Comments by "" (@kubhlaikhan) on "Celtic History Decoded" channel.

You must have visited a very strange part of Cornwall. Last I checked, they speak very good English.
11
Nobody can actually define "anglo saxon DNA". The east coast spoke Old English which is essentially the language of the Angles. The Angles were almost certainly from Flanders because Anglish is also ancestral to Dutch - so it is not surprising that they also extended into East Anglia which is directly opposite. The Frisians lived directly north of them (in Frisia) and probably the same in Britain - forming the base population of the Yorkshire coast who the Romans called Parisi, later forming the kingdom of Northumbria. Dutch migration to Britains east coast is not at all surprising so there is no reason to get excited about a genetic survey that claims to have discovered something that was obvious. A Dark Age "Anglo Saxon invasion" is something else entirely and implies two ridiculous claims; first that there was a sudden mass movement of people for no known reason, that was logistically impossible, which is not recorded in any documents and which left no significant archaeology either; and the second is that "the Saxons" were essentially the same people - which is surely untrue because their Gallic name (Sassons) is basically identical to the name of the Soissons who lived across the Channel in northern France and who were recorded as Celtic speaking Gauls by the Romans. Under the Romans, the Sassons of southern England and the Soissons of France were politically united in a single administrative state for about 500 years. Not only are Sassons NOT akin to Angles, they fought them for control of England for the following 500 years. I've seen genetic studies that confirm differences between southern and eastern England. However, they are not enormous because, after all, they were neighbours for a very long time both in England and in Europe. However, there were no "Anglo Saxons" before Alfred the Great and no "Anglo Saxon" language before Middle English in the 13th century.
5
That interpretation is a complete fallacy. It would have left ample evidence in documents and in archaeology that simply doesn't exist. On the contrary, there were probably Anglish speaking communities on the east coast during the Roman period and almost certainly earlier - because it was the language of the Dutch whose islands and lowlands were being swallowed by rising seas. Even if you believe it only arrived in the 5th century, we know that no form of "Anglo Saxon" became dominant throughout England until the 13th century - which is far from "rapid"! You are also mistaken about the make-up of the language: Old English derived almost entirely from Angle - which originated in Flanders (conveniently opposite English Anglia), but Middle English is radically different - it is more than half Frankish and Latin in vocabularly and uses Celtic phonemes and other exotic characteristics (such as "the redundant do"). Those Frankish elements were entering Middle English before the Norman invasion - in fact, Frankish was widely spoken across southern England (the "Saxon" territories) from the time of Clovis circa 500AD. The Saxons and Angles were never one people and indeed fought endless wars against each other until Saxon dominance was achieved by Alfred the Great.
5
"Vikings" were mongrels - they belonged to no particular regional or national origin, so strictly speaking it would be almot impossible to make a meaningful comparison. If however you really mean "Scandinavian" there are some easily detected differences. Scandinavian and Baltic immigrations probably happened several times over our 10,000 year post Ice Age history but in very limited numbers. There are very clear signs of Danish/Norwegian DNA in a few small and scattered regions which include Yorkshire, western Scotland, Swansea, the Isle of Mann etc. There are no signatures worth mentioning in the Saxon south but in Yorkshire and the east coast the territories of Scandinavians and Angles overlapped. I think it would be very hard to prove which gene came from where. It is important to understand however that the majority of British DNA is neither Angle nor Scandinavian - it is predominantly GAULLISH like the French.
4
@celtichistorydecoded Cnut would have been deeply offended if you had called him "a viking" since it means pirate, bandit and thief. The Danes were just as law abiding, educated and civilised as anyone else. It is extremely unlikely that the meagre evidence about "viking raids" refers to Danes. Most of the early complaints of that kind (eg Gildas, Nennius) are talking about brigands that were almost certainly homegrown.
4
According to my (admittedly cheap) DNA test I am a reindeer herder from Karelia.
2
@R1b-S1194 I believe that's controversial ;) Anyway, any gene or allele group will "dissolve" over a wider and wider area with time. Proving it is the result of a deliberate organised migration (and therefore a distinct ethnic group) is another matter entirely. It seems to me that the weight of evidence and probability is that "tribes" have never been ethnic based but just something that forms and disperses according to the pragmatic necessities of the period. The "Franks" for example were a mix of Germans, Dutch, Gauls and post Roman jetsam and flotsam who were united by the uptake of a new pidgin language and loyalty to new leaders like Clovis. The "English" have ancestry equally divided between Dutch and Gaullish sources (and others) and are only what they are today thanks to Alfred the Great who united them and persuaded them to speak the same language. If there are actually no such thing as permanent tribes or nations, what on earth are we plotting when we try to resurrect ethnic migrations?
