The 2nd Cornish National Minority Report

cornubian

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Below those interested will find the 2nd Cornish National Minority report submitted to the UK government and the Council of Europe's secretariat for the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. It makes a great synthesis of the arguments for the existence of a Cornish national identity

A URL to the pdf is here: http://www.oldcornwall.org/Cornish Minority Report final doc. PDF.pdf

All those who support our cause should feel free to circulate to all interested parties.

Oll an gwella
 
Good luck. (y)

I think a Cornish Assembly makes sense, at least. The Cornish are an ethnicity off on their own, certainly. Both my wife and I have some Cornish in our family histories and have enjoyed learning about the history and culture (and drinking scrumpy and eating pasties).

I've written about Cornwall on this forum here and also talk about them here.
 
Below those interested will find the 2nd Cornish National Minority report submitted to the UK government and the Council of Europe's secretariat for the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. It makes a great synthesis of the arguments for the existence of a Cornish national identity


Why do you think having official recognition will change anything? I live in Scotland and there are people here who have a inferiority complex about being Scottish but being part of a political union.

You only have to look at the crisis with the Euro to see that further intergration is the only way forward, becoming too insular will only make our economic prospects for the future worse.

An independant Scotland would have required a bailout due to the size of the Scottish banks going bust. I wouldn't be so desperate for offical recognition from anyone, you are who you are, and most importantly your European and as such are part of a much larger community.
 
Good luck. As a Catalan I understand your reivindications.

Wold be also interesing to see if Ethnic Cornish people will appear genetically different from their English neighbours. Just as a curiosity, I shared genoms at 23andme with a Cornish woman and she had almost the same mtDNA as mine. She was K1b1a1, and I am K1b1a, wich represents a small difference.
 
Wold be also interesing to see if Ethnic Cornish people will appear genetically different from their English neighbours.

It depends on how you define "English neighbours." If you mean Devonians in particular, then it is difficult to genetically tell a Cornish person from a Devonian, so it's best to understand the difference between either side of the Tamar as principally cultural and historical. But if you mean Cornwall vs. England as a whole, then we can definitely say that the average Cornish person is distinguishable from the average English person, sure... Sir Walter Bodmer is coming out with a good deal of research to show that the Anglo-Saxons had a significant genetic impact on England, but that that impact does not extend into Cornwall, which is what the Cornish have contended for a while. See here. Quoting:

Jean Manco said:
He treated us to the results in the form of a map of the UK onto the screen, with the coloured clusters plotted on it... But what astonished some present was the wash of yellow across most of England outside that highland zone and Devon and Cornwall. Sir Walter was quite unapologetic about seeing this as the heritage of the Anglo-Saxons.
 
good luck cornwall, are parts of devon with you?

question - did the celts go from cornwall to brittany or brittany to cornwall.
 
Very interesting Sparkey. Of course, I meant difference between them and the average English, I didn't explain properly.

So, Cornish descendants will probably be one of the most ancient inhabitants of England, ¿right?
 
good luck cornwall, are parts of devon with you?

I think most Cornish would prefer the border to stay at the Tamar, between Cornwall and Devon. That results from the historical boundary between the part of Dumnonia that the Saxons of Wessex conquered and the part that they didn't. The part that they didn't (Cornwall) retained a greater degree of cultural separateness from England than the part that they did (Devon). I'll let Cornubian correct me if I'm wrong here, but that's my understanding.

question - did the celts go from cornwall to brittany or brittany to cornwall.

Let's get our different kinds of Celts straight here--Celts were native to Brittany long before the Migration Period, although those kinds of Celts were Gaulish, not Brythonic as modern Bretons are. The Brythonic Bretons came from several parts of Britain during the first millennium AD, especially the Kingdom of Dumnonia, which included Cornwall. So, Cornwall to Brittany.

Very interesting Sparkey. Of course, I meant difference between them and the average English, I didn't explain properly.

So, Cornish descendants will probably be one of the most ancient inhabitants of England, ¿right?

