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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. The number of people living in Cornwall who consider themselves to be more Cornish than British or English is unknown. One survey found that 35.1% of respondents identified as Cornish, with 48.4% of respondents identifying as English, a further 11% thought of themselves as British. Appendix I: Sample Profile (downloadable '.doc' file) from QUALITY OF LIFE IN CORNWALL: Summary Report (2004), by Cornwall County Council Research and Information Unit. Retrieved 16 July 2006. A Morgan Stanley survey in 2004 indicated that 44% of people in Cornwall identify as Cornish rather than English or British, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3527673.stm Morgan Stanley survey shows that 44% identify as Cornish rather tha English or British] and there have been recent calls for more accuracy in the recording of the number who identify as Cornish in the 2011 Census. Calls for Cornish identity to be clearly recorded on 2011 Census 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.Payton, Philip: ''Cornwall – A History''. ISBN 1-904880-05-3 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 .Various authors: ''Cornish Studies series'', ed. Philip Payton ISBN 0-85989-771-0. In the 2001 UK Census , the population of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was estimated to be 501,267. Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly from '' Census 2001 '': National Statistics Online , UK state website. Retrieved 14 July 2006. Cornish community organisations tend to consider half of these people to be ethnic Cornish. A recent survey by the University Of Plymouth found that, when given the opportunity, over a third of pupils in Cornish schools identified themselves as Cornish. 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 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. [http://www.pledgebank.com/Cornish-Tick-Box Cornish demand tick box for 2011 Census] Mebyon Kernow support 2011 Census Cornish ethnicity tick box MYTHOLOGICAL DESCENT OF THE CORNISH NATION An 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: 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.Halliday, p51. Who these merchants were is not known. There is no current evidence for the theory that they were Phoenicians.Halliday, p52. 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.Stoyle, Mark: ''West Britons -Cornish Identities and the Early Modern British State'' ISBN 0-85989-687-0. 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 See Also: History of Cornwall During the Eighteenth Century , Samuel Johnson created a Cornish Declaration Of Independence that he used in his essay ''Taxation no Tyranny'' TAXATION NO TYRANNY by Samuel Johnson, From The Works of Samuel Johnson published by Pafraets & Company, Troy, New York (1913). Retrieved 15 July 2006. "''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 website. Retrieved 15 July 2006. CONTEMPORARY REFERENCES In 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, ''', 12 Jul 2005. Retrieved 15 July 2006. 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." NGO s such as Eurominority and the Federal Union Of European Nationalities also give varying degrees of recognition to a Cornish people. The Cornish in the south-west of Great Britain article in '''FUEN - Now Actuel No 77, p. 4, October 2001. Retrieved 15 July 2006. Minorities, native people and ethnic groups from Eurominority website. Retrieved 15 July 2006. Stateless nations and regions Eurominority website. Retrieved 15 July 2006. 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 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. DESCENT Many 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 '', Volume 13, Issue 11, Pages 979-984 (2003). Retrieved 15 July 2006. In 2005 professor Sir gene which makes them a true Celtic race that are genetically closely related to the Welsh, Irish and Bretons rather than to their English neighbours. POLITICS See Also: Politics of Cornwall 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 ''. In parliamentary politics, Cornwall is a . Retrieved 15 July 2005. 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 . Aid cash bureaucracy criticised : BBC News, 28 October, 2004. Retrieved 15 July 2006. The Cornish branch of the website, 25th Mar 2004. Retrieved 15 July 2006. RELIGION Traditionally, 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. The Cornish New Testament was published by the Cornish Language Board on 13 August 2004. Methodism During 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 Spyrys'' In 2003, a campaign group was formed called '' 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 DIASPORA See Also: 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 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" Cousin Jack : BBC - Legacies - Immigration and Emigration - England - Cornwall. Website. Retrieved 6 September 2006.. 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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