2
@alunevans380 There is no ethnic, genetic or cultural discontinuity between the people of England before and after the Roman withdrawal. The Angles of the east coast had likely been established there long before through gradual settlement and show genetic similarities to the Dutch. The "Saxons" of the south continued to be identical to the people of Gaullish northern France (and politically united with it for at least the duration of the kingdom of Soissons and perhaps even under Clovis). The only reason there are "few available sources" is because nothing happened! Angles and Saxons were not remotely unified until Alfred the Great circa 900AD and their languages were not unfied until the 13th century. We know the latter because both Alfred the Great and Henry VII are recorded instructing their people to take up the Anglisch language.
2
Interesting point @cymro6537 . However since I firmly believe the Saxons were a Gaullish people who lived both sides of the Channel and were loyal to Rome (at least to Aegidius in Soissons) the purpose of those fortifications can't have been to "keep them out". Rather (like Hadrian's Wall) I think they are mainly customs posts entrusted to tax and defend the Straits of Dover. A big clue comes from Roman accounts of the Jutes (the Iutae); their headquarters were in Utrecht and the Romans paid them to be border guards and tax collectors. After the Roman withdrawal, the tribal leaders of southern Britain are recorded reassuring the Jutes that they could keep their bases in Kent and the Solent (a major port). That is consistent with the Jutes operating as customs guards throughout the Roman period and casts their fortifications in a different light.
2
@stanleyshannon4408 On the contrary Stanley, the Germanic tribes of Holland and NW Germany were clamouring to ENTER the Roman Empire and most aspired to become full Roman citizens by acquiring a Latin education. Geographically, the Angles lived inside the empire (Flanders) and the Frisians were identical people who happened to live north of the border. Its recorded that the Romans appointed the Iutae (Jutes) as border guards and customs officials and Utrecht is named after them. You'll find similar stories on most of Rome's other frontiers - eg Hadrians Wall. And even if you became a slave, Roman slaves were well treated and could aspire to liberty and citizenship. The Roman empire is a socio-economic system not a military enterprise - much like the British empire was too, and eve to this day has a problem with immigration because of the benefits it can offer (although not for much longer I think).
2
The period 1600-1800 was a fairly settled period so if you've reached the 1700s you can make a fairly safe bet your earlier ancestors were in those same regions. If my own experience is typical however, pre-1600 there may have been considerably more long distance migration than most people imagine. So it gets very difficult - not so much because of a lack of documentation but because you don't know where to look for it. The main reason was probably connected to the Enclosure of agricultural land.
2
@Hravn1 I believe Cnut acquired a legitimate claim to parts of northern and central Britain through the usual aristocratic methods - intermarriage and inheritance. Cnut's territory (the Danelaw) roughly follows the traditional border between Angles and Saxons ie the Danelaw is Anglish. The Harold we've been taught to call "the last saxon king" actually acquired his claim to the throne because he was a grandson of Cnut ie it was a Danish and Anglish claim, which is why he was hated by his own Saxon underlings who almost certainly assisted William's invasion. The Bayeux tapestry after all was created by Saxon embroiderers to celebrate Harold's overthrow. Internal British politics leading up to 1066 are always overlooked (probably on purpose).
2
The language and the people are two different questions. The "Saxons" of southern England are identical with the "Soissons" of northern France (which is why the Celts call them "Sassons"). They migrated into Britain in the Bronze Age and formerly spoke Gaullish. When Soissons was conquered by Clovis in the early 6th century they began speaking Frankish. In about 900AD, Alfred the Great encouraged them to adopt Anglish. Eventually the result was Middle English which, like modern English, is a fusion of Frankish, Latin, Anglish and Gaullish. Not everyone in England was speaking English even by the reign of Henry VII (circa 1500AD). So the answer to your question, strictly speaking, might be to compare your genome to the people of northern Gaul.
