Should Cornwall receive home nation status?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As of now, Cornwall is considered no different from the rest of England.

No, most people do think of Cornwall as being a bit different. Lots of jokes about Cornwall...

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Which died out a very long time ago. The Forest of Dean has it's own language (which is still alive) but I don't see it being given special treatment...
I do support attempts to revive it though.

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What's "ethnically Celtic" supposed to mean? Don't think there is such a thing...

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No, no it isn't. It's much more like the rest of England than Wales. Wales is a Nation, Cornwall is a county with an unusually strong cultural identidy. Like Yorkshire.

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Only if Yorkshire gets it as well

Seriously though, I think that Cornwall County Council should be given more powers than the other County Council's (for two reasons; 1. Isolation, 2. Cultural stuff) maybe letting it take over the running of the Duchy of Cornwall... but I don't think giving it Nation status is a good idea at all...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually those territories are not considered part of the UK but rather "crown dependencies" which basically makes them equivalent to a colony. They are like Puerto Rico.

Both are just sordid little tax havens these days

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't think that's a good idea. The Duchy of Cornwall funds the activities of the Prince of Wales;

Which is why it should be taken away from him

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Or... he could be made to spend less (and quit with the insane Poundbury thing...)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There is such a thing, though its incorrect to say that the people of Cornwall are mostly ethnically Celtic. Celtic essentially refers to those who originally occupied England, and continued to be the mainstay of the populus until the fall of the Roman Empire, when the Anglo-Saxons came, saw and conquered. The Celtic people were then pushed into the extremities of the island, Cornwall and Scotland mostly.

However, the movement of population since 400/500 AD when that all happened means that such a large population cannot legitimately claim to be principally descended from the Celts, there will be a large amount of Anglo-Saxon blood.

Points taken, but I've always taken the view that (with a couple of exceptions) the various groups more-or-less merged into each other in most places.
Certainly there isn't such a thing as ethnically Celtic now... the idea that there is is an 18th century myth.

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My memory is a little fuzzy over this but...

Northumbria being just about everything inbetween the Wall and the Humber... Mercia being most of what is now the Midlands but IIRC went further south and not as far west (does this mean we give Oswestry back to Wales? ), I know that the capital of Wessex was Winchester so it's not really that similer to the SW region nowadays... not sure how different the others are. Which was the City of London in?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's basically what I meant by saying like Wales. Wales was also oen fo the places where the Anglo-Saxons pushed the original inhabitants.

No, I've never bought that theory... it's geographically impossible; the main areas in Wales that can support a large or large-ish population are either a long way from England or very hard to get at... (as an example coastal South Wales is blocked by the Forest of Dean and the River Wye). It seems as though the Marches has always been something of a wild borderland; big Roman fort-city just south of Shrewsbury (Wroxeter) for one thing. Welsh culture as a seperate thing predates the Romans going home anyway...

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Er... that isn't true of Welsh. At all. Lot of people out in Northwest Wales speak Welsh as their first langauge (especially in Merionth, the interior of Anglesey and the Lleyn Peninsula) and get rather militant about it actually... although the whole cottage burning spree is long over.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, it should receive full independence within the EU. And introduce the Euro. And of course only Cornish should be taught in the schools. All the tin mines should be reopened. [/sarcasm]

Not a fan of Mebyon Kernow then?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Very interesting actually... you can tell that no-one's quite sure of the exact boundaries by all the loops and curvy lines (although some look pretty clear; in parts anyway).

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I'm pretty sure that Mercia ate up Elmet. IIRC Powys got a lot bigger as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bit of a tangent, but are there any quintessential Cornish surnames?  The Welsh have have Jones, Lloyd, Davies etc.- any common Cornish surnames?

"By the Tre. Poll. and Pen. you shall know the Cornish men"

Examples of a reasonably common Cornish name: Pollard

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Williams, which most would believe to be an English name, is Welsh in as well.

Most names with an s on the end of what would otherwise be a first name are Welsh; Thomas, Hughes, Jenkins etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is probably blasphemy in some circles

Probably?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Though it's a bit more complicated as such names occur in Englishmen without a Welsh connection - if you're called Thomas and you're an Englishman you`re likely to have Welsh ancestry, but by no means certain.

Stop trying to complicate things
And to make things even more complicated some Welsh names are of Biblical origin.

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Which is basically the same as the names with the 's of the end, but less Anglicised.

Not just "p" either; the root word "ap" was also sometimes spelt "ab"; as in Bevan

[Filuwaúrdjan]

maybe my great great great great (...) great grandpa had a lot of kids?

In Cornwall? Yes. The gene pool be rather shallow out there

[Filuwaúrdjan]

*whilst Morris dancing, 'accidentally' kicks Al in both shins and knees him in the nuts*

Come on now... be nice... it was a joke about Cornwall that didn't involve sheep

Besides, Morris dancing should be a criminal offense