Talk:Cornish people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cornwall, an attempt to improve and expand Wikipedia coverage of Cornwall and all things Cornish. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project member page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Cornwall Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.
See drop-down box for suggested article edit guidelines:
Zuni girl; photograph by Edward S. Curtis, 1903 This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Ethnic groups, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.
NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritizing and managing its workload.
??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the Project's quality scale.
??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the Project's importance scale.
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.
WikiProject Ethnic groups open tasks:
Archive
Archives
/Archive 1


Contents

[edit] New information

Added the following:

[edit] the Myth of Descent

An ancient legend, the Brutus Myth, recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth gives explicit reference to the Cornish people in describing their decent. The legend tell how Albion was colonised by refugees from Troy under King Brutus, how Brutus reamed 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; it was 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’. No other region is picked out for such special treatment; it is clear that, as far as Geoffrey was concerned, Cornwall possessed a separate identity. Cornishmen and women continued to regard themselves as descendents of Corineus until well into the early modern period.

|- |align=center| 1652 || The English puritan preacher, Roger Williams complained that "we have Indians...in Cornwall, Indians in Wales, Indians in Ireland". |}


Bretagne 44 09:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Tidied it up a bit. "No other region is picked out for such special treatment; it is clear that, as far as Geoffrey was concerned, Cornwall possessed a separate identity," strikes me as rather too PoV (and if that's what the evidence shows, it shouldn't need stating); whilst "Cornishmen and women continued to regard themselves as descendents of Corineus until well into the early modern period" needs a citation. sjcollier 11:48, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Dr Mark Stoyle, West Britons, Cornish Indentities and the Early Modern british State; chap 1 page 13. ISBN 0 85989 688 9, University Of Exeter Press.

I have reverted your changes.Bretagne 44 14:21, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"The legend tell how" Sorry?
"under King Brutus" No "Brutus Rex" in the Historia; just plain Brutus. And why is it linked to a non-existant King Brutus article when he already has his own article at Brutus of Troy?
"Additionally according to the legend;" That's a novel use for a semi-colon.
"it was two groups of Trojans" Eh? Surely "there were..."
"it is clear that, as far as Geoffrey was concerned, Cornwall possessed a separate identity." "It is clear that" is still PoV.
"Cornishmen and women continued to regard themselves as descendents of Corineus until well into the early modern period." Your source for this claim being?
I've removed the whole lot. If you're not happy to let somebody else try to make this look like an encyclopaedia article, please do so yourself. sjcollier 18:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay, sorry, just spotted the citation. Other points still stand, though. sjcollier 18:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and just spotted the TalkPage section title. I'm guessing you mean the Myth of Descent, unless your point is that Brutus was a thoroughly nice bloke. sjcollier 18:40, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Stop vandalising the page in a hissy fit!

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 King 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’.

No other region is picked out for such special treatment; it is clear that, as far as Geoffrey was concerned, Cornwall possessed a separate identity. Cornishmen and women continued to regard themselves as descendents of Corineus until well into the early modern period. Bretagne 44 11:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

You carry out a revert in order to reinstate bad grammar and shoddy English that had been removed from an article, and then accuse me of vandalism? Never mind. I've corrected the Brutus link (again), and removed the word "King", because he's not called that. Anyway, "it is clear that, as far as Geoffrey was concerned, Cornwall possessed a separate identity" is still not NPOV, because it is an opinion, not a fact (see here). It needs rewording or removing. sjcollier 20:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
(PS. I feel I should declare that I am, more or less, "on your side" - before you resort to labelling me an "English nationalist". I simply don't think that bad English or non-NPOV assertions are going to help convince critics of this article that it's not just a load of nationalistic rubbish.)

1) Apart form the spelling mistakes i used the words of Mark Stoyle! 2) I did not label you an English nationalist. 3) It is an opinion yes, one more opinion to add to the list. Bretagne 44 16:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

1) Do you have permision for that, or is it breach of copyright? 2) No, but you have done in the past when someone has disagreed with you over this article. 3) If it's an opinion then it needs to be made clear that it is an opinion, eg "The historian Dr Mark Stoyle has claimed that it is clear from this..." or something similar (with a reference). sjcollier 20:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

Made the following changes:

# ^ Philip Payton, Professor of Cornish Studies at Exeter University, Cornwall – A History ISBN 1-904880-05-3

  1. ^ Dr Mark Stoyle, BA (Soton), DPhil (Oxon), West Britons– Cornish Identities and the Early Modern British State ISBN 0-85989-687-0.

