The English language

The English Language
Aprendizaje Mezclado

Contents
1 English people 1
1.1 English nationality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Relationship to Britishness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 Historical origins and identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 History of English people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Early Middle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.2 Vikings and the Danelaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.3 English uniﬁcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.4 Norman and Angevin rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.5 In the United Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.6 Immigration and assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.7 Current national and political identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 English diaspora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.1 United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.2 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3.3 Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3.4 Other communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.7 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.7.1 Diaspora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.8 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 British people 13
2.1 History of the term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.1 Ancestral roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.2 Union and the development of Britishness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.3 Union of Scotland and England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.4 Union with Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.5 Modern period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Geographic distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
i

ii CONTENTS
2.3.1 Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3.2 British overseas territories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.3 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.4 Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.5 New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.6 Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.7 South Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.8 Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.9 United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4 Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.1 Cuisine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.2 Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4.3 Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4.4 Media and music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4.5 Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4.6 Sport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.7 Visual art and architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4.8 Political culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5 Classiﬁcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.6 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.7 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.8 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3 English language 40
3.1 Classiﬁcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.1 Proto-Germanic to Old English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.2 Middle English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.3 Early Modern English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2.4 Spread of Modern English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3 Geographical distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3.1 Three circles of English-speaking countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3.2 Pluricentric English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3.3 English as a global language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 Phonology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.1 Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.2 Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.3 Phonotactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.4 Stress, rhythm and intonation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4.5 Regional variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.5 Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.5.1 Nouns and noun phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

CONTENTS iii
3.5.2 Verbs and verb phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.5.3 Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.6 Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6.1 Word formation processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6.2 Word origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.6.3 English loanwords and calques in other languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.7 Writing system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.8 Dialects, accents, and varieties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.8.1 UK and Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.8.2 North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.8.3 Australia and New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.8.4 Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.9 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.10 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.11 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4 English-speaking world 73
4.1 Majority English-speaking countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.2 Countries where English is an oﬃcial language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.3 English as a global language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.4 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.5 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5 Great Britain 77
5.1 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.1.1 Toponymy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.1.2 Derivation of “Great” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.1.3 Modern use of the term Great Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.2 Political deﬁnition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.3 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.3.1 Prehistoric period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.3.2 Roman and medieval period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.3.3 Early modern period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.4 Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.4.1 Geology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.4.2 Fauna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.4.3 Flora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.4.4 Fungi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.5 Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.5.1 Settlements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.5.2 Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.5.3 Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

iv CONTENTS
5.6 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.7 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.8.1 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.9 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.9.1 Video links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.10 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.10.1 Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.10.2 Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.10.3 Content license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Chapter 1
English people
This article is about a nation and an ethnic group.
For information on the population of England, see
Demography of England. For other uses, see English
(disambiguation) and Englishman (disambiguation).
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to
England, who speak the English language. The English
identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were
known in Old English as the Angelcynn (“family of the
Angles”). England is one of the countries of the United
Kingdom and English people in England are British cit-
izens. Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one
of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Great Britain
around the 5th century AD.[7]
Historically, the English population is descended from
several peoples — the earlier Britons (or Brythons) and
the Germanic tribes that settled in Britain following the
withdrawal of the Romans, including Angles, Saxons,
Jutes and Frisians. Collectively known as the Anglo-
Saxons, they founded what was to become England (from
the Old English Englaland) along with the later Danes,
Normans and other groups. In the Acts of Union 1707,
the Kingdom of England was succeeded by the Kingdom
of Great Britain.[8]
Over the years, English customs and
identity have become fairly closely aligned with British
customs and identity in general.
Today many English people have recent forebears from
other parts of the United Kingdom, while some are also
descended from more recent immigrants from other Eu-
ropean countries and from the Commonwealth.
The English people are the source of the English lan-
guage, the Westminster system, the common law system
and numerous major sports such as football, rugby and
tennis.[9]
These and other English cultural characteristics
have spread worldwide, in part as a result of the former
British Empire.
1.1 English nationality
Although England has not for centuries been an indepen-
dent nation state, but rather a constituent country within
the United Kingdom, the English may still be regarded
as a “nation” according to the Oxford English Dictio-
nary's definition: a group united by factors that include
“language, culture, history or occupation of the same
territory”.[10]
The concept of an “English nation” is far older than that
of the “British nation”, and the 1990s witnessed a re-
vival in English self-consciousness.[11]
This is linked to
the expressions of national self-awareness of the other
British nations of Wales and Scotland – which take their
most solid form in the new devolved political arrange-
ments within the United Kingdom – and the waning of
a shared British national identity with the growing dis-
tance between the end of the British Empire and the
present.[12][13][14]
Many recent immigrants to England have assumed a
solely British identity, while others have developed dual
or mixed identities.[15][16]
Use of the word “English” to
describe Britons from ethnic minorities in England is
complicated by most non-white people in England iden-
tifying as British rather than English. In their 2004 An-
nual Population Survey, the Office for National Statistics
compared the ethnic identities of British people with their
perceived national identity. They found that while 58%
of white people in England described their nationality as
“English”, the vast majority of non-white people called
themselves “British”.[17]
1.1.1 Relationship to Britishness
It is unclear how many British people consider themselves
English. In the 2001 UK census, respondents were in-
vited to state their ethnicity, but while there were tick
boxes for 'Irish' and for 'Scottish', there were none for
'English', or 'Welsh', who were subsumed into the general
heading 'White British'.[18]
Following complaints about
this, the 2011 census was changed to “allow respondents
to record their English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish,
Irish or other identity.”[19]
Another complication in defin-
ing the English is a common tendency for the words “En-
glish” and “British” to be used interchangeably, especially
overseas. In his study of English identity, Krishan Kumar
describes a common slip of the tongue in which people
say “English, I mean British”. He notes that this slip is
1

2 CHAPTER 1. ENGLISH PEOPLE
normally made only by the English themselves and by for-
eigners: “Non-English members of the United Kingdom
rarely say 'British' when they mean 'English'". Kumar
suggests that although this blurring is a sign of England’s
dominant position with the UK, it is also “problematic for
the English [...] when it comes to conceiving of their na-
tional identity. It tells of the difficulty that most English
people have of distinguishing themselves, in a collective
way, from the other inhabitants of the British Isles”.[20]
In 1965, the historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote,
“When the Oxford History of England was
launched a generation ago, “England” was still
an all-embracing word. It meant indiscrimi-
nately England and Wales; Great Britain; the
United Kingdom; and even the British Empire.
Foreigners used it as the name of a Great Power
and indeed continue to do so. Bonar Law, by
origin a Scotch Canadian, was not ashamed to
describe himself as “Prime Minister of Eng-
land” [...] Now terms have become more rig-
orous. The use of “England” except for a ge-
ographic area brings protests, especially from
the Scotch.”[21]
However, although Taylor believed this blurring effect
was dying out, in his book The Isles (1999), Norman
Davies lists numerous examples in history books of
“British” still being used to mean “English” and vice
versa.[22]
In December 2010, Matthew Parris in The Spectator,
analysing the use of “English” over “British”, argued
that English identity, rather than growing, had existed all
along but has recently been unmasked from behind a ve-
neer of Britishness.[23]
1.1.2 Historical origins and identity
Main article: Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain
The traditional view of English origins was that the En-
glish are primarily descended from the Anglo-Saxons, the
term used to describe the various Germanic tribes that
migrated to the island of Great Britain following the end
of the Roman occupation of Britain, with assimilation of
later migrants such as the Vikings and Normans. This
version of history is now regarded by most historians as
incorrect, on the basis of more recent genetic and archae-
ological research. Based on a re-estimation of the num-
ber of settlers, some have taken the view that it is highly
unlikely that the existing British Celtic-speaking popula-
tion was substantially displaced by the Anglo-Saxons and
that instead a process of acculturation took place, with
an Anglo-Saxon ruling elite imposing their culture on the
local populations.[24][25]
However, many historians, while
making allowance for British survival, still hold to the
view that there was significant displacement of the in-
digenous population.[26][27]
The Celtic-speaking populations, particularly in their
use of Brythonic languages such as Cornish, Cumbric
and Welsh, held on for several centuries in parts of
England such as Cornwall, Devon, Cumbria and a part
of Lancashire.[28][29]
Historian Catherine Hills describes
what she calls the "national origin myth" of the English:
The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons ... is still per-
ceived as an important and interesting event
because it is believed to have been a key fac-
tor in the identity of the present inhabitants of
the British Isles, involving migration on such a
scale as to permanently change the population
of south-east Britain, and making the English
a distinct and different people from the Celtic
Irish, Welsh and Scots ....this is an example of
a national origin myth ... and shows why there
are seldom simple answers to questions about
origins.[30]
Modern research into the genetic history of the British
Isles, popularised by Stephen Oppenheimer, Bryan Sykes
and others, does not show a clear dividing line between
the English and their 'Celtic' neighbours, but a gradual
clinal change from west coast Britain to east coast Britain.
They suggest that the majority of the ancestors of British
peoples were the original palaeolithic settlers of Great
Britain, and that the differences that exist between the
east and west coasts of Great Britain though not large, are
deep in prehistory, mostly originating in the upper palae-
olithic and Mesolithic (15,000–7,000 years ago). Oppen-
heimer stated that genetic testing suggests that “75% of
British and Irish ancestors arrive[d] between 15,000 and
7,500 years ago” (that is, long before the arrival of the
Anglo-Saxons, and even before that of the Celts).[31]
1.2 History of English people
Main article: History of England
1.2.1 Early Middle Ages
Further information: Anglo-Saxons, Roman Britain,
Sub-Roman Britain, Ancient Britons, Romano-Britons
The first people to be called 'English' were the Anglo-
Saxons, a group of closely related Germanic tribes that
began migrating to eastern and southern Great Britain,
from southern Denmark and northern Germany, in the
5th century AD, after the Romans had withdrawn from
Britain. The Anglo-Saxons gave their name to England
(Engla land, meaning “Land of the Angles”) and to the
English.

