On the fringes of any nation the melting pot effect is less pronounced The homogenisation of England did not permeate beyond the Tamar into the Cornish peninsular until the later half of the 19th century and it is this fact that gives rise to a separate Cornish identity In the rest of England the Celtic identity of the Britons was subsumed by the waves of Anglo Saxon Danish and Norman invasions but the King on the throne of England has been the Cornish people s overlord for some 1200 years Even so the Cornish language aside of which there has not been one native speaker for 150 years I wonder if this identity is any really any stronger that that of Yorkshire A Yorkshireman has a distinct identity different from much of England but very few would not claim England to be the nation of their birth In the 19th century a Cockney and a Geordie meeting for the first time would have found great difficulty communicating though they were speaking the same tongue but both would have been sure they were living in England England was until relatively recently a land of containing many regional identities and has only relatively recently started to become a blurry single entity What is England and Englishness anyway Is it drinking tea or eating roast beef or playing cricket or a sense of fair play or belief in trial by jury or a particular sense of humour If it is anyone of these I don t see how the Cornish differ from the English Leaving aside these philosophical issues and returning to the realpolitik as sjc calls it the situation is clear The Cornish nation ceased to exist some 1200 years ago and the duchy of Cornwall is irrelevant to the governmental administration of the region It is administered by a county council fairly elected by the inhabitants many of whom are happy to call themselves English Some are not but some Scots nationalists dislike being called British the fact remains that Scotland is in Britain UK similarly those Cornish people may dislike being called English can not get away from the fact that as it stands Cornwall remains a county in England until a Cornish nation is re established Despite the aspirations of Cornish nationalists separatists and despite the anachronistic state of affairs regarding the Duchy of Cornwall Cornwall is currently a county in England and to fail to describe it as such is simply erroneous It would be a misrepresentation of the facts to state otherwise As for the arguments regarding the specific wording of this article as long as it continues to state that Cornwall is a county of Great Britain or similar avoidance of the words county in England new readers will contineu to try to correct it back to county in England because rightly or wrongly that s what everybody apart from a small minority and as far as Wikipedia is concerned I think it s a minority of one perceive it to be 00 41 Sep 10 2002 UTC