There is a wealth of other books on this subject like the Cornish Studies series and Our Future is History by John Angarrack. Should a list of books be provided for further reading? Bretagne 44 16:42, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

A further reading list might be nice; I suspect that there is other relevant stuff by Payton and co, as well as things in the Cornish Studies series, old RIC journals, etc. If you're going to do it, I could have a poke around a few libraries and see if I can unearth anything on nationalism within the British Isles more generally that mentions Cornwall. I would be slightly wary about including Angarrack, though; at least without making it clear that he is someone who is (quite openly) writing with a political agenda. sjcollier 20:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I have slightly reworded the sentence I keep grumbling on about, to make it clear that it is Dr Stoyle (and not the article) who is making assertions about what GoM thought. Hope this won't be too problematic. sjcollier 20:43, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it's all good.Bretagne 44 13:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link not working

The link that formed the basis of the following paragraph was not working, so I removed it:

':Another survey, Quality of Life in Cornwall, offered Cornish inhabitants the choice between description as Cornish or English, but not both. 35.1% of the 15,000 people surveyed chose "Cornish", compared to 48.4% who chose English.'

Not sure if whoever knows about these things can fix the link, however. --Robdurbar 09:38, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Green Party

Added the following to the politics section:

The Cornish branch of the Green party 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 [1].

Bretagne 44 13:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Italic text== Most Britons and Western Europeans are of Iberian Origin. ==


Take your time and read well.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gallgaedhil/haplo_r1b_amh_13_29.htm

http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/Cavalli.htm

http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/Y-MAP.GIF

World Haplogroups Maps (As recent as 2005)

Origins of haplogroup R1b. (Very interesting too)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_%28Y-DNA%29

http://www.worldfamilies.net/Tools/r1b_ydna_in_europe.htm

http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/Maps.htm

HCC

  • Stop posting this information everywhere, its nothing new or anything that isnt already found in other sources. Most importantly, please stop claiming that Britons are of Iberian origin when posting this statement since this is not what these Y.chrom analysis and other sources are claiming. These Y-chrom haplogroups are only one very small section of genetic inheritance, date back to paleotlithic times and none are for example are claiming that they are chacteristically or originally "Iberian" or from some other specific European region. Epf 22:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


Take your time and read it well. HCC.

[edit] Removed citations

taken them out from these two sentences:

Many in Cornwall consider themselves British and then Cornish, so use the term "British" to describe themselves.

Just check the last UK census for the number of people who ticked British.

Many others use only "Cornish" as a description of their ethnic or national identity. This is a phenomenon with a long historical precedent.

1)Over 37,000 wrote Cornish on the last census 2)Just read the historic quotes for proof of a Cornish identity. Bretagne 44 18:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cornish diaspora

Is emigration of people from Cornwall really called the Cornish Diaspora or is this someone's personal application of that term to this phenomenom? I haven't heard any emigration of people from the British isles referred to as a diaspora. The diaspora article states: The term diaspora (Ancient Greek διασπορά, "a scattering or sowing of seeds") is used (without capitalization) to refer to any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands; being dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the ensuing developments in their dispersal and culture. Cornish people have never been forced to leave the country unless they were deported as any number of thousands of Britons were to the colonies. I think in many ways it is insulting to refer to emigration from Britain as a diaspora as that term seems more related to ethnic clensing or mass emigration due to natural events. I think this might be someone's attempt to make Cornish emigration sound dramatic or harrowsome when this isn't the case. I think that the same argument should apply to other British 'diasporas' too, such as eliminating Scottish diaspora. Does anyone agree? Should it be better kept simply to Cornish emigration or Emigration from Cornwall? Enzedbrit 03:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

"forced or induced" (my italics); economic emigration certainly applies. In any case, today "diaspora" has acquired the meaning of the worldwide community of people of any particular ethnic origin, regardless of why they emigrated to their new homes. Plenty of the examples at diaspora constitute largely economic emigrations; I think you're attempting to give the word a finer meaning than it rightly has. EdC 03:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps if you care to Google 'Cornish diaspora' you will find numerous references to it. Professor Philip Payton, has written extensively on the Cornish Diaspora. UNESCO, whose acceptance of Cornish Mining as a World Heritage Site this week have acknowledged the Cornish Diaspora and the effect their expertise had upon the wider world. This BBC website acknowledges the Cornish diaspora - there are many more examples and the page should be left as it stands.[2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.92.168.170 (talk • contribs)
There are over a thousand hits for a google of "Cornish diaspora". Whatever one may think, it seems to be a recognised and verifiable term. [3] Alun 21:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