1.2. HISTORY OF ENGLISH PEOPLE 3
“The Arrival of the First Ancestors of Englishmen out of Ger-
many into Britain": a fanciful image of the Anglo-Saxon migra-
tion, an event central to the English national myth. From A Resti-
tution of Decayed Intelligence by Richard Verstegan (1605)
A reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon burial chamber at Sutton
Hoo, East Anglia.
The Anglo-Saxons arrived in a land that was al-
ready populated by people commonly referred to as
the 'Romano-British'—the descendants of the native
Brythonic-speaking population that lived in the area of
Britain under Roman rule during the 1st–5th centuries
AD. The multi-ethnic nature of the Roman Empire meant
that small numbers of other peoples may have also been
present in England before the Anglo-Saxons arrived.
There is archaeological evidence, for example, of an early
North African presence in a Roman garrison at Aballava,
now Burgh-by-Sands, in Cumbria: a 4th-century inscrip-
tion says that the Roman military unit Numerus Mauro-
rum Aurelianorum (“unit of Aurelian Moors”) from Mau-
retania (Morocco) was stationed there.[32]
The exact nature of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and
their relationship with the Romano-British is a matter of
debate. Traditionally, it was believed that a mass in-
vasion by various Anglo-Saxon tribes largely displaced
the indigenous British population in southern and east-
ern Great Britain (modern-day England with the excep-
tion of Cornwall). This was supported by the writings
of Gildas, the only contemporary historical account of
the period, describing slaughter and starvation of native
Britons by invading tribes (aduentus Saxonum).[33]
Fur-
thermore, the English language contains no more than a
handful of words borrowed from Brythonic sources (al-
though the names of some towns, cities, rivers etc. do
have Brythonic or pre-Brythonic origins, becoming more
frequent towards the west of Britain).[34]
However, this view has been re-evaluated by some ar-
chaeologists and historians since the 1960s; they have
been more recently supported by genetic studies,[35]
which see only minimal evidence for mass displacement.
Archaeologist Francis Pryor has stated that he “can't see
any evidence for bona ﬁde mass migrations after the
Neolithic.”[36]
While the historian Malcolm Todd writes “It is much
more likely that a large proportion of the British popula-
tion remained in place and was progressively dominated
by a Germanic aristocracy, in some cases marrying into
it and leaving Celtic names in the, admittedly very du-
bious, early lists of Anglo-Saxon dynasties. But how we
identify the surviving Britons in areas of predominantly
Anglo-Saxon settlement, either archaeologically or lin-
guistically, is still one of the deepest problems of early
English history.”[37]
In a survey of the genes of British and Irish men, even
those British regions that were most genetically simi-
lar to (Germanic speaking) continental regions were still
more genetically British than continental: “When in-
cluded in the PC analysis, the Frisians were more 'Conti-
nental' than any of the British samples, although they were
somewhat closer to the British ones than the North Ger-
man/Denmark sample. For example, the part of main-
land Britain that has the most Continental input is Cen-
tral England, but even here the AMH+1 frequency, not
below 44% (Southwell), is higher than the 35% observed
in the Frisians. These results demonstrate that even with
the choice of Frisians as a source for the Anglo-Saxons,
there is a clear indication of a continuing indigenous com-
ponent in the English paternal genetic makeup.”[38]
1.2.2 Vikings and the Danelaw
Further information: Vikings and Danelaw
From about 800 AD waves of Danish Viking assaults
on the coastlines of the British Isles were gradually fol-
lowed by a succession of Danish settlers in England. At
ﬁrst, the Vikings were very much considered a separate

people from the English. This separation was enshrined
when Alfred the Great signed the Treaty of Alfred and
Guthrum to establish the Danelaw, a division of England
between English and Danish rule, with the Danes occu-
pying northern and eastern England.[39]
However, Alfred’s successors subsequently won military
victories against the Danes, incorporating much of the
Danelaw into the nascent kingdom of England. Dan-
ish invasions continued into the 11th century, and there
were both English and Danish kings in the period follow-
ing the unification of England (for example, Æthelred
II (978–1013 and 1014–1016) was English but Cnut
(1016–1035) was Danish).
Gradually, the Danes in England came to be seen as 'En-
glish'. They had a noticeable impact on the English lan-
guage: many English words, such as anger, ball, egg, got,
knife, take, and they, are of Old Norse origin,[40]
and place
names that end in -thwaite and -by are Scandinavian in
origin.[41]
1.2.3 English unification
Further information: Treaty of Wedmore and Treaty of
Alfred and Guthrum
The English population was not politically unified un-
Southern Great Britain in AD 600 after the Anglo-Saxon settle-
ment, showing England’s division into multiple petty kingdoms.
til the 10th century. Before then, it consisted of a num-
ber of petty kingdoms which gradually coalesced into a
Heptarchy of seven powerful states, the most powerful of
which were Mercia and Wessex. The English nation state
began to form when the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms united
against Danish Viking invasions, which began around 800
AD. Over the following century and a half England was
for the most part a politically unified entity, and remained
permanently so after 959.
The nation of England was formed in 937 by Athelstan
of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh,[42][43]
as Wes-
sex grew from a relatively small kingdom in the South
West to become the founder of the Kingdom of the En-
glish, incorporating all Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the
Danelaw.[44]
1.2.4 Norman and Angevin rule
Further information: Normans
The Norman conquest of England during 1066 brought
King Harold II of England (right) at the Norman court, from the
Bayeux Tapestry
Anglo-Saxon and Danish rule of England to an end, as
the new French speaking Norman elite almost universally
replaced the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and church lead-
ers. After the conquest, “English” normally included all
natives of England, whether they were of Anglo-Saxon,
Scandinavian or Celtic ancestry, to distinguish them from
the Norman invaders, who were regarded as “Norman”
even if born in England, for a generation or two af-
ter the Conquest.[45]
The Norman dynasty ruled England
for 87 years until the death of King Stephen in 1154,
when the succession passed to Henry II, House of Planta-
genet (based in France), and England became part of the
Angevin Empire until 1399.
Various contemporary sources suggest that within 50
years of the invasion most of the Normans outside the
royal court had switched to English, with Anglo-Norman
remaining the prestige language of government and law
largely out of social inertia. For example, Orderic Vitalis,
a historian born in 1075 and the son of a Norman knight,
said that he learned French only as a second language.
Anglo-Norman continued to be used by the Plantagenet
kings until Edward I came to the throne.[46]
Over time
the English language became more important even in the
court, and the Normans were gradually assimilated, un-
til, by the 14th century, both rulers and subjects regarded

1.2. HISTORY OF ENGLISH PEOPLE 5
themselves as English and spoke the English language.[47]
Despite the assimilation of the Normans, the distinction
between 'English' and 'French' survived in official doc-
uments long after it had fallen out of common use, in
particular in the legal phrase Presentment of Englishry
(a rule by which a hundred had to prove an unidentified
murdered body found on their soil to be that of an En-
glishman, rather than a Norman, if they wanted to avoid
a fine). This law was abolished in 1340.[48]
1.2.5 In the United Kingdom
Main article: History of the formation of the United
Kingdom
St George’s Cross
(England)
St Andrew’s Cross
(Scotland)
Great Britain
St Patrick’s Cross
(Ireland)
United Kingdom
Since the 18th century, England has been one part of a
wider political entity covering all or part of the British
Isles, which today is called the United Kingdom. Wales
was annexed by England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–
1542, which incorporated Wales into the English state.[49]
A new British identity was subsequently developed when
James VI of Scotland became James I of England as well,
and expressed the desire to be known as the monarch of
Britain.[50]
In 1707, England formed a union with Scotland by pass-
ing an Act of Union in March 1707 that ratified the Treaty
of Union. The Parliament of Scotland had previously
passed its own Act of Union, so the Kingdom of Great
Britain was born on 1 May 1707. In 1801, another Act
of Union formed a union between the Kingdom of Great
Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland, creating the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, about
two-thirds of the Irish population (those who lived in 26
of the 32 counties of Ireland), left the United Kingdom
to form the Irish Free State. The remainder became the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
although this name was not introduced until 1927, af-
ter some years in which the term “United Kingdom” had
been little used.
Throughout the history of the UK, the English have been
dominant in population and in political weight. As a con-
sequence, notions of 'Englishness’ and 'Britishness’ are
often very similar. At the same time, after the Union
of 1707, the English, along with the other peoples of the
British Isles, have been encouraged to think of themselves
as British rather than to identify themselves with the con-
stituent nations.[51]
1.2.6 Immigration and assimilation
See also: Historical immigration to Great Britain and
Immigration to the United Kingdom (1922-present day)
Although England has not been conquered since the
Norman conquest, it has been the destination of var-
ied numbers of migrants at different periods from the
17th century onwards. While some members of these
groups maintain a separate ethnic identity, others have
assimilated and intermarried with the English. Since
Oliver Cromwell's resettlement of the Jews in 1656, there
have been waves of Jewish immigration from Russia in
the 19th century and from Germany in the 20th.[52]
After the French king Louis XIV declared Protestantism
illegal in 1685 in the Edict of Fontainebleau, an estimated
50,000 Protestant Huguenots fled to England.[53]
Due to
sustained and sometimes mass emigration from Ireland,
current estimates indicate that around 6 million people in
the UK have at least one grandparent born in Ireland.[54]
There has been a black presence in England since the
16th century due to the slave trade,[55]
and an Indian pres-
ence since at least the 17th century because of the East
India Company[56]
and British Raj,[55]
or 16th century
with the arrival of Romanichal migrants. Black and Asian
populations have grown in England as immigration from
the British Empire and the subsequent Commonwealth of
Nations was encouraged due to labour shortages during
post-war rebuilding.[57]
However, these groups are often
still considered to be ethnic minorities and research has
shown that black and Asian people in the UK are more
likely to identify as British rather than with one of the
state’s four constituent nations, including England.[58]
1.2.7 Current national and political iden-
tity
The 1990s witnessed a resurgence of English national
identity.[59]
Survey data shows a rise in the number

