Cornish people : Ask Biography

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The Cornish ( ) are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe. For some, the Cornish represent a distinct ethnic group within the UK, which can trace its roots to the ancient Britons who inhabited southern and central Great Britain prior to the Roman conquest, and many in the county today continue to assert a distinct identity, separately or in addition to English or British identities. Cornish identity has been adopted by migrants into Cornwall, as well as by emigrant and descendant communities from Cornwall, the latter sometimes referred to as the Cornish diaspora.

Throughout classical antiquity, the ancient Britons formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities in Great Britain; the Dumnonii and Cornovii were the Celtic tribes who inhabited what was to become Cornwall during the Iron Age, Roman and post-Roman periods. The name Cornwall and its demonym Cornish are derived from the Celtic Cornovii tribe. A watershed in the early history of Cornwall was the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th to 6th centuries, which pushed Celtic culture to the northern and western fringes of Great Britain. The Battle of Deorham between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons resulted in a loss of landlinks between the Brittonic peoples of Wales and Cornwall. The Cornish people, who shared the Brythonic language with the Welsh, were referred to in the Old English language as the Westwalas meaning West Welsh.

The Cornish people and their Brythonic Cornish language experienced a process of anglicisation and attrition during the Medieval and early Modern Periods, so much so that Cornwall and the Cornish were considered components of England and the English. By the 18th century, and following the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Cornish language and identity had faded, replaced by the English language and British identity. A Celtic revival during the early-20th century enabled a cultural self-consciousness in Cornwall that revitalised the Cornish language and roused the Cornish to express a distinctly Celtic heritage.

In mid 2008, the population of Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly was estimated to be 534,300. For effectively all governmental, cartographical and statistical purposes, Cornwall is a part of England, but the Cornish self-government movement has called for greater recognition of Cornish culture, politics and language, challenging the constitutional status of Cornwall and urging that Cornish people be accorded greater status, exemplified by their request they be constituted as ethnically distinct in the United Kingdom Census 2011. The Cornish language was granted official recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, but the Cornish people "struggle for recognition as a national group distinct from the English" outside of Cornwall, and are not afforded protection under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.