There are actually more google hits for "Cornish emigration". I've commented on this at the Talk:Cornish emigration page Mammal4 10:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Surely Cornish emigration is different to Cornish diaspora? Doesn't emigration refer to the act of emigrating from one place to live in another, whereas diaspora refers to the people who are already emigrants and their descendants? They are not synonyms. Alun 12:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replied at Talk:Cornish emigrationMammal4 13:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, I see this is NOT in fact being currently discussed at Talk:Cornish emigration., it has hardly been discussed at all and it appears that a consensus of three people have decided to change the name, start deleting links and redirecting pages. The committee of three has decided that the Cornish diaspora of some 6-10 million people does not exist. May I refer you to Professor Philip Payton's books "Cornwall" and "The Cornish Overseas". The Cornish diaspora refers to Cornish emigrants and their descendants in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Mexico. The diaspora was caused by a number of factors, but due mainly to economic reasons and the lack of jobs in the 18th and 19th centuries when many Cornish people or “Cousin Jacks” as they were known migrated to various parts of the world in search of a better life. Should this be deleted also ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_diaspora#The_Scottish_diaspora

[edit] References etc

I did a general tidy up of the references. I have used the <ref> tag as per the footnotes how to. There were several instances of the punctuation (full stop or comma) comming after the reference, please remember that punctuation comes before the reference like this.[1] I included some additional references like a cite for Federal Union of European Nationalities. I have also made requests for some references to unsupported material, for example I can find no reference to the people who identified as ethnically Cornish on the 2001 census on the census page for Cornwall. I do not dispute that these people exist, but we still need a cite for it. There is also a map called 1937 Bartholomew published a Map of European Ethnicity prepared by the Edinburgh Institute of Geography, I don't doubt that this map is as it claims to be, but the source for the map is just an unatributed webpage, so we need a proper cite for the map and for it's source. Before anyone gets in a huff remember that verifiability is a policy that is non negotiable, you always have to provide it. I have also added a noncompliance tag to the article as I suspect some original research, and it is not fully verified anyway. Alun 07:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Many in Cornwall consider themselves British and then Cornish, so use the term "British" to describe themselves. This is a form of weasel words, how many? is it a significant minority? or a majority? or what? It appears to state a fact but is unattributed. There especially needs to be a citation for this as weasel words are particularly misleading. Alun 16:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed unreferenced and weasel. There is some discussion of the Morgan Stanley survey later in the article which provides some reference and more importantly, context. I don't think it is helpful to include these types of claim in the intro. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I tried to find the Morgan Stanley survey online but could not find anything. The BBC report on the survey is very sketchy, it gives a figure of 44% for for Cornish people being Cornish first, but no data for how they responded to Britishness or Englishness. There is also no mention of this 37% of people in Derbyshire and East Sussex also identified themselves with their county first in the BBC article cited (so it would be good to get hold of the original Morgan Stanley report). The BBC article is primarily about Welsh people, and the Cornish data are given to provide a comparisson of how English people (sorry I know Cornish is not the same as English, but the article assumes this) identify more strongly with their region (ie county) compared to how Welsh people identify more strongly with their nation (ie Wales). There's a good piece of work on just this sort of thing Devolution, Public Attitudes and National Identity but unfortunately they only include Wales, Scotland and England in the study. Alun 17:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok I managed to open this link that had been dead before, but it's a downloadable .doc file, it opened fine with OpenOffice.org writer. [4] Here they gieve a figure for Cornwall of 11% White British; 35.1% White Cornish; 48.4% White English, they also give a host of tiny minority data for Cornwall (I mean less than 2%). I'll use the data here and cite it. Alun 17:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for finding that - it's just the sort of survey this article has needed for a long time. I was going to add the year of the survey, but couldn't find it - nor could I find the question(naire). If you have either, or a webpage giving an overview, that'd be great. In respect of the census, as you may know, some 6% wrote-in Cornish (see archive). I'm not currently aware of any publication of the information, but wonder if it could be got published with a FOI request or something. Perhaps it has. -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
It's a shame about the census data not being published, I'm sure that they should not be included in the article unless they are published, as this constitutes original research. Generally speaking wikipedia policies work very well, but the verifiability not truth condition can be frustrating for this sort of thing. I wonder why no local newspapers or magazines have published the census data? Here's the website I got the data on Cornish identity from, [5] the year was 2004, this website is linked to in the reference for the data on the article page as well. Alun 04:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The best I can come up with on an online search for the census data is this, but it's from a blog, granted it's a letter from Bernard Moffatt, Secretary General of the Celtic League, which is good, but the letter is still only on a blog and blogs don't constitute reliable sources. Much of the content seems to be lifted from the wiki article anyway, or at least it uses almost the exact same data, which is suspicious. Alun 04:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I got the Morgan Stanley press release by emailing them asking them for it. I can forward on request. The Cornish data was I believe gotten by writing to the ONS. Morwen - Talk 16:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

