The UK Government provides £12 million to promote and support Gaelic language in Scotland (HO, 1999, para 154).  This is £173 for every Gaelic speaker in the 1991 Census. The same per capita level of support for the Cornish language would equal around £350,000 a year. This would provide a huge boost to a language historically almost totally unsupported by central government.	Linguistic and cultural differences 5.1       The Cornish language underpinned the Celtic culture of medieval Cornwall and was reinforced by the high proportion of Bretons, speaking a mutually intelligible language, who were permanently resident in Cornish communities into the mid-1500s. Political developments originating outside Cornwall, namely the establishment of a separate Church of England and the loss of Breton independence, reduced these cross-channel links and marked the onset of a long term decline of Cornish as a major vernacular language in Cornwall. Nevertheless, the language was spoken traditionally to the years around 1800. In 1776 William Bodener wrote that "nag es moye vel pager pe pemp en dreav nye ell clappia Cornoack leben" (There are no more than four or five in our town who can talk Cornish now). 5.2       Nevertheless, its demise was late enough to attract the attention of antiquarians and, almost as soon as the last colloquial speaker died, other Cornish people were attempting to revive the language. Henry Jenner, one of those active in the cultural revival of the late nineteenth century wrote that "there has never been a time when there were not some Cornishmen who knew some Cornish" (Jenner, 1905, 240). 5.3       The language remains important in two ways. First, it is perpetuated in place and            personal names. Over 80% of the placenames in Cornwall are in the Cornish language. As such, the language is woven into the texture of everyday life in Cornwall, an inescapable part of the culture of Cornish people. Second, it remains a potent symbol of a distinct Cornish identity. In this way it is both used symbolically, for example in institutional mottoes or town welcome signs, and practically, as it has been actively revived as a spoken language. Some people now again regularly speak Cornish on a daily basis and children are brought up with a knowledge of the revived language. A much greater number, estimated in 1981 as around 1,000, have at some point attended Cornish language classes and attained some knowledge of the language. With 25 classes occurring weekly, without support (Brown, 1981). This number may safely be assumed to be now over 2,000. 5.4       Books are produced in Cornish and songs are sung in Cornish. For example, a much acclaimed book of poems in the Cornish language has recently been published (Saunders, 1999). Cornish is represented on the Committee for Lesser Used European Languages and films in Cornish are submitted to the annual Celtic Film and Television Festival. In the 1997 Festival, the film Splatt dhe Wertha won the Golden Torc. In 2001 Cornwall will again be hosting this Festival. The importance of the revived language for the future of Cornwall has been recognised by Cornwall County Council, which stated in an Objective 1 Strategy document in 1998 that an intrinsic part of Cornwall’s heritage, the Cornish language has been revived during this century and increasingly studied over the last twenty years. Its existence and the renewed interest in it taken by many people underline one aspect of the distinctive nature of Cornwall (and use of the language in an appropriate context could give added value both in cultural and economic terms) Cornwall County Council has adopted a policy on the Cornish language and this has now also been accepted by four of the six District Councils in Cornwall with the others considering it. 5.5       Despite government indifference the Cornish language is increasingly prominent in Cornwall. The Gorsedd, re-established in 1928, exists to maintain and give expression to the ‘National Celtic Spirit of Cornwall’ and annually confers honours on people for services to Cornish culture. Its ceremonies are conducted in the Cornish language and it is closely associated with the Welsh and Breton gorsedds. An annual inter-Celtic music and dance festival, the Lowender Peran, is held every year at Perranporth and attracts participants from the other Celtic countries as well as from across Cornwall. Organisations exist to maintain and promote aspects of historical culture, such as Cornish wrestling or Cornish dancing. Cornwall has been represented in the Celtic Congress since 1904 and the Celtic League since its formation in 1961. These inter-Celtic links have been deepened by the fashion of twinning with Breton communities that spread across Cornwall during the 1980s. All these developments heighten the contemporary sense of difference to which Cornish people have access and help to differentiate its culture from that in other parts of the UK.   5.6       The historical experience of the nineteenth century emigration is also echoed in contemporary expressions of Cornishness. In recent decades the descendants of the Cornish diaspora overseas have found a reinvigorated sense of pride in their Cornish roots. Regular cultural gatherings, festivals and a network of Cornish societies keeps alive a sense of ethnic difference. There is no ambiguity about the Cornish identity of these groups. Commenting on a visit to Cornwall in 1997 to attend the commemoration of the uprising of 1497, a Cornish woman from Salt Lake City wrote "Through the sights, sounds, aromas, thoughts and feelings, everyone participated in the spirit of national pride and expressed what it means to be Cornish" (cited by Hosken, 1998, 131-132). As Cornish descendants rediscover their ethnic identity (see the songs by Jim Wearne, 1999) so their enthusiasm is channelled back to Cornwall where it helps to produce a pro-active sense of Cornishness. In this way a vigorous family history network, oiled by the technology of email communication and the internet, is fast reproducing in a new guise the international sense of Cornishness that flourished in the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century (see Payton, 1999).  5.7       Cornwall continues to be different in other aspects of culture. For example the industrialisation of Cornwall in the late 1700s and early 1800s was accompanied by the adoption of Methodism. By 1851 Cornwall was unique outside Wales in its allegiance to Methodism (Coleman, 1980). As recently as 1904, significant numbers of Cornish dissidents were imprisoned for their religious beliefs. Methodism became a badge of Cornish identity and Cornish Methodism was viewed as subtly different from Methodism in general, an integral part of Cornishness (see Luker, 1986). In terms of religious affiliation Cornwall remains distinct. In 1989, the English Church Census illustrated this continuing difference.   Christian Religious Attendance, 1989 (%) Cornwall SW England All England Methodist                                   44.2 11.6   10.7   Other Free Church                        9.8 28.2   23.1   Church of England                     28.4 42.2   30.9   Roman Catholic                         17.6 18.0   35.3     (Source: Brierley, 1991) Cornwall remains as distinct from the South West of England in terms of religious attendance as it does from England in general.   Summary The Cornish language, a ‘Celtic’ cultural renaissance and cultural features such as an international  sense of Cornishness and religious non conformity are elements of Cornish culture that make it materially different from the majority culture of England.
We might now look again at    Lord Simon's account of why Scotland and Wales are nations (side box  2) and rewrite it in respect of Cornwall: The Cornish are a nation because of Blackheath and Hingston Down and the Prayer Book uprising of 1549, because of Stannary Parliament, because of the Cornish Moonta and Montana, because of Richard Trevithick and Humphrey Davey. The Cornish are a nation... by reason of the river Tamar, by recollections of battles long ago and pride in the present valour of their rugby team, because of religious dissent, because of fortitude in the face of economic adversity.