Queen Elizabeth II has passed on

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Yes, it's exactly that. Because we were just England until 1700 something or other, then we brought the other nations along to eventually form the UK.

Yes, you lot fought the Axis powers, which were Germany, Japan, maybe some others. We were all on the same side.

Yes, my two great uncles died in the Somme. One is buried in a marked grave. The other is 'presumed dead.' My grandad was wounded in the Somme, he never really recovered mentally or physically. He managed to beget my dad though, fortunately!

The UK is England, Wales, Scotland, and was once all of Ireland (but now is just northern Ireland).

But England is the dominant part still.

One of the more confusing things about British history is the English themselves. According to the gaelic tribes of the time they referred to incoming peoples from the north sea as "Saxons". Even in the story of King Arthur the bad guys whom Arthur and the knights fought were the "Saxons". The English language is actually cognate with old-Friesian. It has no close connection with Danish (the original homeland of the Angles). The genetics of the English is most closely connected with the peoples of northern France, Belgium, Holland and the areas today occupied by the remnants of the Friesian people. All the stock animals bought into Britian by the Anglo-Saxons are also connected to the lands of the Friesians (cattle, sheep etc). There are voles who were bought to Britain from the European mainland with the Anglo-Saxons who are genetically traced back to the same lands (again not to Scandinavia).

Yet, a lot of the placenames and pottery of Britain clearly show a cultural connection to the Angles and Jutes??
Kent
Anglesea
Anglia
Northumbria
Mercia

Quite a muddle to trace back

The first "world" war was really just a European war (a big war, but confined mainly to that one continent). So both France and Britain imported troops from their colonies on other continents to fight on the western front in Europe. Black Senegalese fought in France for France, and brown Indians, and White Aussies fought for Britain. The movie "Gallipoli" is largely an indictment of how the Brits exploited the Aussies as cannon fodder in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey.

In contrast the second world war was a true world war. So instead of being exploited to defend the homeland of the mother country BOTH the mother country (Britain), and the colony (Australia) had the enemy's knife directly at their throats (Britain by Germany, and Australia by Japan). So Australia ended up fighting in its own Pacific neighborhood for its own life - in a more or less equal partnership with both Britain and the US against the Axis.

TBH both world world wars were wars of empires

In WWI the Germans and ottoman Turks had empires and fought the imperial powers of France and Germany
In WWII The Japanese, Germans and Italians had empires and fought the imperial powers of France, UK and the USA

Last edited by cyberdad on 14 Sep 2022, 2:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

Doesnt change what I said though.

England is still more Celtic than Anglo though, genetically speaking. The most Germanic parts of England were what fell under Danelaw. The extent to which Germanics replaced Celts was greatly overemphasized because Victorian era English wanted to feel racially superior to Scots, Welsh and Irish.

I've been watching the queen get shuffled from one place to another. Even after her passing, she's been busy traveling and making appearances.

by sad coincidence our toaster died on 8 Sept and we have just christened the new one Charles III

The English of England have a substantial amount of their ancestry from germanic peoples. People of Yorkshire (what used to be Danelaw) naturally have the highest around 41% while the rest of England isn't too far behind around 37%
https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... s-suggests
If you deduct the Danish input of several % percent then it would be fair to say close to 37% of the ancestry of the ancestry of English is Anglo-Saxon

Ironically gaelic people (Scots and Irish) have the highest Norwegian and Danish ancestry of all Britains, close to 20%

Yes we are a real mixing pot of different nationalities because, as I said, we have been invaded soooooo many times, and the invaders tended to like Britain so much, they stayed.

This is why it's SO STUPID of these English nationalists to go on about 'pure British white people' and 'keep foreigners out'. We're all foreigners FFS. There's no such thing as 'pure English'!

If you research the etymology of English words, a large percentage of them are actually French. For example, the majority of words beginning with 're' and/or ending in 'age'.

Such as the words I underlined above are all French.

The thing is though, more and more British people are getting their DNA tested now, and I've read that it's been shocking geneticists to find out exactly how much of Britain is Anglo Saxon/Norse. They'd assumed there would be more Briton/Celtic DNA but it's been pushed back to the fringes of Cornwall, Wales, Scotland. I presume Ireland is mostly Celtic/Briton. And of course Norsemen invaded Scotland and Ireland, so that added their DNA to those places e.g. Scotland has the highest percentage of red haired people- where did that come from? Apparently Scandinavia. It's not a native British trait.

But Norse DNA has been found in every corner of the UK, there is evidence to show that the inhabitants of Britain grew to like the Norse invaders and there was a lot of intermarrying, so their descendants are everywhere.

There is also a theory that Anglo Saxons deliberately wiped out the native population by not allowing the natives to marry. Every marriage had to involve an Anglo Saxon. People are wondering if in fact the AS were more aggressive than the Norse and the Normans. But it is difficult to prove this theory for obvious reasons.

On the other hand, have you noticed how most British children start out blond, but their hair darkens as they get older? Apparently that is a Celtic trait, so there's that as well.

This is pretty interesting isn't it! I love talking about genetics.

Prisoners Of Georgraphy is an absolutely fascinating book for anyone to read who wants to understand how the shape and placement of land has dictated nations successes.

The reason northern Europe were more advanced than other parts of the world, and was able to expand into empires, is because of the fertile soil, varying seasons, flat ground with an abundance of waterways that ran for many miles (making transport easy). Britain was a much sought after prize for that reason, and as such has had many invaders over its lifetime

Red hair is very native and very Celtic. Not a norse trait. Scandnavians are lower precent red heads than British Isles folks. Im mostly German American, and I was born blonde and got dark haired. So thats probably a mainland Germanic trait. Being blonde your whole life is probably a Norse trait.

Britain is named after "the Britons" who were the Celtic tribe of Britain that the Romans conquered. So the Irish are "Celtic", but they arent "Britons" (except some Britons fled to Ireland when Anglosaxons invaded). Its the Welsh, the Manx on the Isle of Man, the Cornish, and the Breton (Celtic speaking minority in northern France) who are descended from the "Britons".

In Roman times the Celtic natives of Ireland were called "the Scotti" (Sko-she). The Scotti invaded the northern part of Britian (beyond Hadrian's Wall), and absorbed the Picts, and became the modern "Scots". So the Scottish language is akin to Irish (Celtic, but a separate subfamily from the languages of the Welsh, and the Breton, who are descended from the Britons.

This is half correct. Britain does have a disproportionate number of red heads but it's not a celtic trait.

Red hair came into Britain with the Beaker people who arrived from Scandinavia around 2000BC and wiped out the paleolithic population who built stonehenge. it's their genes for red hair that gaelic Britains carry (not from the Celts themselves).
About 20% of gaelic scotts and irish are scandanavian (higher than the English) which resulted in yet another infusion of red hair.

A simple of map of the distribution of
red hair shows that apart from Britain


The highest concentration of red hair is in the homeland of the Beaker/Corded ware/Kurgan people in central Russia. It is these people who drove into Northern Europe, It's not a celtic trait.