| A Brief History of Cornwall
The early history of Europe is marked by waves of colonising peoples, each able to superimpose their culture on the preceding due to superior technology, agriculture, political organisation or abilities in war.
The peoples in order are the Gaelic Celts, the British Celts, Romans, and then the Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes etc.).
The celts had closely related languages but in the Gaelic language a 'Q' is often used where a 'P' is used in British; this
gives rise to the names P and Q Celts. As the celts swept through Europe they left behind celtic areas for example: Galicia in Spain, Galata in Turkey (Galatians of the bible) and Gaul (now France where they often show gallic temperament). Thousands of years before Christ the celts ended their migration at the Atlantic ocean. The Q celts settled in Ireland and later a tribe (called the Scotii by the Romans) migrated back to Briton to create the gaelic area of the
highlands of modern Scotland. The P celts colonised the rest of the British Isles and later migrated to the part of modern France called Britanny.
Six groups of celts still remain though much influenced by and merged with the peoples of later invasions.
The three Q celtic languages are gaelic of Eire (the modern state of Ireland), gaelic of Scotland, and manx (of the Isle of Mann). The three P celtic languages are Welsh of Wales, Cornish of Cornwall (extinct but revived as a hobby by several thousand people) and Breton of Britanny.
The Roman invasion of the first century AD had great influence on the lowland of England and there it introduced the idea of towns, roads and 'modern' administration.
However they had little influence on the celtic regions. They fought battles with some celtic tribes for example those they called the Iceni of modern East Anglia. The Iceni were lead into battle by Boudicca (in British) or Boudicea (in Latin) and were coloured by woad. The other well known tribes were called the Pictii (latin for painted ones) who lived beyond the wall that Hadrian built across northern England to keep the marauding tribes out. The Romans referred to the tribe living in the horn (cornum in Latin) as the Cornovii from which came the 'Corn' part of Cornwall.
The barbarians that caused the contraction and fall of the Roman empire were various germanic tribes. These tribes made steady progress over the first thousand years AD and gradually defeated the celts and pushed them out of all of lowland England.
Arthur (a celt with a Roman education and background) tried to unite the celts in the south and prevent the Saxons separating the tribes of Wales from those in what is now the south-west of England. 'King' Arthur (Arddur in welsh and Arturus in Latin) failed but later romanticised stories of him and the other tribal leaders (knights in the stories) have ironically entered into English folklore. From that point there were the north welsh (Wales) and the southern welsh and quickly the languages began to deviate from each other.
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