of people in England describing their national identity
as English and a fall in the number describing them-
selves as British.[60]
Today, black and minority eth-
nic people of England still generally identify as British
rather than English to a greater extent than their white
counterparts;[61]
however, groups such as The Campaign
for an English Parliament (CEP) suggest the emergence
of a broader civic and multi-ethnic English nationhood.
Scholars and journalists have noted a rise in English self-
consciousness, with increased use of the English flag, par-
ticularly at football matches where the Union flag was pre-
viously more commonly flown by fans.[62][63]
This perceived rise in English self-consciousness has
generally been attributed to the devolution in the late
1990s of some powers to the Scottish Parliament and
National Assembly for Wales.[59][64]
In policy areas for
which the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland have responsibility, the UK Parlia-
ment votes on laws that consequently only apply to Eng-
land. Because the Westminster Parliament is composed
of MPs from throughout the UK, this has given rise to
the "West Lothian question", a reference to the situation
in which MPs representing constituencies outside Eng-
land can vote on matters affecting only England, but MPs
cannot vote on the same matters in relation to the other
parts of the UK.[65]
Consequently, groups such as the
Campaign for an English Parliament have called for the
creation of a devolved English Parliament, claiming that
there is now a discriminatory democratic deficit against
the English. The establishment of an English parliament
has also been backed by a number of Scottish and Welsh
nationalists.[66][67]
Writer Paul Johnson has suggested that
like most dominant groups, the English have only demon-
strated interest in their ethnic self-definition when they
were feeling oppressed.[68]
John Curtice argues that “In the early years of devolu-
tion...there was little sign” of an English backlash against
devolution for Scotland and Wales, but that more re-
cently survey data shows tentative signs of “a form of En-
glish nationalism...beginning to emerge among the gen-
eral public”.[69]
Michael Kenny, Richard English and
Richard Hayton, meanwhile, argue that the resurgence
in English nationalism predates devolution, being observ-
able in the early 1990s, but that this resurgence does
not necessarily have negative implications for the percep-
tion of the UK as a political union.[70]
Others question
whether devolution has led to a rise in English national
identity at all, arguing that survey data fails to portray the
complex nature of national identities, with many people
considering themselves both English and British.[71]
Recent surveys of public opinion on the establishment of
an English parliament have given widely varying conclu-
sions. In the first five years of devolution for Scotland
and Wales, support in England for the establishment of an
English parliament was low at between 16 and 19%, ac-
cording to successive British Social Attitudes Surveys.[72]
A report, also based on the British Social Attitudes Sur-
vey, published in December 2010 suggests that only 29%
of people in England support the establishment of an En-
glish parliament, though this figure had risen from 17% in
2007.[73]
One 2007 poll carried out for BBC Newsnight,
however, found that 61 per cent would support such a par-
liament being established.[74]
Krishan Kumar notes that
support for measures to ensure that only English MPs can
vote on legislation that applies only to England is gen-
erally higher than that for the establishment of an En-
glish parliament, although support for both varies depend-
ing on the timing of the opinion poll and the wording of
the question.[75]
Electoral support for English nationalist
parties is also low, even though there is public support
for many of the policies they espouse.[76]
The English
Democrats gained just 64,826 votes in the 2010 UK gen-
eral election, accounting for 0.3 per cent of all votes cast
in England.[77]
Kumar argued in 2010 that “despite de-
volution and occasional bursts of English nationalism –
more an expression of exasperation with the Scots or
Northern Irish – the English remain on the whole satis-
fied with current constitutional arrangements”.[78]
1.3 English diaspora
Further information: English diaspora
From the earliest times English people have left Eng-
land to settle in other parts of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, but it is not possible to identify their numbers,
as British censuses have historically not invited respon-
dents to identify themselves as English.[79]
However, the
census does record place of birth, revealing that 8.08%
of Scotland’s population,[80]
3.66% of the population of
Northern Ireland[81]
and 20% of the Welsh population
were born in England.[82]
Similarly, the census of the Re-
public of Ireland does not collect information on ethnic-
ity, but it does record that there are over 200,000 people
living in Ireland who were born in England and Wales.[83]
English emigrant and ethnic descent communities are
found across the world, and in some places, settled
in significant numbers. Substantial populations de-
scended from English colonists and immigrants exist in
the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and
New Zealand.
1.3.1 United States
Main article: English American
In the 2013 American Community Survey, English
Americans were (7.7%) of the total United States pop-
ulation behind the German Americans at (14.6%) and
Irish Americans at (10.5%).[85]
However, demographers
regard this as a serious undercount, as the index of in-
consistency is high, and many, if not most, people from

1.3. ENGLISH DIASPORA 7
George Washington, the first president of the United States, had
English ancestors.[84]
English stock have a tendency (since the introduction of
a new 'American' category in the 2000 census) to iden-
tify as simply Americans[86][87][88][89]
or if of mixed Eu-
ropean ancestry, identify with a more recent and differ-
entiated ethnic group.[90]
In the 2000 United States Census, 24,509,692 Americans
described their ancestry as wholly or partly English. In
addition, 1,035,133 recorded British ancestry.[91]
In the 1980 United States Census, over 49 million
(49,598,035) Americans claimed English ancestry, at the
time around 26.34% of the total population and largest
reported group which, even today, would make them the
largest ethnic group in the United States.[92][93]
Six out
of the ten most common surnames in the United States
are of English origin, the other four are of Welsh and
Spanish origin.[94]
Scotch-Irish Americans are descen-
dants of Lowland Scots and Northern English (specif-
ically: County Durham, Cumberland, Northumberland
and Westmorland) settlers who colonized Ireland during
the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century.
Americans of English heritage are often seen, and iden-
tify, as simply “American” due to the many historic cul-
tural ties between England and the U.S. and their in-
fluence on the country’s population. Relative to ethnic
groups of other European origins, this may be due to the
early establishment of English settlements; as well as to
non-English groups having emigrated in order to establish
significant communities.[95]
1.3.2 Canada
Main article: English Canadian
In the 2006 Canadian Census, 'English' was the most
common ethnic origin (ethnic origin refers to the ethnic
or cultural group(s) to which the respondent’s ancestors
belong[96]
) recorded by respondents; 6,570,015 people
described themselves as wholly or partly English, 16%
of the population.[97]
On the other hand, people identi-
fying as Canadian but not English may have previously
identified as English before the option of identifying as
Canadian was available.[98]
1.3.3 Australia
Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin, 1st and 2nd Prime Minister
of Australia both had English parents.
Main article: English Australian
From the beginning of the colonial era until the mid-20th
century, the vast majority of settlers to Australia were
from the British Isles, with the English being the domi-
nant group, followed by the Irish and Scottish. Among
the leading ancestries, increases in Australian, Irish, and
German ancestries and decreases in English, Scottish, and
Welsh ancestries appear to reflect such shifts in percep-
tion or reporting. These reporting shifts at least partly
resulted from changes in the design of the census ques-
tion, in particular the introduction of a tick box format in
2001.[99]
Until 1859, 2.2 million (73%) of the free settlers who
immigrated were British.[100]
Australians of English descent, are both the single largest
ethnic group in Australia and the largest 'ancestry' iden-
tity in the Australian Census.[101]
In the 2011 census, 7.2
million or 36.1% of respondents identified as “English”
or a combination including English, such as English-
Australian. The census also documented 910,000 resi-
dents of Australia as being born in England.[102][103]
En-

