separate identity.

NGO's such as Eurominority and the Federal Union of European Nationalities also give varying degrees of recognition to a Cornish people [11][12].

Cornish people - Cornish language

The Cornish language is seen by many as the cultural back bone of the Cornish identity, although only 3,500 of the estimated 250,000 Cornish people (1.4%) speak it to a basic conversational level, and just 300-400 fluently. Recently the Cornish language, which was revived in the 20th Century after dying out as a native tongue in the 18th, has been recognised by the UK and EU for protection as a UK minority language and now receives funding from both these bodies. The Cornish language is a Brythonic language related to Welsh and Breton.

A distinct dialect of English can also be found in Cornwall, and appears in many popular Cornish folksongs such as Camborne Hill. To an extent, the accent and dialect is a badge of "Cornishness" for some people, but interest in Anglo-Cornish has been overshadowed by the Cornish language recently.

Cornish people - Descent

Many who perceive themselves to be of the Cornish nation also consider themselves to be descended from the Britons of the post-Roman period. For this reason they consider there to be a kinship connection with the Welsh and Breton peoples and more distantly with the Scots, Manx and Irish. After the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, British speakers were gradually pushed further into the fringes, eventually cutting them off into three groups - the Southwestern Britons (from whence the Cornish), the West Britons (the Welsh) and the Northern Britons (see Cumbric).

This sense of a shared past is given voice in such organisations as the Celtic League and Celtic Congress, both of whom recognise Cornwall and the Cornish as a Celtic nation.

Today many Cornish family and first names, like the Cornish language, clearly have their roots in the language and culture of the Britons.

Y chromosome analysis of samples from the British Isles, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Friesland, and the Basque Country has shown that Cornish men's Y chromosomes are generally more similar to those of the assumed indigenous population (Welsh/Irish/Basque) than are those of men from other parts of England or Scotland. The Y chromosomes from Cornwall, however, were more Germanic (Danish/German/Frisian) than those from Wales, Ireland or the Basque Country. It should be noted that samples from all parts of the British Isles show a large indigenous component^[13]. See Anglo-Saxons for greater detail.

Cornish people - Politics

The Cornish national identity is given voice also in the existence of various political and pressure groups. These organisations usually call for greater home rule for Cornwall, [more?] recognition of Cornwall as a Duchy and various other human rights issues. See Cornish nationalism and Constitutional status of Cornwall.

In parliamentary politics, Cornwall is a Liberal Democrat stronghold. As of the 2005 General Election, all five members of parliament returned to Westminster are Liberal Democrats. The largest Cornish nationalist party, Mebyon Kernow (Cornish: Sons of Cornwall), fielded candidates in four of the five constituencies and received around 3,500 votes, less than two percent of constituencies' electorate (and, coincidentally or not, around the number of people estimated to speak Cornish).

The Liberal Democrats in Cornwall have campaigned for Cornish language issues [14] [15], Cornish national minority issues and for the establishment of a devolved Cornish Assembly [16] and Cornish development agency [17].

Cornish people - Religion

Traditionally, the Cornish have been nonconformists, in religion. Celtic Christianity was a feature of Cornwall and many Cornish saints are commemorated in legends, churches and place names.

Thousands of Cornish people died in the Prayer Book Rebellion in the 1540s when the law required that a new English language version of the Book of Common Prayer be used; attempts to revert to the Latin version, or to translate the text into Cornish, were suppressed.

In contrast to the Welsh language, the churches failed to produce a translation of the Bible into the local language, and this has been seen by some as a crucial factor in the demise of the language. The Bible was translated into Cornish in 2004.

The Methodism of John Wesley also proved to be very popular with the working classes in Cornwall in the 18th century. Methodist chapels became important social centres, with male voice choirs and other church-affiliated groups playing a central role in the social lives of working class Cornishmen. Methodism still plays a large part in the religious life of Cornwall today, although Cornwall has shared in the post-World War II decline in British religious feeling.

In 2003, a campaign group was formed called Fry an Spyrys (free the spirit in Cornish) [18]. It is dedicated to disestablishing the Church of England in Cornwall (organised as the Diocese of Truro, headed by the Bishop of Truro), and to forming an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion — a Church of Cornwall. Its chairman is Dr Garry Tregidga of the Institute of Cornish Studies. The Anglican Church was disestablished in Wales to form the Church in Wales in 1920 and in Ireland to form the Church of Ireland in 1869.

Cornish people - Cornish emigration

In the 18th and 19th centuries many Cornish people migrated to various parts of the world in search of a better life — this is called the Cornish Diaspora by some. A driving force for some emigrants was the opportunity for skilled miners to find work abroad, later in combination with the decline in the tin and copper mining industries in Cornwall.

Today, in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, South Africa and other countries, some of the descendants of these original migrants celebrate their Cornish ancestry and remain proud of the Cornish family names they carry. This is evidenced by the existence of both Cornish societies and Cornish festivals in these countries, as well as a growing overseas interest in the Cornish language.

See also

• Cornovii
• Culture of Cornwall
• List of Cornish people
• Modern Celts
• Anglo-Cornish
• Cornish language

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Cornish people", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki