Cornouailles

History

The name Cornwall reflects the situation before the conquest at the 7th century by the Angles and the Saxons when this peninsula where the inhabitants spoke a brittonic Langue (become the Cornique) . Many place names present analogies with those which one finds in the Breton-speaking part of the Brittany. Many medieval saints are common to both areas.

According to the legend brought back by Geoffroy de Monmouth in his Historia regum Britanniae , Cornouailles would draw their name from Corineus, a warrior troien of armed with Brutus of Brittany.

Geography

Little urbanized, the county does not count a big city and is slightly industrialized. The main part of the incomes is drawn from tourism and agriculture. The town of Truro is the administrative capital. (St Austell is more the big city, with 30.000 inhabitants).

It is a large maritime country with many fishing ports (Newquay, St Austell, Falmouth, Fowey, Penzance).

The soft climate and the beauty of the rock coasts and the undulating landscapes attract a population of pensioners coming from all Great Britain.

The Scillies ( Enesow Syllan/Scilly Islands ) formerly formed part of the administrative county of Cornouailles, but currently form a separate administrative unit. The archipelago however forms part of the duchy of Cornouailles.

Culture

The language Cornique, one of the six Celtic Languages and regional Language of the the United Kingdom, is practiced by a minority of the population (approximately 1.500 people). It in common has many words with the Breton to which it was almost identical to the Moyen-âge. It had disappeared at the beginning from the 19th century, but a cultural movement supported by several generations of linguists undertook to modernize it and adapt it in order to transmit it by teaching.

The flag cornouaillais - flag of saint Piran - is a white cross on black bottom, the same colors as the old flag Breton. The Blason of the county carries three crow S.

The currency of Cornouailles is “ One and All ” (into cornic: “ Onan Hag Oll ”, the Breton equivalent being “ Unan hag holl ”).

A political movement “Mebyon Kernow” (Wire of Cornouailles) obtained some successes as a militant for a local autonomy (English: devolution ) similar to those which enjoy the Scotland and the Wales.

The Prince de Galles carries also the title of Duc of Cornouailles and draws most of its incomes from its possessions in the duchy, because the heir to the throne does not receive any personal subsidy of the British State.

Literature

John Le Carré lives in Cornouailles since more than 40 years. Its true name is David Cornwell but it uses the patronym of a member of its family downward of a distance Breton ancestor come to conquer the Great Britain with the troops of William the Conqueror.

Literary place: tally of the novel of Philippe Besson published in 2005, One moment of abandonment .

Cornouailles inspired two large English novelists, Daphne of Maurier ( the Inn of Jamaica ) and Virginia Woolf ( the Walk with the Headlight ): the author evokes his memories of childhood in Saint-Ives. To familiarize itself with the regional legends: Mysteries off the Cornish Coast , of Ian Addicoat and Geoff Buswell; Cornish Legends , of Robert Hunt. For a short historical introduction: Cornwall' S History , of Philip Payton; King Arthur, Man gold Myth? , of Paul White.

Patrick Gale also wrote two novels having for Cornouailles backdrop: Chronic of a summer in 2002 and a soft darkness in 2006.

The famous oral tale that one knows by several authors of XIIème century Tristan and Iseut unrolls, for a great part, in Cornouailles, which is the kingdom of the uncle of Tristan and legitimate husband of Iseut: king Marc.

Cinema

the Ladies of Cornouailles ( Ladies in Lavender ) is a film of Charles Dance left in 2004, with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, in which two sisters of a advanced age, alive in a quiet small town on the coast of Cornouailles, are upset by the mysterious appearance of an young man failed on the beach (interpreted by Daniel Brühl).

Field of Prince Charles

The prince Charles, duke of Cornouailles, has a field of 52 000 hectares which replaces its civil list where it based a line of products bio . Faithful to its ideas, an ecological model village of thousand traditional granite houses and slates there have just been built under the aegis of the foundation Prince de Galles close to Newquay. Near to the beaches most appreciated for the surfers, his name is Surfbury . The foundation had already built the village of Poundbury, on this same model, in Dorchester, county of Dorset.

Economy

Tourism (seaside resorts of Newquay, Polperro and Mevagissey)
Agriculture of which the dairy breeding (Scrap-metal)
Ore (principal European production of kaolin)

To make electricity with the waves

A project, named Hub , is to install an apparatus benefitting from the force of the waves on the northern coast to produce electricity but the surfers worry about his effect on the amplitude of the beachcombers.

External bonds

Wikipédia in cornic language
See Cornwall, Photographs off Cornwall

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Simple: Cornwall Zh-min-nan: Kernow

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