glish Australians have more often come from the south
than the north of England.[104]
1.3.4 Other communities
Significant numbers of people with at least some English
ancestry also live in Scotland and Wales, as well as in
Ireland, Spain, France, the rest of Europe, New Zealand,
South Africa and Brazil.
Since the 1980s there have been increasingly large num-
bers of English people, estimated at over 3 million,
permanently or semi-permanently living in Spain and
France, drawn there by the climate and cheaper house
prices.[105]
1.4 Culture
Main article: Culture of England
The culture of England is sometimes difficult to separate
clearly from the culture of the United Kingdom,[106]
so
influential has English culture been on the cultures of the
British Isles and, on the other hand, given the extent to
which other cultures have influenced life in England.
1.5 See also
• English diaspora
• British people
• List of English people
• Old English (Ireland)
• Celtic Peoples
• Culture of England
• English folklore
• English nationalism
• Manx people
• Genetic history of Europe
• European ethnic groups
• Immigration to the United Kingdom (1922-present
day)
• Population of England (historical estimates)
• 100% English (Channel 4 TV programme, 2006)
Language:
• Anglicisation
• Anglosphere
• English language
• Old English
• Middle English
• Early Modern English
• Cumbric language
• Cornish language
• Brythonic language
Diaspora:
• British diaspora in Africa
• Anglo-Burmese
• Metis people
• Anglo-Indian
• Anglo-Irish
• Anglo-Scot
• English American
• English Argentine
• English Australian
• English Brazilian
• English Chilean
• English Canadian
• New Zealand European
1.6 Notes
[1] The 2011 England and Wales census reports that in Eng-
land and Wales 32.4 million people associated themselves
with an English identity alone and 37.6 million identified
themselves with an English identity either on its own or
combined with other identities, being 57.7% and 67.1%
respectively of the population of England and Wales.
[2] 2010 ACS Ancestry estimates
[3] US Census 1980
[4] (Ancestry) The 2011 Australian Census reports 7,238,500
people of English ancestry.
[5] (Ethnic origin) The 2006 Canadian Census gives
1,367,125 respondents stating their ethnic origin as
English as a single response, and 5,202,890 including
multiple responses, giving a combined total of 6,570,015.

1.6. NOTES 9
[6] (Ethnic origin) The 2006 New Zealand census reports
44,202 people (based on pre-assigned ethnic categories)
stating they belong to the English ethnic group. The 1996
census used a different question to both the 1991 and the
2001 censuses, which had “a tendency for respondents to
answer the 1996 question on the basis of ancestry (or de-
scent) rather than 'ethnicity' (or cultural affiliation)" and
reported 281,895 people with English origins; See also
the figures for 'New Zealand European'.
[7] “Online Etymology Dictionary”. Etymonline.com. Re-
trieved 8 July 2011.
[8] “Act of Union 1707”. parliament.uk. Retrieved 26 Au-
gust 2010.
[9] The fa 1863-2013.
[10] “Nation”, sense 1. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd
edtn., 1989'.
[11] Kumar 2003, pp. 262–290
[12] Kumar 2003, pp. 1–18.
[13] English nationalism 'threat to UK', BBC, Sunday, 9 Jan-
uary 2000
[14] The English question Handle with care, the Economist 1
November 2007
[15] Condor, Gibson & Abell 2006.
[16] “Ethnic minorities feel strong sense of identity with
Britain, report reveals” Maxine Frith The Independent 8
January 2004. ; Hussain, Asifa and Millar, William Lock-
ley (2006) Multicultural Nationalism Oxford University
Press p149-150 ; “Asian recruits boost England fan army”
by Dennis Campbell, The Guardian 18 June 2006. ; “Na-
tional Identity and Community in England” (2006) Insti-
tute of Governance Briefing No.7.
[17] “78 per cent of Bangladeshis said they were British, while
only 5 per cent said they were English, Scottish or Welsh”,
and the largest percentage of non-whites to identify as
English were the people who described their ethnicity as
"Mixed" (37%).'Identity', National Statistics, 21 February
2006
[18] Scotland’s Census 2001: Supporting Information (PDF;
see p. 43); see also Philip Johnston, “Tory MP leads En-
glish protest over census”, The Daily Telegraph (London)
15 June 2006.
[19] 'Developing the Questionnaires’, National Statistics Office.
[20] Kumar 2003, pp. 1–2.
[21] A. J. P. Taylor, English History, 1914–1945 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1965), p. v
[22] Norman Davies, The Isles (1999)
[23] Matthew Parris, in The Spectator dated 18 December
2010: “With a shrug of the shoulders, England is becom-
ing a nation once again”.
[24] Michael Jones, The End of Roman Britain, pp.8–38.
[25] See also “Britain AD: a quest for Arthur, England and the
Anglo-Saxons” by Francis Pryor
[26] Mark G. Thomas, Michael P. H. Stumpf and Heinrich
Hark. “Evidence for an apartheid-like social structure in
early Anglo-Saxon England” (PDF). Royal Society. Re-
trieved 21 January 2010.
[27] Andrew Tyrrell, Corpus Saxon in Social Identity in Early
Medieval Britain by Andrew Tyrrell and William O.
Frazer (London: Leicester University Press. 2000)
[28] Chamber’s cyclopædia of English literature: a history, criti-
cal and biographical, of authors in the English tongue from
the earliest times till the present day, with specimens of their
writings, Volume 1 Robert Chambers, John Liddell Ged-
die, David Patrick, 1922. Page.2
[29] The Cornish language and its literature, Peter Berresford
Ellis, Routledge, 1974 ISBN 0-7100-7928-1, ISBN 978-
0-7100-7928-2. page. 20
[30] Catherine Hills, The Origins of the English (London:
Duckworth, Duckworth Debates in Archaeology, 2003),
p. 18, ISBN 0-7156-3191-8
[31] A United Kingdom? Maybe NY Times
[32] The archaeology of black Britain, Channel 4. Retrieved
21 December 2009.
[33] Gildas, The Ruin of Britain &c. (1899). pp. 4–252. The
Ruin of Britain
[34] celtpn
[35] Oppenheimer, S. (2006). The Origins of the British: A Ge-
netic Detective Story. London: Constable and Robinson.
ISBN 978-1-84529-158-7.
[36] Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans
by Francis Pryor, p. 122. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-00-
712693-X.
[37] Todd, Malcolm. “Anglo-Saxon Origins: The Reality of
the Myth”, in Cameron, Keith. The nation: myth or re-
ality?. Intellect Books, 1994. Retrieved 21 December
2009.
[38] Capelli, C., N. Redhead, J. K. Abernethy, F. Gratrix, J.
F. Wilson, T. Moen, T. Hervig, M. Richards, M. P.H.
Stumpf, P. A. Underhill, P. Bradshaw, A. Shaha, M. G.
Thomas, N. Bradman and D. B. Goldstein A Y Chromo-
some Census of the British Isles Current Biology, 13 (2003).
[39] The Age of Athelstan by Paul Hill (2004), Tempus Pub-
lishing. ISBN 0-7524-2566-8
[40] Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper (2001),
List of sources used. Retrieved 10 July 2006.
[41] The Adventure of English, Melvyn Bragg, 2003. Pg 22
[42] Athelstan (c.895–939): Historic Figures: BBC – His-
tory. Retrieved 30 October 2006.
[43] The Battle of Brunanburh, 937AD by h2g2, BBC website.
Retrieved 30 October 2006.

[44] A. L. Rowse, The Story of Britain, Artus 1979 ISBN 0-
297-83311-1
[45] OED, 2nd edition, s.v. 'English'.
[46] England – Plantagenet Kings
[47] BBC – The Resurgence of English 1200 – 1400
[48] OED, s.v. 'Englishry'.
[49] Liberation of Ireland: Ireland on the Net Website. Re-
trieved 23 June 2006.
[50] A History of Britain: The British Wars 1603–1776 by
Simon Schama, BBC Worldwide. ISBN 0-563-53747-7.
[51] The English, Jeremy Paxman 1998
[52] EJP looks back on 350 years of history of Jews in the UK:
European Jewish Press. Retrieved 21 July 2006.
[53] Meredith on the Guillet-Thoreau Genealogy
[54] More Britons applying for Irish passports by Owen Bowcott
The Guardian, 13 September 2006. Retrieved 9 January
2006.
[55] Black Presence, Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500–
1850: UK government website. Retrieved 21 July 2006.
[56] Fisher, Michael Herbert (2006), Counterflows to Colonial-
ism: Indian Traveller and Settler in Britain 1600–1857,
Orient Blackswan, pp. 111–9, 129–30, 140, 154–6, 160–
8, 172, 181, ISBN 81-7824-154-4
[57] Postwar immigration The National Archives Accessed
October 2006
[58] “Ethnic minorities more likely to feel British than white
people, says research”. Evening Standard. 18 February
2007. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
[59] “British identity: Waning”. The Economist. 25 January
2007. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[60] “When British isn't always best”. The Guardian (London).
24 January 2007. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[61] Jones, Richard Wyn; Lodge, Guy; Jeffery, Charlie; Got-
tfried, Glenn; Scully, Roger; Henderson, Ailsa; Wincott,
Daniel (July 2013). England and its Two Unions: The
Anatomy of a Nation and its Discontents (PDF). Institute
for Public Policy Research. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
[62] Kumar 2003, p. 262.
[63] Hoyle, Ben (8 June 2006). “St George unfurls his flag
(made in China) once again”. The Times (London). Re-
trieved 10 February 2011.
[64] Hickley, Matthew (23 January 2007). “Don't call us
British, we're from England”. Daily Mail (London). Re-
trieved 9 February 2011.
[65] “The West Lothian Question”. BBC News. 1 June 1998.
Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[66] “Fresh call for English Parliament”. BBC News. 24 Oc-
tober 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[67] “Welsh nod for English Parliament”. BBC News. 20 De-
cember 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[68] Paul Johnson is quoted by Kumar (Kumar 2003, p. 266)
[69] Curtice, John (February 2010). “Is an English backlash
emerging? Reactions to devolution ten years on” (PDF).
Institute for Public Policy Research. p. 3. Retrieved 9
February 2011.
[70] Kenny, Michael; English, Richard; Hayton, Richard
(February 2008). “Beyond the constitution? Englishness
in a post-devolved Britain” (PDF). Institute for Public Pol-
icy Research. p. 3. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[71] Condor, Gibson & Abell 2006, p. 128.
[72] Hazell, Robert (2006). “The English Question”. Publius
36 (1): 37–56. doi:10.1093/publius/pjj012.
[73] Ormston, Rachel; Curtice, John (December 2010).
“Resentment or contentment? Attitudes towards the
Union ten years on” (PDF). National Centre for Social Re-
search. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[74] "'Most' support English parliament”. BBC. 16 January
2007. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[75] Kumar 2010, p. 484.
[76] Copus, Colin (2009). “English national parties in
post-devolution UK”. British Politics 4 (3): 363–385.
doi:10.1057/bp.2009.12.
[77] “Full England scoreboard”. Election 2010 (BBC News).
Retrieved 9 February 2011.
[78] Kumar 2010, p. 478.
[79] Scotland’s Census 2001: Supporting Information (PDF;
see p. 43)
[80] Scottish Census Results Online Browser. Retrieved 16
November 2007.
[81] Key Statistics Report, p. 10.
[82] Country of Birth: Proportion Born in Wales Falling, Na-
tional Statistics, 8 January 2004.
[83] http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/PDR%202006%
20Tables%2019-30.pdf
[84] An examination of the English ancestry of George Wash-
ington.
[85] “Selected Social Characteristics in the United States
(DP02): 2013 American Community Survey 1-Year Es-
timates”. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved December 11,
2014.
[86] Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural Amer-
ica By Dominic J. Pulera.
[87] Reynolds Farley, 'The New Census Question about An-
cestry: What Did It Tell Us?', Demography, Vol. 28, No.
3 (August 1991), pp. 414, 421.