1
@neilog747 I totally agree, but sadly genetics has been sensationalised to racist and nationalist ends. The public needs more education into exactly what these geneticists are talking about (eg "haplogroups") and the limits and imprecision of their "science". Its less a science, more an art (the art of bu11sh1t).
1
@R1b-S1194 There are several reasons but a key one is that a haplogroup is inherited only through the male line. In other words, like surnames, they only plot a single ancestral line (fathers fathers father) instead of all the millions of ancestors you actually have. You may have far closer genetic similarity to an entirely different region and sometimes your similarity to the people of a particular region may be entirely the result of chance, not inheritance. My own DNA test for example tells me I have close relatives in Karelia nad Lapland - I don't!
1
@R1b-S1194 Statistical differences in gene distribution can be explained wholly by different trade routes and trading partnerships and the gradual intermarriages they promote. Languages are produced by the same practical forces. Neither genes nor language nor culture are yoked to ancestry. Yesterday, like today, every person had ancestors from multiple cultures. There are no purebred people in the world anywhere and never have been. Inbreeding is fatal.
1
Not really. People on the east coast of Britain are most closely related to the Dutch. In the rest of the country the closest match is to northern and western France. The Danes are not very different from the Dutch - it is a continuation of the same coastline after all - but they do show some differences. Almost all of England was politically unified with the Danes in the medieval period (through dynastic intermarriage) but only briefly. Having visited both Denmark and Holland however, I have to say that I found the people and culture of both countries so similar to England it was easy to forget where you were. But objectively the evidence is that most British (and Irish) people are Gallic in origin.
1
@michaelbutterfield1602 Every study seems to disagree on the proportions - wildly. One problem is the lack of any baseline - we don't have much evidence about the initial similarities of the root populations. If Dutch sailed to Britain what was preventing the British sailing to Holland? Is the DNA of the ancient Dutch therefore partly British? How close genetically were the Dutch of Flanders from the neighbouring Celts of Gaul? Their main distinction was probably language, that's all. If people today are mongrels, why would you not assume the people of the past were also mongrels in the first place? These "geneticists" are actually ethnographers - claiming to track "pure" bloodlines that are a figment of their unhealthy imaginations. So for what it' worth, I would be inclined to believe that considerably more of the "British genome" of today is Celtic rather than Dutch for the simple reason that Britain is bigger than Holland and had more people. Very simple logic - no DNA testing required.
1
@neilog747 I agree English culture is now more Dutch-Danish than it is French, but that is a huge generalisation - not least because there are big differences within France (the Burgundians never got on well with the Soissons). The sea however is a great unifier of culture: people who live on a coast mingle over huge distances. The "Danes" were much like the Greeks - a seafaring people who colonised far and wide for purely geographical reasons. That was also true of many Britons - who may have arrived in Iceland, Greenland and north America before "the Vikings" or at least with them. Then of course we have the Polynesians, the real record breakers. I remember walking into a pub in Southampton long ago and being astonished that everyone else had a Sikh turban, but it was as English a pub as you would can anywhere - including the accents (they didn't have one). They were merchant seamen. Pirates of the Caribbean were often black, brown, Arab, Chinese or even more exotic. In Moby Dick, the captain of an American Whaler and his first mate are called Ishmael and Ahab and the leading harpooner is Queequeg, a Polynesian. It was based on Melvilles actual maritime experience. Many sailors on Nelsons ships at the Battle of Waterloo were French! Examples are endless - the seas unify us. It is land that divides us.
1
@michaelbutterfield1602 Yes but again I have to point out the lack of any reliable baseline and the dangers of interpretation. If the north and eastern coastline was once land all the way to Holland and Denmark. As Doggerland and Holland and other shorelines sank, the people fled to the edges. They are initially one continuous people and then intermittently reinforced by new refugees - perhaps for ten thousand years. Exactly how do you prove there was a mass migration at any particular period? How exactly do you prove which language they spoke on the basis of a handful of genes? (in fact, earlier migrants will have spoken neither Celtic nor Germanic because they didn't exist). Put yourself in the geneticists shoes - inevitably they choose a gene as a "marker" precisely because they can already show a difference in its distribution. But they do not know why and they don't know what significance it really has, if it has any beyond random noise, genetic drift or internal cultural factors influencing selection. I don't think genetic techniques are reliable and the huge differences between different "genetic surveys" seem to confirm exactly that. Pragmatics are more useful than genetics: the people on the continental shoreline are on lower land so westward migration will probably happen more often than eastward migration. But on the other hand, many refugees just starved or drowned and the pre-existing British population are always more numerous and well established. Perhaps they took pity, perhaps they didn't. Overall I would expect the indigenous population to contribute more to future generations than later migrants and if the genetic surveys don't show it there is surely something wrong with the survey's methods. Historians always understood this anomaly which is why they had to invent an "Anglo Saxon invasion", a "Viking invasion" and then a "Norman invasion" in an attempt to explain why the country changed. But all three of those events are in my opinion mythical. The country switched languages and trade routes for commercial and educational purposes, end of story.
