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The Cornish people are regarded as an ethnic group of Britain originating in Cornwall. They are often described as a Celtic people.
As with other ethnic groups in the British Isles, the question of identity is not straightforward. Ethnic identity has been based as much – if not more – on cultural identity than on descent. Many descendants of people who came and settled in Cornwall have adopted this identity.[4] The subject of Cornish identity has been extensively studied in the Cornish studies series of books published by Exeter university press. Cornishness is examined with methodological tools varying from feminist theory to deconstructionism.[5] In the 2001 UK Census, the population of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was estimated to be 501,267.[6] Cornish community organisations tend to consider half of these people to be ethnic Cornish.[citation needed]
For the first time in a UK Census, those wishing to describe their ethnicity as Cornish were given their own code number (06) on the 2001 UK Census form, alongside those for people wishing to describe themselves as English, Welsh, Irish or Scottish. About 34,000 people in Cornwall and 3,500 people in the rest of the UK wrote on their census forms in 2001 that they considered their ethnic group to be Cornish.[9] This represented nearly 7% of the population of Cornwall and is therefore a significant phenomenon. [10] Although happy with this development, campaigners expressed reservations about the lack of publicity surrounding the issue, the lack of a clear tick-box for the Cornish option on the census and the need to deny being British in order to write "Cornish" in the field provided. The UK government has agreed recently that English and Welsh will have an ethnicity tick box on the Census 2011 but there will be no Cornish option tick box. Various Cornish organisations are campaigning for the inclusion of the Cornish tick box on the next 2011 Census. [11] [12]
Mythological Descent of the Cornish nationAn ancient legend, the Brutus Myth, recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth, gives explicit reference to the Cornish people in describing their descent. The legend tells how Albion was colonised by refugees from Troy under Brutus, how Brutus renamed his new Kingdom, Britain, and how the island was subsequently divided up between his three sons - the eldest inheriting England, the other two Scotland and Wales. Additionally according to the legend there were two groups of Trojans who originally arrived in Britain. The smaller group was led by a warrior named Corineus, to whom Brutus granted extensive estates. And just as Brutus had ‘called the island Britain…and his companions Britons’, so Corineus called ‘the region of the kingdom which had fallen to his share Cornwall, after the manner of his own name, and the people who lived there…Cornishmen’. The first account of Cornwall comes from the Sicilian Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (c.90 BCE–c.30 BCE), supposedly quoting or paraphrasing the fourth-century BCE geographer Pytheas, who had sailed to Britain: [The inhabitants of that part of Britain called Belerion or the Land's End] from their intercourse with foreign merchants, are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very carefully the earth in which it is produced…Here then the merchants buy the tin from the natives and carry it over to Gaul, and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on horses to the mouth of the Rhône.[13] Who these merchants were is not known. There is no current evidence for the theory that they were Phoenicians.[14] No other region is picked out for such special treatment; the historian Dr Mark Stoyle has suggested that this shows that, as far as Geoffrey was concerned, Cornwall possessed a separate identity. Cornishmen and women continued to regard themselves as descendants of Corineus until well into the early modern period.[15] In two recently published books, Blood of the Isles, by Brian Sykes and Origins of Britons, by Stephen Oppenheimer, both authors claim that according to genetic evidence, most Cornish people and most Britons descend from an ancient (Paleolithic) population of the Iberian Peninsula, as a result of different migrations that took place during the Mesolithic and the Neolithic which laid the foundations for the present-day populations in the British Isles, indicating an ancient relationship among the populations of Atlantic Europe. The Cornish in history
"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.[17][18][19] [20] Contemporary referencesIn 1937 Bartholomew published a Map of European Ethnicity prepared by the Edinburgh Institute of Geography which featured "Celtic Cornish". More recently, on 12 July 2005, 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, but that alone does not justify creating an assembly for Cornwall.[21] Phil Woolas MP, Minister for Local Government, indicated the same in his 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 ... The Government recognises that many people in Cornwall consider they have a separate identity."[citation needed] NGOs such as Eurominority and the Federal Union of European Nationalities also give varying degrees of recognition to a Cornish people.[22][23][24] Cornish languageThe 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 19th, 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. DescentMany who perceive themselves to be of the Cornish nation also consider themselves to be descended from the Brythons, or Cornovii (Cornish), 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 southern, eastern and central Great Britain, Brythonic 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 family and given names from Cornwall are clearly rooted in the Cornish language. Y chromosome analysis of samples from the British Isles, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Friesland, and the Basque Country have 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 an indigenous component.[25] PoliticsThe 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, 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.[26] The largest Cornish nationalist party, Mebyon Kernow (Cornish for Sons of Cornwall), fielded candidates in four of the five constituencies and received around 3,500 votes, less than two percent of constituencies' electorate. The Liberal Democrats in Cornwall, however, have campaigned for Cornish language issues,[27][28] Cornish national minority issues and for the establishment of a devolved Cornish Assembly[29] and Cornish development agency.[30] The Cornish branch of the Green Party of England and Wales also campaigns on a manifesto of devolution to Cornwall and Cornish minority issues. In the 2005 general election the Green Party struck a partnership deal with Mebyon Kernow. [31] ReligionTraditionally, the Cornish have been nonconformist in their religion. Celtic Christianity was predominant during the first millennium AD and many Cornish saints are commemorated in legends, churches and place names. Approximately four thousand people from Devon and Cornwall died in the Prayer Book Rebellion in the 1540s, trying to resist the compulsory use of a new English language version of the Book of Common Prayer. Attempts to revert to the Latin version, or to translate the text into Cornish, were suppressed. This failure to produce or sustain a translation of the Bible in Cornish is generally seen as a crucial factor in the demise of the language. An approved version of the Bible in Cornish was finally published in 2004. [32] MethodismDuring the Industrial Revolution, Methodism proved to be very popular amongst the working classes in Cornwall. Methodist chapels became important social centres, with church-affiliated groups such as male voice choirs playing a central role in social life. Methodism still plays a large part in the religious life of Cornwall today, although Cornwall has shared in the general post-World War II decline in British religious worship. Cornwall and Gwennap Pit in particular were favourite places of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. Fry an SpyrysIn 2003, a campaign group was formed called Fry an Spyrys (English: "Free the Spirit") [33] dedicated to disestablishing the Church of England in Cornwall in favour of an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion; a Church of Cornwall. They appeal to the precedents set when 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. The group's chairman is Dr Garry Tregidga of the Institute of Cornish Studies. Cornish emigration and diasporaIn the 18th and 19th centuries many Cornish people migrated to various parts of the world in search of a better life — this is called Cornish migration. 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. Migration became so common that a slang term to describe a Cornish migrant abroad appeared: "Cousin Jack" [34]. 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
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