1.7. REFERENCES 11
[88] Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, 'The Use of Nativ-
ity Data to Estimate Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns’,
Social Science Research, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44-6.
[89] Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, 'Ethnic Groups
in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American
Whites’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp.
82-86.
[90] Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in
America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990),
p. 36.
[91] US Census 2000 data, table PHC-T-43.
[92] Data on selected ancestry groups.
[93] 1980 United States Census
[94] Genealogy Data: Frequently Occurring Surnames from
Census 2000
[95] From many strands: ethnic and racial groups in contem-
porary América by Stanley Lieberson
[96] Ethnic Origin Statistics Canada
[97] Staff. Ethnic origins, 2006 counts, for Canada, provinces
and territories – 20% sample data, Statistics Canada,
2006.
[98] According to Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Cen-
sus, (p.7) "...the presence of the Canadian example has
led to an increase in Canadian being reported and has had
an impact on the counts of other groups, especially for
French, English, Irish and Scottish. People who previ-
ously reported these origins in the census had the tendency
to now report Canadian.”
[99] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/
7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/
af5129cb50e07099ca2570eb0082e462!OpenDocument
Australia Bureau of Statistics
[100] HISTORICAL RECORDS REVEAL OZ ANCESTORS
OF 16 MILLION BRITS
[101] “Reflecting a Nation: Stories from the 2011 Census,
2012–2013”. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 21 June
2012. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
[102] “Australia 2011 census demographic breakdown table,
Bloomberg.com”.
[103] 2006 Census QuickStats : Australia. census-
data.abs.gov.au
[104] J. Jupp, The English in Australia, Cambridge University
Press, 2004, p. 103
[105] “End of the dream for British expats in Spain” by Giles
Tremlett. The Guardian, Friday 24 July 2009
[106] Carr, Raymond (2003). “invention of Great Britain, The”.
The Spectator. UK. A review of The Making of English
Identity by Krishnan Kumar
1.7 References
• Expert Links: English Family History and Geneal-
ogy Useful for tracking down historical inhabitants
of England.
• Condor, Susan; Gibson, Stephen; Abell, Jackie
(2006). “English identity and ethnic di-
versity in the context of UK constitutional
change” (PDF). Ethnicities 6 (2): 123–158.
doi:10.1177/1468796806063748.
• Kate Fox (2004). Watching the English. Hodder &
Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-81886-7.
• Kumar, Krishan (2003). The Making of English Na-
tional Identity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN
0-521-77736-4.
• Kumar, Krishan (2010). “Negotiating English iden-
tity: Englishness, Britishness and the future of the
United Kingdom”. Nations and Nationalism 16 (3):
469–487. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8129.2010.00442.x.
• Paxman, Jeremy (1999). The English. Penguin
Books Ltd. ISBN 0-14-026723-9.
• Robert J.C. Young (2008). The Idea of English Eth-
nicity. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 1-4051-0129-6.
1.7.1 Diaspora
• Bueltmann, Tanja, David T. Gleeson, and Donald
M. MacRaild, eds. Locating the English Diaspora,
1500–2010 (Liverpool University Press, 2012) 246
pp.
1.8 External links
• BBC Nations Articles on England and the English
• The British Isles Information on England
• Mercator’s Atlas Map of England (“Anglia”) circa
1564.
• Viking blood still flowing; BBC; 3 December 2001.
• UK 2001 Census showing 49,138,831 people from
all ethnic groups living in England.
• Tory MP leads English protest over census; The
Telegraph; 23 April 2001.
• On St. George’s Day, What’s Become Of England?;
CNSNews.com; 23 April 2001.
• Watching the English – an anthropologist’s look at
the hidden rules of English behaviour.
• The True-Born Englishman, by Daniel Defoe.

• The Eﬀect of 1066 on the English Language Geoﬀ
Boxell
• BBC “English and Welsh are races apart”
• New York Times, When English Eyes Are Smiling
Article on the common English and Irish ethnicity
• Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass
Migration
• Origins of Britons – Bryan Sykes

Chapter 2
British people
“Britons” redirects here. For other uses, see Britons
(disambiguation).
See also: English people, Welsh people, Scottish people,
People of Northern Ireland and Cornish people
British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United
Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, Crown Depen-
dencies; and their descendants.[27][28][29]
British nation-
ality law governs modern British citizenship and nation-
ality, which can be acquired, for instance, by descent
from British nationals. When used in a historical context,
British people refers to the ancient Britons, the indigenous
inhabitants of Great Britain south of the Forth.[28]
Although early assertions of being British date from
the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the Kingdom of
Great Britain[30][31][32][33][34]
in 1707 triggered a sense
of British national identity.[35]
The notion of Britishness
was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain
and the First French Empire, and developed further dur-
ing the Victorian era.[35][36]
The complex history of the
formation of the United Kingdom created a “particu-
lar sense of nationhood and belonging” in Great Britain
and Ireland;[35]
Britishness became “superimposed on
much older identities”, of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish
cultures, whose distinctiveness still resist notions of a
homogenised British identity.[37]
Because of longstand-
ing ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Ireland
is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by
unionists.[38]
Modern Britons are descended mainly from the varied
ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles before the
eleventh century. Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-
Saxon, and Norse inﬂuences were blended in Britain un-
der the Normans, descended from Scandinavian settlers
in northern France.[39]
Conquest and union facilitated
migration, cultural and linguistic exchange, and inter-
marriage between the peoples of England, Scotland and
Wales during the Middle Ages, Early Modern period and
beyond.[40][41]
Since 1922, there has been immigration
to the United Kingdom by people from what is now
the Republic of Ireland, the Commonwealth, mainland
Europe and elsewhere; they and their descendants are
mostly British citizens with some assuming a British, dual
or hyphenated identity.[42]
The British are a diverse, multi-national[43][44]
and mul-
ticultural society, with “strong regional accents, expres-
sions and identities”.[45][46]
The social structure of the
United Kingdom has changed radically since the nine-
teenth century, with the decline in religious observance,
enlargement of the middle class, and increased ethnic di-
versity. The population of the UK stands at around 62.5
million,[47]
with a British diaspora of around 140 million
concentrated in Australia, Canada, South Africa, Hong
Kong, New Zealand and the United States.[48]
2.1 History of the term
Further information: Britain
See also: Alternative names for the British
Greek and Roman writers, between the 1st century BC
and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great
Britain and Ireland as the Priteni,[49]
the origin of the
Latin word Britannic. Parthenius, a 1st-century Ancient
Greek grammarian, and the Etymologicum Genuinum,
a 9th-century lexical encyclopaedia, describe Bretannus
(the Latinised form of the Ancient Greek Βρεττανός)
as the Celtic national forefather of the Britons.[50]
It has
been suggested that this name derives from a Gaullish de-
scription translated as “people of the forms”, referring to
the custom of tattooing or painting their bodies with blue
woad.[51]
By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of
Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles.[52]
However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the
Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great
Britain, and later Roman occupied Britain south of
Caledonia.[53][54]
Following the Roman departure from
Britain, the island of Great Britain was left open to inva-
sion by pagan, seafaring warriors such as Saxons and Jutes
who gained control in areas around the south east.[55]
In this post-Roman period, as the Anglo-Saxons ad-
vanced, the Britons became conﬁned to what would later
be called Wales, Cornwall, North West England and
13