1
@Perun944 Thank god you're not a geneticist.
1
@victory2115 I'm not sure there is any such thing as "true Welsh" but if there is: the true Welsh are the ones carrying genes from the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Wales. Celtic languages are not "native" to Wales - it must have been adopted from Saxon immigrants in the Bronze age.
1
The only way DNA can be "Anglo Saxon" is if it talks.
1
@craigsurette3438 See my comment above. Old English is Anglish not "Anglo Saxon". The people of the south who were speaking Gaullish and Latin at the time of the Roman withdrawal almost certainly began adopting Frankish like their compatriots in Soissons after the victory of Clovis in the early 6th century. That's why there is plenty of evidence of a French-like dialect in England after that date, in both Church and state documents. I find it strange you would say that "Latin suddenly vanishes outside of Church documents" when the Church of those times provided the education system, the post office and notary services. Its inevitable that most written evidence is linked to the Church but there is no "inside" as opposed to "outside" the Church because the Church is part of the fabric of the entire society. Not like today.
1
@waynenash6008 It didn't. The spread of English was very slow and was from the north and east toward the south and west. English simply arrived there later.
1
@cymro6537 Conquered by who? The Welsh had very good commercial reasons for participating in the Celtic culture that arrived in the late Bronze age, the same very good reasons for adopting the Latin culture that arrived around Year Zero, and the same very good reasons for adopting the English culture that arrived in about the 12th century.
1
@Steve-318 Remember that most monasteries of this period were not secluded places, they also served as schools, hospitals, travel agents, hotels, employers, breweries and notaries. Being so intimately interwoven with the everday lives of the people it is very unlikely that Latin was ever confined inside monasteries.
1
I think that's broadly true @stanleyshannon4408. The only detail I would differ with is your use of the term "Anglo Saxons". The Angles are people of Germanic origins living primarily in Flanders, but the Saxons (the name was originally Sassons) are people of Gallic origin living in northern France and southern Britain. The Gauls would have been more Romanised in a cultural sense, many full citizens, and that's why they were less inclined to surrender their Roman culture and privileges. In contrast, the tribes of Flanders, Holland and Frisia were probably never accepted as full Roman citizens. Their loyalty depended on hard cash or other economic benefits, and their location around the European coastline provided them with easier access to trade routes outside the empire. I think that also explains why Britain as a whole began to switch to a North Sea and Baltic orientation and in consequence eventually adopted English (If Harald or Cnut had prevailed it would probably have been Danish).
1
That's very interesting @johnbrereton5229 . If you can remember your source I would love to read it but I've long suspected that Germanic tongues in Britain are far older than we have been told. The Roman name for people on the coast further north - "Parisi" - is also probably Germanic (Low Country) in origin, probably the Frisians. According to a French youtuber it was also the Frisians who founded Paris, although how they got there I don't know. "Boudicca" does seem to mean "the beautiful" and may have begun as an apellation rather than a name. The same has been proposed for "Arthur". Likely it was common practice at the time for people to earn new descriptive names - not necessarily drawn from the language they themselves spoke - making it harder to identify their actual origin. Place names - often cited as "proof" of widespread "Anglo Saxon" invasion - are equally deceiving, because there is nothing to stop people renaming their town when they adopt a new language. Camulodenon, the town Boudicca raised to the ground, is a good example - its original name is Celtic but was Latinised by the Romans into Colonia Camulodenum, then Frankised into Camelot by Chrétien de Troyes but Anglicised into Colencaester probably by Alfred, from which we now have Colchester. Names conceal as much as they reveal.
