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Ethnic group

Cornish
Regions with significant populations
Cornwall: ?
Languages
English, Cornish
Religion
Christianity Methodism, Other, None
Related ethnic groups
Celtic, Irish, Manx, Breton, Scottish, Welsh

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

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. Some 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 primarily on cultural identity rather than descent (witness the adoption of Highland Gaelic in the Scottish Lowlands, which historically were inhabited by Brythonic speakers). Similarly, a Cornish identity has been adopted by descendants of non-Cornish people who have come to live in Cornwall, as noted by Professor Philip Payton, of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the Univeristy of Exeter, in his book Cornwall - A History.

The population of Cornwall was estimated to be 501,267 in the 2001 census. 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 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. . 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 , (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%).

The Cornish in History

In 878, the drowned king Donyarth is recorded in the Annales Cambriae as rex Cerniu King of Cornwall.

Lodovico Falier, an Italian diplomat at the Court of Henry VIII is reported to have said The language of the English, Welsh and Cornish men is so different that they do not understand each other, Falier informed a correspondent in 1531, adding that it was possible to distinguish the members of each group by their alleged 'national characteristics'.

Seven years later, Gaspard de Coligny Chatillon, the French Ambassador in London, showed that he was aware of an ethnic split. He wrote back to his political masters 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 language.

Following the death of Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I, in 1603, the Venetian ambassador wrote that the late queen had ruled over five different 'peoples': 'English, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish ...and Irish.

In 1616 Arthur Hopton stated that, England is ...divided into 3 great Provinces, or Countries ...every of them speaking a several and different language, as English, Welsh and Cornish.

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

In 1485 An Italian cleric, Polydore Vergil, living in England and commissioned by the king, Henry VII, to write a history of England made the following distinction, 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.

Contemporary Reference

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

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 Minorities also give varying degrees of recognition to a 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.

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.

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, recognition of Cornwall as a Duchy and various other human rights issues. See Cornish nationalism and Constitutional status of Cornwall.

Cornwall currently delivers five members of parliament to Westminster. As of the 2005 election, all of these are Liberal Democrats. Cornwall is one of the few stronghold areas that the Liberal Democrats have. The largest Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow ran in four of these constituencies at the 2005 general election, and polled around 3,500 votes, less than 2% of the consituencies' population, and around the same as the estimated proportion of Cornish speakers.

However all the Cornish seats returned Liberal Democrat MP's, and it should be noted that the Liberal Democrats in Cornwall have campaigned for Cornish language issues , Cornish national minority issues and for the establishment of a devolved Cornish Assembly and development agency .

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) . 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 diaspora

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 emmigrants 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.