14 CHAPTER 2. BRITISH PEOPLE
Strathclyde.[56]
However, the term Britannia persisted as
the Latin name for the island. The Historia Brittonum
claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for
Brittonic kings, followed by the Historia Regum Britan-
niae which popularised this pseudo-history to support the
claims of the Kings of England.[57]
During the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor
period, the term “British” was used to refer to the Welsh
people. At this time, it was “the long held belief that
the Welsh were descendants of the ancient Britons and
that they spoke 'the British tongue'".[57]
This notion was
supported by texts such as the Historia Regum Britan-
niae, a pseudohistorical account of ancient British his-
tory, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth.[57]
The Historia Regum Britanniae chronicled the
lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative span-
ning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the
Trojans founding the ancient British nation and contin-
uing until the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the
7th century forced the Celtic Britons to the west coast,
namely Wales and Cornwall.[57]
This legendary Celtic
history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain.
The Matter of Britain, a national myth, was retold or
reinterpreted in works by Gerald of Wales, a Cambro-
Norman chronicler who in the 12th and 13th centuries
used the term British to refer to what were later known as
the Welsh.[58]
2.2 History
2.2.1 Ancestral roots
Further information: Genetic history of the British Isles
and historical immigration to Great Britain
The indigenous people of the British Isles are made up
of a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon and
Norman ancestry.[56][59][60][61][62][63][64]
Modern stud-
ies using DNA analysis, popularized by the geneticist
Stephen Oppenheimer and others, increasingly suggest
that three-quarters of Britons share a common ancestry
with the hunter-gatherers who settled in Atlantic Europe
during the Paleolithic era,[63][64][65]
“after the melting of
the ice caps but before the land broke away from the
mainland and divided into islands”.[64]
Despite the separation of the British Isles from
continental Europe following the last glacial period, the
genetic record indicates that the British and Irish broadly
share a closest common ancestry with the Basque people,
who live in the Basque Country by the Pyrenees.[63][64]
Oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people
of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the
Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of
66% in East Anglia.
The difference between western Britain and the East of
England is thought to have its origins to two divergent
prehistoric routes of immigration – one up the Atlantic
coast, the other from continental Europe.[64]
Major im-
migrant settlement of the British Isles occurred during
the Neolithic period,[64]
interpreted by Bryan Sykes—
professor of human genetics at the University of Ox-
ford—as the arrival of the Celts from the Iberian Penin-
sula, and the origin of Britain’s and Ireland’s Celtic
tribes.[66]
Oppenheimer’s opinion is that "..by far the majority of
male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia
(modern Spain and Portugal), ranging from a low of 59%
in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north
Wales".[67]
The National Museum Wales state that “it is
possible that future genetic studies of ancient and modern
human DNA may help to inform our understanding of the
subject” but “early studies have, so far, tended to produce
implausible conclusions from very small numbers of peo-
ple and using outdated assumptions about linguistics and
archaeology.”[68]
Between the 8th and 11th centuries, “three major cul-
tural divisions” had emerged on Great Britain: the En-
glish, Scottish and Welsh.[69]
The English had been uni-
fied under a single nation state in 937 by King Athelstan of
Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh.[70]
Before then,
the English (known then in Old English as the Angle-
cynn) were under the governance of independent Anglo-
Saxon petty kingdoms which gradually coalesced into a
Heptarchy of seven powerful states, the most powerful of
which were Mercia and Wessex. Scottish historian and
archaeologist Neil Oliver said that the Battle of Brunan-
burh would “define the shape of Britain into the modern
era”, it was a “showdown for two very different ethnic
identities – a Norse Celtic alliance versus Anglo Saxon.
It aimed to settle once and for all whether Britain would
be controlled by a single imperial power or remain sev-
eral separate independent kingdoms, a split in percep-
tions which is still very much with us today”.[71]
However,
historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward
I of England who was solely “responsible for provok-
ing the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their na-
tionhood” in the 13th century.[72]
Scottish national iden-
tity, “a complex amalgam” of Gael, Pict, Norsemen and
Anglo-Norman, was not finally forged until the Wars of
Scottish Independence against the Kingdom of England
in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.[73][74]
Though Wales was conquered by England, and its legal
system annexed into that of the Kingdom of England
by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, the Welsh en-
dured as a nation distinct from the English.[75]
Later, with
both an English Reformation and a Scottish Reforma-
tion, Edward VI of England, under the counsel of Edward
Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, advocated for a union
with the Kingdom of Scotland, joining England, Wales,
and Scotland in a united Protestant Great Britain.[76]
The
Duke of Somerset supported the unification of the En-
glish, Welsh and Scots under the “indifferent old name

2.2. HISTORY 15
Medieval tapestry showing King Arthur, a legendary ancient
British ruler who had a leading role in the Matter of Britain,
a national myth used as propaganda for the ancestral origins of
the British Royal Family and their British subjects.
of Britons” on the basis that their monarchies “both de-
rived from a Pre-Roman British monarchy”.[76]
Following the death of Elizabeth I of England in 1603,
the throne of England was inherited by James VI, King
of Scots, which resulted in the Kingdom of England
and the Kingdom of Scotland being united in a personal
union under James VI of Scotland and I of England, an
event referred to as the Union of the Crowns.[77]
King
James advocated full political union between England and
Scotland,[78]
and on 20 October 1604 proclaimed his as-
sumption of the style “King of Great Britain” though this
title was rejected by both the Parliament of England and
the Parliament of Scotland,[79][80]
and so had no basis in
either English law or Scots law.
2.2.2 Union and the development of
Britishness
Main articles: Treaty of Union and Britishness
See also: Acts of Union 1707 and History of the forma-
tion of the United Kingdom
Further information: Napoleonic Wars, Royal Navy, and
British Empire
Despite centuries of military and religious conflict, the
On 12 April 1606, the Union Flag representing the personal union
between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland was specified in
a royal decree. The St George’s Cross and St Andrew’s saltire
were “joined together ... to be published to our Subjects.”[81]
Kingdoms of England and Scotland had been “drawing
increasingly together” since the Protestant Reformation
of the 16th century and the Union of the Crowns in
1603.[82]
A broadly shared language, island, monarch, re-
ligion and Bible (the Authorized King James Version)
further contributed to a growing cultural alliance be-
tween the two sovereign realms and their peoples.[82][83]
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 resulted in a pair
of Acts of Parliament by the English and Scottish
legislatures—the Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right
Act 1689 respectively—which ensured that the shared
constitutional monarchy of England and Scotland was
held only by Protestants. Despite this, although popular
with the monarchy and much of the aristocracy, attempts
to unite the two states by Acts of Parliament, in 1606,
1667, and 1689 were unsuccessful;[83]
increased political
management of Scottish affairs from England had led to
“criticism”, and strained Anglo-Scottish relations.[84][85]
While English maritime explorations during the Age
of Discovery provided new found imperial power and
wealth for the English and Welsh at the end of the 17th
century, Scotland suffered from a long-standing weak
economy.[84]
In response, the Scottish kingdom, in oppo-
sition to William II of Scotland (III of England), com-
menced the Darien Scheme, an attempt to establish a
Scottish imperial outlet—the colony of New Caledonia—
on the isthmus of Panama.[84]
However, through a com-
bination of disease, Spanish hostility, Scottish misman-
agement and opposition to the scheme by the East In-
dia Company and the English government (who did not
want to provoke the Spanish into war)[84][86]
this imperial
venture ended in “catastrophic failure” with an estimated
“25% of Scotland’s total liquid capital” lost.[84]
The events of the Darien Scheme coupled with the En-
glish Parliament passing the Act of Settlement 1701 as-
serting the right to choose the order of succession for En-

glish, Scottish and Irish thrones escalated political hostil-
ities between England and Scotland, and neutralised calls
for a united British people. The Parliament of Scotland
responded by passing the Act of Security 1704, allowing
it to appoint a different monarch to succeed to the Scot-
tish crown from that of England, if it so wished.[84]
The
English political perspective was that the appointment of
a Jacobite monarchy in Scotland opened up the possibility
of a Franco-Scottish military conquest of England during
the Second Hundred Years’ War and War of the Span-
ish Succession.[84]
The Alien Act 1705 was passed by the
Parliament of England which provided that Scottish na-
tionals in England were to be treated as aliens and estates
held by Scots would be treated as alien property,[87]
whilst
also restricting the import of Scottish products into Eng-
land and its colonies (about half of Scotland’s trade).[88]
However, the Act contained a provision that it would be
suspended if the Parliament of Scotland entered into ne-
gotiations regarding the creation of a unified Parliament
of Great Britain, which in turn would refund Scottish fi-
nancial losses on the Darien Scheme.[86]
2.2.3 Union of Scotland and England
Despite opposition from much of the Scottish,[84]
and
English populations,[89]
a Treaty of Union was agreed
in 1706 that was then ratified by the parliaments of
both countries with the passing of the Acts of Union
1707. With effect from 1 May 1707, this created
a new sovereign state called the "Kingdom of Great
Britain".[90][91][92]
This kingdom “began as a hostile
merger”, but led to a “full partnership in the most power-
ful going concern in the world"; historian Simon Schama
stated “it was one of the most astonishing transformations
in European history.”[93]
After 1707, a British national identity began to de-
velop, though it was initially resisted—particularly by
the English[89]
—the peoples of Great Britain had by the
1750s begun to assume a “layered identity": to think of
themselves as simultaneously British and also Scottish,
English, or Welsh.[89]
The terms North Briton and South Briton were devised
for the Scots and the English respectively, with the for-
mer gaining some preference in Scotland, particularly
by the economists and philosophers of the Scottish En-
lightenment.[94][95]
Indeed, it was the “Scots [who] played
key roles in shaping the contours of British identity";[96]
“their scepticism about the Union allowed the Scots the
space and time in which to dominate the construction of
Britishness in its early crucial years”,[97]
drawing upon
the notion of a shared “spirit of liberty common to both
Saxon and Celt ... against the usurpation of the Church
of Rome”.[98]
James Thomson was a poet and playwright
born to a Church of Scotland minister in the Scottish
Lowlands in 1700 who was interested in forging a com-
mon British culture and national identity in this way.[98]
In collaboration with Thomas Arne, they wrote Alfred, an
The Battle of Trafalgar by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas,
1822–1824) combines events from several moments during the
Napoleonic Wars' Battle of Trafalgar—a major British naval
victory upon which Britishness has drawn influence.
Britannia became the figure of national personification of the
United Kingdom during the 18th century
opera about Alfred the Great's victory against the Vikings
performed to Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1740 to com-
memorate the accession of George I and the birthday of
Princess Augusta.[99]
"Rule, Britannia!" was the climac-
tic piece of the opera and quickly became a "jingoistic"
British patriotic song celebrating “Britain’s supremacy
offshore”.[100]
An island country with a series of victories
for the Royal Navy associated empire and naval warfare
“inextricably with ideals of Britishness and Britain’s place
in the world”.[101][102]
Britannia, the new national personification of Great
Britain, was established in the 1750s as a representa-

