Talk:English people/Archive 4

message: Genetic research is evolving so fast that new discoveries are tantalizing, in many cases shattering in relation to views held until now. I have noticed that this article misses crucial information that is being published now as a result of the revolution in genetic research, here you have some interesting links: 
1. haplogroup R1b
2. https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?card=my050
3. http://www.worldfamilies.net/Tools/r1b_ydna_in_europe.htm
HCC
:Linguistically speaking, both Welsh and English are better understood as Creoles - Celtic/Romance and Germanic/Romance respectively. How familiar are you with Welsh, by the way? How come almost all its vocabulary is Latin? TharkunColl 11:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be that the native British language (whether it was Celtic or not) was totally replaced by a Latin derived language as in the rest of the Western Empire, and that modern Welsh is a mixture of this, and Irish - the Irish conquered and settled in large areas of western Britain at the same time as the Anglo-Saxons in the east. But my point is simply to refute notions that there is any such thing as a "Celtic" or "Germanic" race, as you suggested earlier. TharkunColl 11:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I’m not sure what you mean with ‘’short lived enclaves’’ in England and Wales.  They didn’t up and leave, they can’t have.  They might have become absorbed or dominated by the Norwegians in Cumbria (a new theory I’ve read recently is that the Angles hardly got  a foot into Cumbria at all) but traces of their presence remains, and North Wales has always been a target for Irish migration, starting who knows when.  I am sure too that there were Celtic races but that is achronistic (is that the word or the context?) or rather is not the case today.  I’m not even sure that ‘race’ is the right word.  Tribe, perhaps?  The Celtic speaking peoples wouldn’t have seen each other as somehow kin as opposed to Germanic speakers – they were all different tribes.  The Brythons of Britain had as much to contend with from the Irish than they did from the Teutons, and both of the latter invaded and settled in Britain driving out the native culture (but hardly the people).  If you want to say that the English are a Germanic people and the Welsh and Scottish aren’t, the ONLY basis for this is that they live in a country (which is part of a larger, older country) named for a Germanic tribe whence comes a Germanic language.  Culture, blood, identity – it’s all British and wonderfully indigenous Enzedbrit 00:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Hi An Siarach, can you reconcile these two posts of yours I’ve pointed out before how totally meaningless it is do take Genetics as something far more important than it is and The English are Germanic - their language, origins, race are all Germanic. The English are not racially Germanic (how can you claim this while also saying that Genetics is not important, you are contradicting yourself), they are a mixture of an immigrating Germanic people and indigenous people (it is absurd to talk of Celtic people, there is no evidence that peoples speaking Celtic languages formed any sort of homogeneous cultural or racial group), English culture is also a mixture of indigenous and immigrating people. Most archaeologists see continuity in the archaeological record, and Genetic studies (and it is you who have made the point about race, you cannot have it both ways) confirm that all the peoples of the British Isles have an indigenous genetic component. Invasionist theories are out of date, and probably wrong. To try to claim that the English are exclusively Germanic (and I use the word advisedly as an adjective of German) and somehow racially and culturally distinct from the indigenous population of the rest of Great Britain is to ignore the facts. This is an English people article, these articles are based on Ethnicity. I think that it is totally inappropriate and incorrect to make racial claims.  Alun 12:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The English weren’t culturally distinct 100 years ago or even long before and never have been.  My favourite example – as I’m sure you’re all aware! – is my mother’s Northumbria.  Their dialect, dress and outlook has always been far more aligned with southern Scotland than southern England.  The English west country is highly distinct from the north, the western Midlands are from East Anglia, and so on.  Are these all Germanic cultures compared with a Celtic culture into Wales and Scotland?  No, they’re not.  English speaking people in Britain have been the majority of Scotland and Wales (and Ireland) for centuries.  If we are to discuss genetics, the differences between the English, Welsh and Scottish are so minimal when compared with other ethnic groups spread out in large countries that they lose much of their distinctiveness, except of course for a few inbred individuals in pockets of north Wales, Yorkshire and the western Isles. Enzedbrit 00:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think you are just expressing your opinions as if they were solid facts. In the end it is of little significance. What counts on wikipedia is verifiability and neutrality, this means that you have to accept that other people will have a different POV to you, as long as they can verify it you have no right to exclude it from an article. I do not know what source you are using to claim that the English are predominantly Germanic, can you provide one?  Your criteria for making the distinction seem to vary, you refered me to the Germanic people page yesterday, but this just lists people who speak Teutonic languages, it has no relevance to ethnicity. and it is absolutely absurd to say they did not form a cultural group - this is precisely what they were and even those coming out with the tired  old "they never called themselves Celts" tripe  accept this as fact. I do not accept this as a fact, no one can prove this, this is just a theory, there is no consensus in the archaeological community, and it is just wrong to claim there is. Alun 12:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you for admitting that you are expressing orthodox opinion and not fact. Please accept that other opinions exist that are equally valid and have as much right to be expressed here as the outdated. Alun 16:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Here's Francis Pryor as a source, to support what I say about other points of view Simon James has cojently argued that the Celts themselves probably never existed as a distinct cultural entity. I take it you will aknowledge this as a reliable source. Alun 17:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think you have hit the nail firmly on the head. Alun 16:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: There ia also a cultural element to ethnicity that needs to be addressed, but much of this discussion seems to be people just expressing opinions with no real debate. I don't understand the claim that English culture is Germanic and somehow different to Welsh and Scottish culture, I also do not see any great similarities between Scottish and Welsh culture, except for those that they also share with the English. I think it would be better to discuss the sources of peoples POVs and try to come to a consensus on how