1
@janetgallacher7552 I'm not at all surprised. Ask yourself 'what happened to all the people when Doggerland sank?'. Well the North Sea swallowed the land gradually for thousands of years (and still is) so presumably its people fled both east and west. It makes no sense to me that the people of eastern England would ever have been different from those of the Low Countries (and I include the coastline north to Denmark too - because that also sank to a degree). The only detail I would disagree with is your use of the word "Viking". The sources used to prove "the Vikings" existed actually use the words "norse" (northeners) or "Danes". The trouble is, "Dane" meant something very different in the past - the Danes lived all over the Baltic, Scandinavia and parts of Britain too. If you were from East Anglia in the time of Cnut there is a good chance others would call you "Danish" and it has been suggested that even the famous "Viking" Rollo, founder of Normandy, was in fact from East Anglia.
1
Well Google is never wrong @cymro6537 hahaha. I don't think Frisians, Jutes and Angles would have had much difficulty since they all lived close together in the Low Country, but I don't believe for one moment that the same is true of the Sassons. Although the origins of "Old Saxon" are widely misunderstood (it is a language recorded from a branch that migrated into Germany) linguists will tell you that Old Saxon and Old Anglish are not mutually intelligible. If you learn one, you will not be able to read the other. But the language spoken by the rest of the Sassons/Soissons was quite definitely Gaullish because the Romans tell us so. A typical Anglishman would have had as much chance of understanding a Sasson as a typical Englishman has of understanding Welsh today.
1
@johnbrereton5229 Well Victoria is still an adjectival appellation. Regarding "the Franks" though, I don't think it is safe to claim they were "Germanic" in any ethnic sense, they just adopted a new pidgin that combined elements of Dutch, Latin and Gaullish, and they followed Clovis. That's pretty much all we can be sure of. Across the board I think we are too inclined to believe "invasion myths" rather than recognising cultural, political and linguistic shifts in static populations. People don't move, languages do.
1
The problem with your thesis is that the first true form of Anglo Saxon is 13th century Middle English - which is also half French in vocabulary. Old English is essentially Anglish - it is first recorded in the northern Anglian kingdoms of Bernicia and Northumbria and of course in Frisia (Frisian and Angle are just dialects of each other). It only advanced into other areas slowly as a result of the power struggle with the southern Saxons for control of Mercia which took centuries. And its adoption was not so much natural as imposed for political reasons - first by Alfred the Great in about 900AD (who then has all the ancient texts he could collect translated into it - creating the "Anglo Saxon Chronicle" and then by Henry VII after the war of the Roses. None of these facts fit with the fable of a sudden anglo saxon invasion (for which there is no evidence at all).
1
@cymro6537 The fortifications on the SE coast were indeed constructed to keep people out - unless they had the right papers and paid their taxes. But the only military scale assaults they had to fear when they were built were other Romans - ie, during the numerous coups and civil wars that afflicted the empire from the second century onward. Nothing to do with mass barbarian invasion. Another interesting detail is that it was the "Jutes" who were given the job of manning these fortified regions - notably in Kent (controlling the Channel and approaches to the Thames) and in the Solent - a major import/export hub. So the Jutes definitely did arrive during the Roman period. As for the Frisians: the Romans called them Parisi and they are recorded as also living in Yorkshire when the Romas first arrived in Britain, so circa 50BC. Some scholars have suggested that the Iceni tribe in East Anglia were also Dutch in origin (I think based on linguistic clues).
1
@cymro6537 Names were usually translated into the language of those who recorded them. Place names likewise, which is why oft-cited 'placename evidence' is also untrustworthy. People didn't have permanent names as such before the Doomsday book which is one reason the true identity and nationality of 'King Arthur' is so endlessly disputed. I don't know the exact linguistic argument regarding the Iceni, I only read that there is one. Its probably comparable to that over the "Hwicce" tribe of the west country: some scholars insist "Hwicce" must be "anglo saxon" in origin while others say it is simply an anglicised spelling of "Gewisse", a known Celtic tribe. Linguistic evidence can only ever be circumstantial at best because you can change your name and language in a historical heartbeat.
1
@cymro6537 What was to prevent Dutch settlers selling oxen to their Brythonic neighbours?
1
@markovichamp Which makes perfect sense if Saxons were Celts in the first place. In fact many adopted Frankish after Clovis conquered Soissons circa 600AD. So a late linguistic conversion of Saxons to "Anglish" (between 900-1200AD) explains both why English uses Celtic phonemes (ph, sh, ch, gh, w, ng, th, oo...) and why Middle and modern English is half French in vocabulary.