It can be a bit of a problem with the verifiability policy, but it is quite clear that unpublished information is not acceptable, how do we know it's not just made up, or OR? I suppose it makes sense really, it's about anyone being able to check any statement by getting hold of the same source. The data for Cornish people in the 2001 census are not published (there is a relatively comprehensive set of census data available online) and so should not be included. I think the Morgan Stanley data can be cited as a pamphlet or booklet, it's published. If we know the publication year, the name of the publishers (presumably M-S published it themselves), authors (names of the authors are not necessarily essential, many BBC articles do not give the names of the author) etc it should be fine, you could even mention in the footnote how to obtain a copy. Alun 17:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bartholomew Map

If I have understood the copyright flow chart properly then the Bartholomew map (1937) copyright expires next year (2007), in which case it can be uploaded and included in the article. Alun 21:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't English copyright law irrelevant on wiki? I thought US and Florida apply, though I don't know what that means in this particular case. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 03:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
You may well be right, I am a complete duffer when it comes to copyright stuff and tend to err on the side of caution. The reason I make reference to this map is that it is used as a citation, but the link is nothing but an image of the map, with no reference of where it comes from. In this case it might just be better just to upload the image and include it in the article and cite the image as a Map of European Ethnicity by Bartholomew, currently it is the wrong way around, with the image as a link in the references section, and the source of the image in the main body of the article, this is because the image does not provide information regarding it's source. I don't really know how to address this problem without including the image in the article. Alun 07:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] William Borlase

Added the following: |- |align=center| 1769 || The Antiquarian, William Borlase wrote that "Of this time we are to understand what Edward I. says (Sheringham. p. 129.) that Britain, Wales, and Cornwall, were the portion of Belinus, elder son of Dunwallo, and that that part of the Island, afterwards called England, was divided in three shares, viz. Britain, which reached from the Tweed, Westward, as far as the river Ex; Wales inclosed by the rivers Severn, and Dee; and Cornwall from the river Ex to the Land's-End". |} Bretagne 44 15:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers from the 2001 census

I have added the following:

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. This represented nearly 7% of the population of Cornwall and is therefore a significant phenomenon.

The source is from Cornish ethnicity data from the 2001 Census Malcolm Brown Cornwall County: [[6]]

Bretagne 44 16:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Cornish is not an ethnic group. This is completely absurd. If this article remains, I'm making one on the scouse people who inhabit the nation of Liverpool. Fucking rediculous! 17:29, 26 January 2007 82.42.175.133 (Talk)

'The Cornish were recognised by the government's ONS as an ethnic group on the 2001 Census - see Census 2001 Ethnic Codes, code 06 - but they have been invisibilised in previous censuses. They are an indigenous national minority of the United Kingdom and possessors of a recognised minority language of these islands under the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. If the UK government has made legal undertakings with the Council of Europe to take "resolute" action in support of this language, how on earth is it going to measure its compliance with international legal obligations with respect both to this language and to the people associated with it, if it does not include relevant tick boxes in forthcoming censuses ? - please see - Cornish demand 2011 Census tick box. 195.92.67.74 21:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice to see the usual rightwing nut jobs come crawling out of the woodwork, I am going to leave your offensive remarks on the board because they serve as a good case in point.Bretagne 44 12:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 17:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MC1r Gene

The bit about the MC1R gene sounds incorrect. When one follows the link, one finds that MC1R codes all people's (and many animals) pigmentation. From the sounds of it, there is nothing about carrying MC1R, per say, that has anything to do with being any particular ethnic group. The Cornish may carry some specific mutation on MCR1 that is common amongst Celts, but that is unclear from either article. I will delete this item soon unless someone can elaborate with references.Sandwich Eater 04:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cornish Diaspora

Why does the Cornish diaspora in the box mention Mexico and not Canada, which has 10 million people of British isles origins! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.154.247 (talk) 23:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Treaty of Brétigny

The article says:

1360 Treaty of Brétigny: "John, by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Earl of Anjou, confirmed the aforesaid; and Richard, King of Germany and Earl of Cornwall, in like manner, confirmed the aforesaid".

I don't know where that quote comes from, but the fact is that the Treaty of Brétigny of 1360 was between King John II of France, and Edward III of England. TharkunColl 12:43, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More famous people in the infobox?

Come on folks... 24.255.11.149 (talk) 19:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Very nice, my friend. But I could only use the ones which had PICTURES in their articles. Perhaps you can provide copyright free pictures for "more famous" peeple. Fitzsimmons was certainly a star in his time.--MacRusgail (talk) 15:17, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Belerion

So, was Belerion really the first place named in the British Isles? The British themselves had no names for places in their own island during the previous 8,000 years of British civilisation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.70.222 (talk) 09:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I think "first recorded name", is meant here. MacRusgail (talk) 19:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)