[lg policy] Cornish declared a national minority in UK

Fri Apr 25 08:32:18 UTC 2014

Hello Dave,

Thanks for bringing this up. Indeed language is an important part of this announcement, which can be read in full here (including some specific comments on language):

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cornish-granted-minority-status-within-the-uk

I find myself quite skeptical about what this all means, however. Your insight about Scottish independence seems to confirm my skepticism. The announcement claims that "[t]he decision to recognise the unique identity of the Cornish, now affords them the same status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities as the UK's other Celtic people, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish." Well, what does that mean, exactly? In reality, "the UK's other Celtic people" do not seem to have any special status that the Cornish  lacked under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM). Here's why I believe that to be the case:

When the UK submitted its first report in 1999, it addressed the issue of the meaning of "national minority" in the UK as follows:

"National Minority" is not a legally defined term within the UK. Our report is based on the definition of racial group as set out in the Race Relations Act 1976 which defines a racial group as "a group of persons defined by colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins." This includes our ethnic minority communities (or visible minorities) and the Scots, Irish and Welsh, who are defined as a racial group by virtue of their national origins. Gypsies (and Travellers in Northern Ireland) are also considered a racial group under the Act. It should be stressed, however, that these historic national identities within the UK are in no way ethnically exclusive. Members of ethnic minority communities, just as much as the rest of the UK population, may feel an identity with one or other of the UK's constituent parts. Being Welsh, for example, does not depend upon being white." (paragraph 2)

While this definition does not specifically mention the Cornish, it does not exclude them either. The idea is that the UK has no official "national minority" status (which other European countries do). This is stated quite explicitly in the second report, submitted in 2007:

"The term "national minority" has no legal meaning in the UK and so there is no mechanism under any of the UK's legal jurisdictions to grant "national minority status" to any particular group nor is it proposed to introduce such a mechanism. The UK's discrimination laws protect all individuals from being treated less favourably on racial grounds, whether they belong to a "minority" group or a "majority" group. There is no comprehensive list of "recognised" groups." (paragraph 16).

The FCNM therefore offers not special legal status to national minorities in the UK, and consequently there is no official list of recognized groups. Recognition in the UK is of racial groups, and only the court can make a final pronouncement as to whether a certain group is or is not a racial group. (This position is confirmed in the third report, submitted in 2010.)

So the announcement seems a bit misleading. That's why I am not sure the announcement means much of a change at all from previous policies. The key legal concept in the UK continues to be that of racial groups, as the term "national minority" still has no legal status. As far as I can tell, no Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument granting any specific rights to the Cornish has been passed. Further, I see no specific obligations being imposed on government bodies in relation to this announcement. In fact, all the announcement can point to in terms of specific measures is "that the government would be investing a further £120,000 into the Cornish Language Partnership (MAGA) to promote and develop the language." But a promise of additional funding for MAGA is a far cry from a Language Act or, for that matter, a legal mechanism creating a special status.

The announcement states: "The government's approach to the Framework Convention is to be modified to recognise the unique position of the Cornish as a Celtic people within England. It is without prejudice as to whether the Cornish meet the definition of "racial group" under the Equality Act 2010, as only the courts can rule on that." I am not sure what that means in practice, since I am not aware of any legal developments in the UK that would give the Cornish a special status. Perhaps the report for the fourth monitoring cycle, which is due on May 1st 2014, will specifically mention the Cornish as being protected, but that's not such a big development. Previous reports did not exclude the Cornish because a) racial groups are what's protected under UK law; 2) there is no such thing as a list of recognized "racial groups". They simply did not specifically mention the Cornish.

So this announcement seems to be little more than a political move. At least right now. But perhaps I'm missing something (in which case, I would love to be made aware of it).

Sincerely,

Gabriel González Núñez

Marie Curie Actions Fellow

European Project TIME - Translation Research Training: An integrated and intersectoral model for Europe

KU Leuven

-----Original Message-----
From: lgpolicy-list-bounces+gabriel.gonzaleznunez=arts.kuleuven.be at groups.sas.upenn.edu [mailto:lgpolicy-list-bounces+gabriel.gonzaleznunez=arts.kuleuven.be at groups.sas.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of Dave Sayers
Sent: vrijdag 25 april 2014 0:23
To: Language Policy List; ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG; lpren at caltalk.cal.org
Subject: [lg policy] Cornish declared a national minority in UK

Interesting interview with Loveday Jenkin, deputy leader of the political party Mebyon Kernow ('Sons of Cornwall'), discussing today's announcement:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0418phc/?t=1h44m14s.

If that link doesn't take you to the right place, just scroll to 1h44m14s. And it should work outside the UK (only the BBC's video content is UK-only).

Further coverage all over the British press today, e.g. http://goo.gl/X6tCBB.

For me, it's notable that the language has played such a part in this, both in the political conversation and in the media reports. The drive to recognise Cornish under the European Charter in the 2000s had little to do with the minority status of Cornish people, yet that recognition went on to bolster this campaign for minority status. Interesting times for a language which has been reconstructed from 'extinct'

status during the twentieth and early twenty-first century. How all this plays into the contemporary political landscape of devolution and sub-national autonomy is a developing story.

Another slightly more sceptical way to interpret this is as another attempt by the UK government to diffuse and deflect the Scottish independence movement, by granting further self-control to a part of the UK. This came up late last year when the UK govt granted further fiscal powers to Wales, e.g. a BBC article from 1 Nov 2013:

"The backdrop to all of this [granting the fiscal powers to Wales] is the looming Scottish independence referendum in 2014. Carwyn Jones made it clear to David Cameron at a meeting in Downing Street last month that although he was staunch supporter of the Union, he could not in all conscience travel to Scotland and campaign without being clear that the UK government had failed to deliver the extra powers that Wales wanted - something which would have resonance for Scottish voters trying to decide whether Scotland would be better or worse off outside the UK."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-24769976

I haven't yet seen any such eyebrow-raising about the Cornish decision. You heard it here first! And I don't really mean to cast any aspersions on the Cornish case; this is just an important contemporary political development worth bearing in mind for this sort of thing.

And it would of course be completely remiss of me not to add a shameless plug for my

2012 article on the Cornish language revival:

http://www.cornish-language.org/assets/files/StandardisingCornish.pdf

There's also this fine article by Zsuzsanna Renkó-Michelsén:

http://jeful.ut.ee/index.php/JEFUL/article/view/jeful.2013.4.2.10/11.

Oll an gwella / All the best,

Dave

--

Dr. Dave Sayers

Senior Lecturer, Dept Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University, UK Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University, UK dave.sayers at cantab.net<mailto:dave.sayers at cantab.net> | http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers

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