1
@cymro6537 Google is never wrong. Even the "Old Saxon" language recorded from Germany is not mutually intelligible with the Old Anglish of Holland and England. The other tribal groups (Frisians, Angles and Jutes) would certainly have spoken the same basic language. But not the Saxon/Sasson/Soisson people. Basically we know this because it is (inadvertently?) documented in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle where King Alfred is recorded instructing his Wessex followers to learn it. English was still not universal by the 12th/13th century because Henry VII is also recorded instructing everyone to learn it.
1
@stanleyshannon4408 You might well have ancestors who manned the wall (especially if you are from anywhere near north Wales, the Wirral etc where many are recorded settling after the Romans stopped paying them). There were both locally-drawn militia on the wall, alongside full legionnaires who were normally not posted to the area they were from. However, it was still most common for them to originate in a nearby region - such as Holland, France or perhaps Spain. All of which were a single country or province for most of the Roman period. Only the most senior officers and their bodyguard might come from further away - eg. Jugoslavia, Turkey or even north Africa.
1
@chevking4127 Me too as it happens, and I'm proud of my Gaullish ancestry.
1
@mikeycraig8970 Roman writers record the Jutes (Iutae) being employed as border guards and customs officers. We know exactly where they came from because they gave their name to Utrecht. Which is not in Denmark! The only reason they later turn up in Kent and around the Solent is because the Solent was a hugely important import/export hub and the fortifications in Kent control trade and passage through the straits of Dover and approaches into the Thames. In other words, Jutes were there to do what Jutes did - controlling traffic, trade and taxes! Once you realise that the Jutes originate on the border of the Roman empire, the geographical homeland of the other tribes becomes crystal clear - the Frisians lived in northern Holland - exactly where Frisians still live today, and the Angles lived in Flanders (leaving linguistic proof in modern Dutch). We know this because Bede clearly stated that the Jutes lived between the Frisians and the Angles, and now we know why - because Frisians were outside the empire, Angles inside and the Jutes controlled the border.
1
I'm glad to see your thirty years study taught you basic good manners @mikeycraig8970 . I'm also surprised your thirty years study of Jutland somehow failed to discover the Iutae of Utrecht, as documented by the Romans.
1
@LeeAndrew-p4e They may have had Angles in Lancashire along with the Welsh, and they had Angles, Frisians and Danes in Yorkshire, but they definitely didn't have Saxons. Saxons are the people of Wessex, Sussex, Essex and the borderlands that became known as Mercia (which literally means borderlands). Like most borderlands, it was fought over for centuries so clearly Angles and Saxons were not best pals and mingled little.
1
@suewood8538 I grant you the word "Viking" does sound good, but the people of the time would never have called them that, because they knew what the word actually means (also I imagine they would have spelled and pronounced it "wiccen"). What's wrong with using a historically real word - Dane - instead of a modern made-up one? Another thing that's important to understand is the people's 'identity' was not determined by their ancestry but by their feudal loyalties first and their language second. Very few "Danes" came from Denmark - in fact the meaning of the word "-mark" is Denmark is "frontier" so Denmark was their eastern frontier just as Mercia (which derives from the same root word) is their western frontier. All the coastlines in between were probably "Danish" during this period. The Normans are a good example of that. They may have had a "Danish" lord over them (some people believe Rollo came from East Anglia which was "Danish" at that time) but they were not Danes in any other sense: the DNA studies show they were the pre-existing northern French population, just as most "Danes" of the Danelaw were genetically Angle or Celtic. Nobody cared about their genes!
1
@EpicAelflaed The "Franks" were the people who adopted Frankish (a Dutch-Latin pidgin) and then followed Clovis. After Clovis took over Soissons, all France adopted Frankish. They didn't suddenly become Dutch though.
1
@EpicAelflaed I'm not.
1
So true
1
@TalorcMacAllan You don't think so? But the "Sassons" of southern and western England, like the Soissons of northern France, are former Gaullish speakers. They didn't take up English until sometime later than 900AD when Alfred the Great began advocating for it. That means, Cornwall is historically, ethnically and linguistically continuous with the rest of England and always was. Footnote: England had still not fully adopted English even by the reign of Henry VII - which we know because he too is recorded advocating for it.
1