| |
| a | Do you have something to say to improve on this site and what it communicates? |
| b | Do you have something to say about what is happening to Cornwall and the Cornish people? |
| c | Contact the Author at the following email address ->> TGG@kernowtgg.co.uk |
| d | Contributions will only be posted with specific consent of the contributor. Whatever is said will have some bearing on how this site develops. |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
To 'Have Your Say' from January 2000 to date| 21/11/99 | hello!
my name is amanda ******* and i am currently in the process of researching the dilution and decline of the english cornwall accent and dialect for my english language coursework (worth 20% of the final mark). your web site offers lots of interesting ideas about 'cornish identity' (it certainly gave me lots to think about), of which i believe accent and dialect to be fairly central. i am therefore writing to you to find out what you think is cental to this decline in the use of cornish accent and dialect? is the decline more obvious in the younger generations? and do you believe that english 'domination' is responsible for the decline? i would be most interested to hear your ideas about this issue, i look forward to your response, amanda. |
| 21/11/99 | Amanda, Nice to hear from you and very intrigued by your project. Whilst I am not an expert in the subject, I must confess to having some opinions on the matter - ALL of which would find a common focus in the pressures of external domination and it is the younger members of Cornish society who are the most vulnerable. It is a situation which I, as a Cornishman, find offensive. The English language - as spoken in Cornwall - was full of dialect words which derived both from the Cornish language itself and a fossilisation of older 'English' from over the centuries. The decline both in the use of dialect words and phrases and the intonation of the spoken word has been decimated within, I would say, the past fifty years - definitely during my life-time! Whilst there must continuously have been pressure on the Cornish to aspire to 'Englishness', the reason for such rapid decline can, in part, be attributed to the loss of a third of the Cornish population during the 19th century due to the collapse of tin-mining. This could only have a devastating effect upon the foundations of the intrinsically 'Cornish' elements of the Cornish population with the effect of making that society even more vulnerable to the corrosive aspects of English domination. Whilst losing a third of our Cornish stock through emigration to North and South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, the situation has been compounded during the past fifty years. The population of Cornwall has risen by approximately 36 per cent since 1951 due to English [and a few others] immigration into Cornwall. This presents an inexorable cultural trauma into Cornish society which can, in my opinion, only be equated to culpable cultural genocide. It is certainly a situation which, if occuring the other way around [twenty million arrogant Cornish speakers emigrating to England], would not be tolerated! Other factors which have also had a corrosive effect upon how the Cornish spoke 'English' is: a - a fragmented and vulnerable Cornish population which is denied a Corporate focus for a Cornish Identity and Cornish values, I could say a lot more but the above covers the main aspects of a tragic loss to our Cornish identity. I hope that it has proved helpfull and easily understood? I shall pass your email and request onto someone within the Institute of Cornish Studies in the hope that they may provide you with some more academically based information. I wish you well in your studies and would be interested to be advised of your final conclusions. Lowena dhys |
| 17/08/99 | Hi,
I was very interested to read your site. I was born in Devon, but now live near Bath in Somerset. I must admit that I do hear a lot of derrogatory remarks about the Cornish people, I get told that they are anti English and want nothing to do with us. I have heard these kind of remarks, especially from the older generation, since I was a child. But then as a child, I was taken on holiday to Cornwall by my parents. I have only missed about five years in the last thirty of visiting you and now bring my own children. In all these years of going to Cornwall, I have never been the victim of, or witnessed any of the so called anti Englishness that is supposed to be rife throughout Cornwall. Perhaps these people have never been to Cornwall, or if they have, have not made the effort to talk to local people. If they did then I can only imagine they would have to find another "race" of people to dislike. I am not on a crusade for the cornish people, nor will I be going on one, but over the years of visiting you I have found, by listening to people that I have spoken to and of what I have read in local papers that most Cornish people are very proud of there ancestry and heritage, and of there land. In the factory where I work there are Cornish people who have come up here for the work, one in particular will openly tell us that he doesn't even think of Cornwall any more or even care about what you are trying to do. I said to him once that I would love to live in Cornwall, (and yes, I have been to Cornwall in the winter on many occasions, and not just the tourist spots) I was met with "your money is welcome in Cornwall but you are not"and "you would be treated as an outcast if you bought a property down there". Had I never been down to you and listened to people up here telling me things like this, an now a cornishman telling me the same I would be inclined to give cornwall a wide birth, don't you agree. You say being pro cornish doesn't mean you are anti English, but you are never going to get a whole race of people to think the same, whatever good work you do you will always have that minority. We could learn a lot from someone like you up here, even if it just made us sit up and look at our own country, and to start taking a bit more pride in it, like you do yours. I wish you well with your cause, and will continue to read your site with interest. I will continue to visit Cornwall untill the day I am stopped at the Tamar bridge and told verbally that I am no longer welcome. Good luck to a good nation. Bryan. Bryan |
| 17/08/99 | Bryan, Thanks for your very interesting email. You are so right in all your observations. I do not think any group of people, anywhere, has a monopoly on being nice or nasty. We are invariably what the media and the state wish us to be - wherever we may live. The minority view, either side of the great divide, will always be there and there will always be the predictable reactive responses. This only goes to prove that deep down we are all the same. It is only our own view of history and how we relate to place which provides a form of political and cultural difference - an identity! - and which, I feel, transcends the misplaced virtue of 'accident of birth'. This is not a bad thing but imposes the need for tolerance and respect and an acknowledgement that every one's view is of value. In Cornwall, as the TGG site attempts to show, we have a conflict with what we aspire to be as Cornish people and what we are coerced into being because of non-recognition by the State. This is not your fault and when in Cornwall you will always be taken on your own merits - as I am sure I would be if I were in Devon. Sadly, many people who come to Cornwall seem to believe that they are there as part of an imperial colonising force. Having said that, it is true to say that many of those who have the same aims as myself have moved to Cornwall from England. An interesting paradox when put alongside your Cornishman who no longer thinks of Cornwall? Your opinions, as expressed, would suggest that if there was, ' a measure of Cornishness', you would register higher on the scale than he would. Please always enjoy Cornwall and what it has to offer. |
| 17/06/99 | Hi,
I came across your site via the Web ring - keep up what is an interesting and informative site. Its nice to see someone put forward a detailed argument on the "Cornish cause". You might be interested in a free domain name project which I started recently. The aim is to promote a distinctly Cornish internet presence. If you're interested you can find out more at: http://www.cornwall.eu.org/ Best wishes, Jonathan |
| 30/05/99 | If Cornwall were to be devolved with its own parliament, would you like it to be recognised as still part of England, and therefore equal with, say Yorkshire, or would you like it recognised as a separate Constituent Country, alongside England, Wales and Scotland?
Great site. Alex {politics student} |
| 31/05/99 | Alex, Thanks for your email and kind comment regarding the TGG site - I was begining to feel, sadly, that there was no-one out there with anything to say about either the site or its contents. The purpose of the site is to expose the lie that misrepresents Cornwall as 'part of England' and to promote a debate which will take perceptions beyond the de facto situation [ie. English county] which exists. Cornwall is, historically, a separate country and the creation of the Duchy in 1337 recognised that fact. The Tamar Border is the National Border between Cornwall and England - as defined by Athelstan and reaffirmed by Edward III - and consequently any future status which Cornwall might enjoy must seek parity with the other constituent nations of the United Kingdom. Insofar as Yorkshire will [ I believe] ultimately form a part of any North of England devolved political accommodation, I do not ever see there being any parity between Cornwall and Yorkshire. |
 Are you lost? Go to Main Index and Home Page |