2.2. HISTORY 17
tion of “nation and empire rather than any single national
hero”.[103]
On Britannia and British identity, historian Pe-
ter Borsay wrote:
Up until 1797 Britannia was conventionally
depicted holding a spear, but as a consequence
of the increasingly prominent role of the Royal
Navy in the war against the French, and of
several spectacular victories, the spear was re-
placed by a trident... The navy had come to be
seen...as the very bulwark of British liberty and
the essence of what it was to be British.[104]
From the Union of 1707 through to the Battle of Wa-
terloo in 1815, Great Britain was “involved in succes-
sive, very dangerous wars with Catholic France”,[105]
but
which “all brought enough military and naval victories ...
to flatter British pride”.[106]
As the Napoleonic Wars with
the First French Empire advanced, “the English and Scot-
tish learned to define themselves as similar primarily by
virtue of not being French or Catholic”.[107]
In combina-
tion with sea power and empire, the notion of Britishness
became more “closely bound up with Protestantism”,[108]
a cultural commonality through which the English, Scots
and Welsh became “fused together, and remain[ed] so,
despite their many cultural divergences”.[109]
The neo-classical monuments that proliferated at the end
of the 18th century and start of the 19th, such as The
Kymin at Monmouth, were attempts to meld the concepts
of Britishness with the Greco-Roman empires of classical
antiquity. The new and expanding British Empire pro-
vided “unprecedented opportunities for upward mobility
and the accumulations of wealth”, and so the “Scottish,
Welsh and Irish populations were prepared to suppress
nationalist issues on pragmatic grounds”.[110]
The British
Empire was “crucial to the idea of a British identity and
to the self-image of Britishness”.[111]
Indeed, the Scot-
tish welcomed Britishness during the 19th century “for
it offered a context within which they could hold on to
their own identity whilst participating in, and benefiting
from, the expansion of the [British] Empire”.[112]
Simi-
larly, the “new emphasis of Britishness was broadly wel-
comed by the Welsh who considered themselves to be the
lineal descendants of the ancient Britons – a word that
was still used to refer exclusively to the Welsh”.[112]
For
the English, however, by the Victorian era their enthu-
siastic adoption of Britishness had meant that, for them,
Britishness “meant the same as 'Englishness’",[113][114]
so
much so that “Englishness and Britishness” and "'Eng-
land' and 'Britain' were used interchangeably in a vari-
ety of contexts”.[115]
Britishness came to borrow heavily
upon English political history because England had “al-
ways been the dominant component of the British Isles
in terms of size, population and power"; Magna Carta,
common law and hostility to continental Europe were En-
glish factors that influenced British sensibilities.[116][117]
2.2.4 Union with Ireland
The political union of the predominantly Catholic
Kingdom of Ireland with Great Britain in 1800, cou-
pled with the outbreak of peace with France in the early
19th century, challenged the previous century’s concept
of militant Protestant Britishness.[118][119]
The new, ex-
panded United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
meant that the state had to re-evaulate its position on
the civil rights of Catholics, and extend its definition of
Britishness to the Irish people.[119][120]
Like the terms that
had been invented at the time of the Acts of Union 1707,
"West Briton" was introduced for the Irish after 1800.
In 1832 Daniel O'Connell, an Irish politician who cam-
paigned for Catholic Emancipation, stated in Britain’s
House of Commons:
The people of Ireland are ready to become
a portion of the British Empire, provided they
be made so in reality and not in name alone;
they are ready to become a kind of West Briton
if made so in benefits and justice; but if not, we
are Irishmen again.[121]
Ireland, from 1801 to 1923, was marked by a succession
of economic and political mismanagement and neglect,
which marginalised the Irish,[120]
and advanced Irish na-
tionalism. In the forty years that followed the Union, suc-
cessive British governments grappled with the problems
of governing a country which had, as Benjamin Disraeli
put it in 1844, “a starving population, an absentee aris-
tocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weak-
est executive in the world”.[122]
Although the vast major-
ity of Unionists in Ireland proclaimed themselves “simul-
taneously Irish and British”, even for them there was a
strain upon the adoption of Britishness after the Great
Famine.[123]
War continued to be a unifying factor for the people of
Great Britain: British jingoism re-emerged during the
Boer Wars in southern Africa.[124][125]
The experience of
military, political and economic power from the rise of
the British Empire led to a very specific drive in artis-
tic technique, taste and sensibility for Britishness.[126]
In
1887, Frederic Harrison wrote:
Morally, we Britons plant the British flag
on every peak and pass; and wherever the
Union Jack floats there we place the cardinal
British institutions—tea, tubs, sanitary appli-
ances, lawn tennis, and churches.[115]
The Catholic Relief Act 1829 reflected a “marked change
in attitudes” in Great Britain towards Catholics and
Catholicism.[127]
A “significant” example of this was
the collaboration between Augustus Welby Pugin, an
“ardent Roman Catholic” and son of a Frenchman,
and Sir Charles Barry, “a confirmed Protestant”, in re-
designing the Palace of Westminster—"the building that

most enshrines ... Britain’s national and imperial pre-
tensions”.[127]
Protestantism gave way to imperialism as
the leading element of British national identity during the
Victorian and Edwardian eras,[125]
and as such, a series
of royal, imperial and national celebrations were intro-
duced to the British people to assert imperial British cul-
ture and give themselves a sense of uniqueness, superior-
ity and national consciousness.[119][125][128]
Empire Day
and jubilees of Queen Victoria were introduced to the
British middle class,[125]
but quickly “merged into a na-
tional 'tradition'".[129]
2.2.5 Modern period
See also: British nationality law
Further information: Immigration to the United King-
dom since 1922
The First World War “reinforced the sense of British-
A World War I recruitment poster. British identity had been in-
clusive of colonial settlers in North America and Australasia until
the rise of independence movements and the decolonisation of the
British Empire in the mid-20th century.
ness” and patriotism in the early 20th century.[119][124]
Through war service (including conscription in Great
Britain), “the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish fought as
British”.[119]
The aftermath of the war institutionalised
British national commemoration through Remembrance
Sunday and the Poppy Appeal.[119]
The Second World
War had a similar unifying eﬀect upon the British
people,[130]
however, its outcome was to recondition
Britons gathered in Whitehall to hear Winston Churchill's victory
speech on 8 May 1945
Britishness on a basis of democratic values and its marked
contrast to Europeanism.[130]
Notions that the British
“constituted an Island race, and that it stood for democ-
racy were reinforced during the war and they were
circulated in the country through Winston Churchill's
speeches, history books and newspapers”.[130]
At its international zenith, “Britishness joined peoples
around the world in shared traditions and common loyal-
ties that were strenuously maintained”.[131]
But following
the two world wars, the British Empire experienced rapid
decolonisation. The secession of the Irish Free State from
the United Kingdom meant that Britishness had lost “its
Irish dimension” in 1922,[130]
and the shrinking empire
supplanted by independence movements dwindled the ap-
peal of British identity in the Commonwealth of Nations
during the mid-20th century.[132]
Since the British Nationality Act 1948 and the subsequent
mass immigration to the United Kingdom from the Com-
monwealth and elsewhere in the world, “the expression
and experience of cultural life in Britain has become frag-
mented and reshaped by the inﬂuences of gender, ethnic-
ity, class and region”.[133]
Furthermore, the United King-
dom’s membership of the European Economic Commu-
nity in 1973 eroded the concept of Britishness as dis-
tinct from continental Europe.[134][135]
As such, since the
1970s “there has been a sense of crisis about what it
has meant to be British”,[136]
exacerbated by growing de-
mands for greater political autonomy for Northern Ire-
land, Scotland, and Wales.[137]
The late 20th century saw major changes to the
politics of the United Kingdom with the establish-
ment of devolved national administrations for Northern
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales following pre-legislative
referendums.[138]
Calls for greater autonomy for the four
countries of the United Kingdom had existed since their
original union with each other, but gathered pace in
the 1960s and 1970s.[137]
Devolution has led to “in-
creasingly assertive Scottish, Welsh and Irish national
identities”,[139]
resulting in more diverse cultural expres-

