treeve
Major Contributor
What is 'being Cornish'?
What I do know is that I am able to trace my name back from c1400 in North Cornwall on my father's family. For me it is not simply a state of birth. It is much more than that. It is a matter of the descendency and passage from Sumeria across North Africa (as a separate group from that that moved across Europe) and into the Iberian Peninsula, and thence into Cornwall with the ancients 'Cornwall' of the Celtic warriors around 1000 BC. Perhaps it is the Gene stock (contested by 'experts'), it is the matter of the a matter of language used (though not by myself), it is the cultural identity which draws from the scholars of this Cornish past. We have the boundary given to us by Athelstan - historically Cornwall was rather 'left to its own devices' we became an independent thinking nation. Pytheas talks of tin mining in Cornwall in 320BC, already an industrious people, and from this builds a very strong people who develop that special breed that is inventive and self-willed. On top of that is the definition of the Duchy as of 1337, even contested (and won) in Courts that Cornwall is not a County. Something also special about the land, it has drawn visitors and immigrants for over 8,000 years, it must be a good place ...
footnote ...
incidentally, I am not a 'blow up the bridge' fanatic, or 'bl@@dy emmetts' person 'it is just that I feel that Cornwall has given the world a special contribution, and I feel that the people have given of themselves in this. I would also like to know what others feel is distinctively Cornish about us.
What I do know is that I am able to trace my name back from c1400 in North Cornwall on my father's family. For me it is not simply a state of birth. It is much more than that. It is a matter of the descendency and passage from Sumeria across North Africa (as a separate group from that that moved across Europe) and into the Iberian Peninsula, and thence into Cornwall with the ancients 'Cornwall' of the Celtic warriors around 1000 BC. Perhaps it is the Gene stock (contested by 'experts'), it is the matter of the a matter of language used (though not by myself), it is the cultural identity which draws from the scholars of this Cornish past. We have the boundary given to us by Athelstan - historically Cornwall was rather 'left to its own devices' we became an independent thinking nation. Pytheas talks of tin mining in Cornwall in 320BC, already an industrious people, and from this builds a very strong people who develop that special breed that is inventive and self-willed. On top of that is the definition of the Duchy as of 1337, even contested (and won) in Courts that Cornwall is not a County. Something also special about the land, it has drawn visitors and immigrants for over 8,000 years, it must be a good place ...
footnote ...
incidentally, I am not a 'blow up the bridge' fanatic, or 'bl@@dy emmetts' person 'it is just that I feel that Cornwall has given the world a special contribution, and I feel that the people have given of themselves in this. I would also like to know what others feel is distinctively Cornish about us.
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