At least, I think we can say that they have the least Germanic influence, both culturally and genetically, of people who live in England at the moment.
 
Ok. This really makes sense considering it's difficult after a long time living together, to remain genetically inaltered.
 
I think most Cornish would prefer the border to stay at the Tamar, between Cornwall and Devon. That results from the historical boundary between the part of Dumnonia that the Saxons of Wessex conquered and the part that they didn't. The part that they didn't (Cornwall) retained a greater degree of cultural separateness from England than the part that they did (Devon). I'll let Cornubian correct me if I'm wrong here, but that's my understanding.



Let's get our different kinds of Celts straight here--Celts were native to Brittany long before the Migration Period, although those kinds of Celts were Gaulish, not Brythonic as modern Bretons are. The Brythonic Bretons came from several parts of Britain during the first millennium AD, especially the Kingdom of Dumnonia, which included Cornwall. So, Cornwall to Brittany.

was not the prayer book rebellion of 1549 the demise of the cornish/celtic independence ( linguistically) . You only have in 2007 , IIRC the English parliament concestion that they where wrong and this 2007 "evidencce" commence this minority report.
Will anything be done to this in terms of clarifying the issue
 
was not the prayer book rebellion of 1549 the demise of the cornish/celtic independence ( linguistically) .

Good knowledge of history. It was the start of the demise, yes... beforehand, the Cornish language, although not very common, was still spoken throughout much of Cornwall, especially in the West, but afterward, it had a sharp decline, until by the early 1600s, it was endangered, and fizzled out slowly. The Prayer Book Rebellion was disastrous because its failure not only cemented English as the liturgical language of Cornwall, but also gave the English a distaste for Cornish speakers, actually suppressing translations of the Bible into Cornish.
 
I saw that there are several Cornish samples at Dodecad, and they appear genetically quite as the same as the English average: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spr...owN3M3UWRyNnc&hl=en_US&authkey=COCa89AJ#gid=0

Dodecad isn't that helpful here, because we're working with distinctions within the "West European" component. The Dutch aren't all that different from them, either, for example. I suppose we can work with minute differences in "East European" components, but that doesn't prove a whole lot.

Eurogenes also include Cornish samples, buy I am lazy to check the averages since they are not included. Just note the usual high North Atlantic scores: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spr...HRUVWFTbktrX01QWkZzYmhjR1FUNVE&hl=en_US#gid=0

Average North Atlantic scores are interesting:
Cornish: 0.48
Kentish: 0.35
"UK": 0.40
Netherlands: 0.29

It looks like higher North Atlantic = more Celtic/non-Anglo-Saxon, less North Atlantic = the opposite, giving an expected result of Kent being quite Anglo-Saxon (and I presume also quite Jutish) and Cornwall not so much.
 
Totally agree sparkey, I think Eurogenes helps much more. And it looks clear they have more Celtic background. Will be interesting to see other runs and get a better idea.
 
According to the latest results from the PLASC Cornwall Schools ethnicity survey 41% of Cornish kids prefer to describe themselves as Cornish rather than English, British or any combination.

“States shall respect the right of a child to preserve his or her identity. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all elements of his or her identity, States will provide appropriate assistance and protection with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity“.
United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child.
 
Can't people just be happy being part of the UK?
I get really angry at people who are pro-Scottish independence. All of them are of the same mindset - English imperialists reigning over us 'taking our oil' - they all seem to forget the fact that it was a SCOTTISH king who decided to move his palace to England, and ultimately it was SCOTLAND who initiated union with English...yeah that's right UNION, not WAR, not IMPERIALISM.
Get over yourselves, you're practically your own country anyway. I love how a lot of them seem to be under the illusion that if Scotland were independent it would suddenly be some amazingly improved wonderland, Alex Salmond said recently I believe that he would 'erradicate' poverty if Scotland were independent - I'd love to see that, seeing as if you broke away from the UK you would be working with a smaller budget than you have already. And if Scotland had been independent circa the recession they would have been up shit creek without a paddle the amount the UK government and mainly ENGLISH tax payers had to bail out their banks.