2.3. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 19
sions of Britishness,[140]
or else its outright rejection:
Gwynfor Evans, a Welsh nationalist politician active in
the late 20th century, rebuffed Britishness as “a political
synonym for Englishness which extends English culture
over the Scots, Welsh and the Irish”.[141]
In 2004 Sir Bernard Crick, political theorist and
democratic socialist tasked with developing the life in the
United Kingdom test said:
Britishness, to me, is an overarching po-
litical and legal concept: it signifies allegiance
to the laws, government and broad moral and
political concepts—like tolerance and freedom
of expression—that hold the United Kingdom
together.[142][143]
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
initiated a debate on British identity in 2006.[144]
Brown’s
speech to the Fabian Society's Britishness Conference
proposed that British values demand a new constitutional
settlement and symbols to represent a modern patriotism,
including a new youth community service scheme and
a British Day to celebrate.[144]
One of the central issues
identified at the Fabian Society conference was how the
English identity fits within the framework of a devolved
United Kingdom.[144]
An expression of Her Majesty’s
Government's initiative to promote Britishness was the
inaugural Veterans’ Day which was first held on 27 June
2006. As well as celebrating the achievements of armed
forces veterans, Brown’s speech at the first event for the
celebration said:
Scots and people from the rest of the UK
share the purpose—that Britain has something
to say to the rest of the world about the values
of freedom, democracy and the dignity of the
people that you stand up for. So at a time when
people can talk about football and devolution
and money, it is important that we also remem-
ber the values that we share in common.[145]
2.3 Geographic distribution
Main article: British diaspora
See also: Anglosphere and List of countries by British
immigrants
British people - people with British citizenship or of
British descent - have a significant presence in a num-
ber of countries other than the United Kingdom, and in
particular in those with historic connections to the British
Empire. After the Age of Discovery the British were one
of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate out
of Europe, and the British Empire’s expansion during the
first half of the 19th century triggered an “extraordinary
dispersion of the British people”, resulting in particular
concentrations “in Australasia and North America".[48]
A world map showing the distribution of Britons by country.[146]
Legend:
The British Empire was “built on waves of migration
overseas by British people”,[147]
who left the United King-
dom and “reached across the globe and permanently af-
fected population structures in three continents”.[48]
As a
result of the British colonisation of the Americas, what
became the United States was “easily the greatest sin-
gle destination of emigrant British”, but in Australia the
British experienced a birth rate higher than “anything
seen before” resulting in the displacement of indigenous
Australians.[48]
In colonies such as Southern Rhodesia, British East
Africa and Cape Colony, permanently resident British
communities were established and whilst never more than
a numerical minority these Britons “exercised a dom-
inant influence” upon the culture and politics of those
lands.[147]
In Australia, Canada and New Zealand “peo-
ple of British origin came to constitute the majority of
the population” contributing to these states becoming in-
tegral to the Anglosphere.[147]
The United Kingdom Census 1861 estimated the size of
the overseas British to be around 2.5 million, but con-
cluded that most of these were “not conventional set-
tlers” but rather “travellers, merchants, professionals, and
military personnel”.[48]
By 1890, there were over 1.5
million further British-born people living in Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.[48]
A 2006 pub-
lication from the Institute for Public Policy Research es-
timated 5.6 million Britons lived outside of the United
Kingdom.[8][148]
2.3.1 Australia
See also: First Fleet and Anglo-Celtic Australian
From the beginning of Australia’s colonial period un-
til after the Second World War, people from the United
Kingdom made up a large majority of people coming
to Australia, meaning that many Australian-born people
can trace their origins to Britain.[149]
The colony of New
South Wales, founded on 26 January 1788, was part of
the eastern half of Australia claimed by the Kingdom
of Great Britain in 1770, and initially settled by Britons
through penal transportation. Together with another five
largely self-governing Crown Colonies, the federation of
Australia was achieved on 1 January 1901.

The flag of Australia was approved by Australian and British
authorities, and features a Union Flag—the flag of the United
Kingdom—in the canton. Australia has one of the largest con-
centrations of people of British heritage.
Its history of British dominance meant that Australia was
“grounded in British culture and political traditions that
had been transported to the Australian colonies in the
nineteenth century and become part of colonial culture
and politics”.[150]
Australia maintains the Westminster
system of Parliamentary Government and Elizabeth II
as Queen of Australia. Until 1987, the national status
of Australian citizens was formally described as “British
Subject: Citizen of Australia”. Britons continue to make
up a substantial proportion of immigrants.[149]
2.3.2 British overseas territories
The people of the British overseas territories are British
by citizenship, via origins or naturalisation. Along with
aspects of common British identity, each of them has
their own distinct identity shaped in the respective par-
ticular circumstances of political, economic, ethnic, so-
cial and cultural history. For instance, in the case of
the Falkland Islanders, Lewis Clifton the Speaker of the
Legislative Council of the Falkland Islands, explains:
British cultural, economic, social, political
and educational values create a unique British-
like, Falkland Islands. Yet Islanders feel dis-
tinctly different from their fellow citizens who
reside in the United Kingdom. This might have
something to do with geographical isolation or
with living on a smaller island—perhaps akin
to those Britons not feeling European.[151]
In contrast, for the majority of the Gibraltarians, who
live in Gibraltar, there is an “insistence on their British-
ness” which “carries excessive loyalty” to Britain.[152]
The
sovereignty of Gibraltar has been a point of contention
in Spain–United Kingdom relations, but an overwhelm-
ing number of Gibraltarians embrace Britishness with
strong conviction, in direct opposition to Spanish terri-
torial claims.[152][153][154]
2.3.3 Canada
See also: Canadians
Canada traces its statehood to the French, English and
V-E Day celebrations in Toronto, May 1945
Scottish expeditions of North America from the late-
15th century. France ceded nearly all of New France in
1763 after the Seven Years’ War, and so after the United
States Declaration of Independence in 1776, Quebec and
Nova Scotia formed “the nucleus of the colonies that con-
stituted Britain’s remaining stake on the North Ameri-
can continent”.[155]
British North America attracted the
United Empire Loyalists, Britons who migrated out of
what they considered the “rebellious” United States, in-
creasing the size of British communities in what was to
become Canada.[155]
Postage stamp with portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, 1954
In 1867 there was a union of three colonies with British
North America which together formed the Canadian

2.3. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 21
Confederation, a federal dominion.[156][157][158]
This be-
gan an accretion of additional provinces and territories
and a process of increasing autonomy from the United
Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster
1931 and culminating in the Canada Act 1982, which sev-
ered the vestiges of legal dependence on the parliament
of the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, it is recognised
that there is a “continuing importance of Canada’s long
and close relationship with Britain";[159]
large parts of
Canada’s modern population claim “British origins” and
the cultural impact of the British upon Canada’s institu-
tions is profound.[160]
It was not until 1977 that the phrase “A Canadian citi-
zen is a British subject” ceased to be used in Canadian
passports.[161]
The politics of Canada are strongly influ-
enced by British political culture.[162][163]
Although sig-
nificant modifications have been made, Canada is gov-
erned by a democratic parliamentary framework compa-
rable to the Westminster system, and retains Elizabeth II
as The Queen of Canada and Head of State.[164][165]
En-
glish is an official language used in Canada.[166]
2.3.4 Chile
Main article: British Chilean
Chile, facing the Pacific Ocean, has a large British
British and Chilean flags in a monument in Antofagasta city
presence.[167]
Over 50,000[168]
British immigrants settled
in Chile from 1840 to 1914. A significant number of
them settled in Magallanes in Province, especially the city
of Punta Arenas when it flourished as a major global sea-
port for ships crossing the Strait of Magellan from the
Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. Around 32,000 English
settled in Valparaíso, influencing the port city to the ex-
tent of making it virtually a British colony during the last
decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th
century.[169]
However, the opening of the Panama Canal
in 1914 and the outbreak of the First World War drove
many of them away from the city or back to Europe.
In Valparaíso, they created their largest and most im-
portant colony, bringing with them neighbourhoods of
Coat of arms of Coquimbo, with the Union Flag.
British character, schools, social clubs, sports clubs,
business organizations and periodicals. Even today their
influence is apparent in specific areas, such as the banks
and the navy, as well as in certain social activities, such
as football, horse racing, and the custom of drinking tea.
During the movement for independence (1818), it was
mainly the British who formed the Chilean Navy, under
the command of Lord Cochrane.
British investment helped Chile become prosperous and
British seamen helped the Chilean navy become a strong
force in the South Pacific. Chile won two wars, the first
against the Peru-Bolivian Confederation and the second,
the War of the Pacific, in 1878–79, against an alliance be-
tween Peru and Bolivia. The liberal-socialist “Revolution
of 1891” introduced political reforms modeled on British
parliamentary practice and lawmaking.
British immigrants were also important in the northern
zone of the country during the saltpetre boom, in the
ports of Iquique and Pisagua. The King of Saltpetre, John
Thomas North, was the principal tycoons of nitrate min-
ing. The British legacy is reflected in the streets of the
historic district of the city of Iquique, with the foundation
of various institutions, such as the Club Hípico (Racing
Club). Nevertheless, the British active presence came to
an end with the saltpetre crisis during the 1930s.

The English language

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (18)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (13)

Similar to The English language

Similar to The English language (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

The English language