Anyway back to topic...

Then I hear about Cornish national sentiment, and to be honest, I though it was a joke. Cornwall has never and will never be it's own country. Ethnically different.....huh? That's like saying East Londoners are ethnically different from West Londoners...NON SENSE. About 200 people speak Cornish, which was nearly extinct until some idiots decided to dig it up again a few years ago. I'm all for diversity, but just because you're 'slightly' different doesn't mean you need to be your own country.
 
Can't people just be happy being part of the UK?
I get really angry at people who are pro-Scottish independence. All of them are of the same mindset - English imperialists reigning over us 'taking our oil' - they all seem to forget the fact that it was a SCOTTISH king who decided to move his palace to England, and ultimately it was SCOTLAND who initiated union with English...yeah that's right UNION, not WAR, not IMPERIALISM.
Get over yourselves, you're practically your own country anyway. I love how a lot of them seem to be under the illusion that if Scotland were independent it would suddenly be some amazingly improved wonderland, Alex Salmond said recently I believe that he would 'erradicate' poverty if Scotland were independent - I'd love to see that, seeing as if you broke away from the UK you would be working with a smaller budget than you have already. And if Scotland had been independent circa the recession they would have been up shit creek without a paddle the amount the UK government and mainly ENGLISH tax payers had to bail out their banks.

Anyway back to topic...

Then I hear about Cornish national sentiment, and to be honest, I though it was a joke. Cornwall has never and will never be it's own country. Ethnically different.....huh? That's like saying East Londoners are ethnically different from West Londoners...NON SENSE. About 200 people speak Cornish, which was nearly extinct until some idiots decided to dig it up again a few years ago. I'm all for diversity, but just because you're 'slightly' different doesn't mean you need to be your own country.

Its because the English government does not set up schools in scotland, wales, cornwall and teach the languages and customs of these areas. These people pay tax to England, why deny them these type of schools.
Basically the english government is racist and is trying to kill these languages that have existed for centuries.
It infuriates me that they ( English) are denying me and others a chance in the future to learn more about these different cultures in GB. The paranoia of England is that these people want independence............of course they want it if you deny them their langauge and customs. Give them tools to retain their differences and then see if they want independence.

People can have and know more than 1 language.
 
Can't people just be happy being part of the UK?

Extremely few Cornish want out of the UK like some Scots do. But quite a lot of Cornish would like some devolution, like Wales has.

Then I hear about Cornish national sentiment, and to be honest, I though it was a joke. Cornwall has never and will never be it's own country.

Except that it has been its own country, although the "true" Kingdom of Cornwall, the post-Dumnonia rump state, was only briefly totally sovereign. But if we count Dumnonia as being in direct continuity with the historical independent Cornwall, which most historians do, then it existed for several hundred years. It's a historical region I have a lot of interest in, and I can name all of the historically known kings of Dumnonia/Cornwall.

Not to mention, its residents usually think of Cornwall as either a country, or at least a unique region.

Ethnically different.....huh? That's like saying East Londoners are ethnically different from West Londoners...NON SENSE.

It's obviously nothing of the sort. Although there's clearly cultural continuity across the West Country into Cornwall, and genetic and historical continuity as well, Cornwall is unique in traditional status, language, and, most importantly, identity.

I have both Cornish and English ancestors, and the migration and cultural patterns of those two groups were very different. I think maintaining a dichotomy is warranted, especially if the Cornish prefer to maintain it.

About 200 people speak Cornish, which was nearly extinct until some idiots decided to dig it up again a few years ago.

How in the world is preserving a historical language you identify with idiotic? I think it's wonderful. Cornish is a great language.

I'm all for diversity, but just because you're 'slightly' different doesn't mean you need to be your own country.

How about your own ethnicity? Or your own constituent country?
 

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