to incorporate all points  of view. There is  clearly a POV that somehow English people are ethnically Germanic and distinct from the rest of the people of Great Britain, I personally find this difficult to believe. Even if one does subscribe to this POV then one has to accept that British/English people have shared the same Island for over a millenium and a half, and the claim that some sort of ethnic apartheid occured during these centuries doesn't strike me as very believable. Nevertheless I am prepared to accept that this is a valid POV, contingent on properly verified sources. There is also the question of Scots, which is also a Teutonic language, so should we consider the speakers of Scots Germanic as well? If one accepts that the English are the descendants of the indigenous British inhabitants of Great Britain (which they are) and also of some immigrating people (who possibly but not certainly constituted an invading force), that the observed cultural change introduced by the Anglo-Saxons may just have equally been introduced by cultural diffusion over several centuries (and no one disputes that there was some migration, but Danes settled in the Danelaw at the end of the nineth century, and there certainly doesn't seem to have been any great displacement of indigenous people) and that the English language is not necessarily an indication of mass migration or a rapid cultural change, then it is also a reasonable point of view that the indigenous culture changed over time (as it had in previous times). Most archaeologists now point to greater continuity rather than any rapid change. From a linguistic point of view Welsh serves as a good example here, at the start of the 20th century the vast majority of people spoke Welsh as a first language in Wales, indeed immigrating English people who came to work in the heavy industries of South Wales in the nineteenth century had to learn Welsh. By the 1940s Welsh was a minority language. In A History of Wales John Davies argues that the Welsh gave up speaking Welsh voluntarily. He reasons that the internationalist nature of Socialism (strong in Wales) and the progressive nature of Non-conformists led to a consensus that language could be a barrier. He also argues that there is no evidence that coercive measures like the Welsh not had any significant impact. No one is arguing that there was a mass migration in Wales at the beggining of the 20th century, nor is anyone arguing that Welsh people gave up their identity or culture, they just stopped speaking Welsh. Alun 05:57, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis. Is there a supporting source? If there is then it might good to include this information in Anglo-Saxons and Sub-Roman Britain. Unfortunatelly it is not wikipedia policy to include original research, and so edits must be based on published material, so a source for this would be very good to have, it would add nice balance.Alun 10:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I’ve not doubt that there were Germanic speakers during the Roman occupation and it’s good to see some sources for this!  Thank you.  Surely though they would have been all over the Roman territory of Britain? Enzedbrit 00:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Great, I'm reading Britain BC at the moment and have a copy of Britain AD waiting to be read. I'm keen to include some sources other than genetic ones in the pages, as some of the historians there seem to be suspicious of my edits regarding the genetic research (my degree is in genetics so I have been trying to remedy some of the groser distortions of the findings). There seem to be a lot of historians on these two pages, but few biologists or archaeologists. Genetics and archaeology seem to concur on this, it's the historcal sources (written much later and by undisputably biased people like Bede) that seem to get most of the attention. It might be worth including some of this stuff in Immigration to the United Kingdom as there is a lot of stuff on pre-historical invasions there also. Thanks for the sources. Alun 16:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

message: There is a column on the article titled 'related ethnic groups', which I find to be quite useless as it is so highly controversial and there are so many ways of viewing an ethnic group and defining how they are related, but it's there none the less.  The inclusion of Germans as a related ethnic group to the English is not valid as if it is then most of Europe's ethnic groups should also be included.  English people have some influence from the Teuton tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.  These people came from the north west of the continent.  They spoke a language which is a forerunner to both modern English and German.  They were Germanic tribes, but not German.  The inclusion of related ethnic groups as Danes, Frisians and Dutch covers the lands whence these people came and also represents the migratory patterns of people between these areas over the centuries.  Including Germans implies that the German people whose extent reaches far from Britain and who are a blend of peoples that never came close to Britain would mean that the English and Germans are as related as the English are to the Italians or Spanish, both of which are groups that also shared ancestors with the English (and rest of the British).  If it is indeed true, as some scholars have suggested, that areas whence the Angles and Saxons came were completely depopulated as those people moved to Britain, then there is no continuation to link the English with Germans.  So include Germans as related people, but also include the French (Normans), Italians (Romans), Icelanders and Swedes (Vikings) and all those groups represented in Britain throughout the centuries: Jews, Russians, Spanish, etc. Enzedbrit 21:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok it makes sense to me to say that if the Danes, Frisians and Dutch are included, then these peoples represent the Teutonic contribution to English people. Thanks for your explanation. Alun 05:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cheers Alun, I'm quite pleased actually with my argument there Enzedbrit 11:29, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I would dispute the idea that the English are "culturally" Germanic. What characteristics do the modern English share with the Germans that they do not also share with the French, for example? As far as "culture" is concerned, the English have far more in common with their insular neighbours the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish. TharkunColl 17:08, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: How are the English Germanic in a cultural sense, I do not understand this assertion, the Welsh, Scots, nad Irish have a far closer cultural affinity to the English than the Germans do. Can you enlighten me as to the nature of the cultural ties between the German people and English people? Given that English, Welsh and Scots people have shared the same Island for a millenium and a half, and have been part of the same state (the UK) for several centuries (nearly 500 years in the case of the Welsh and English), this seems like a spurious proposition. As for language, Francis Pryor states All I will note is that language is not necessarily a defining attribute of a particular ethnic group, and that the words and grammar of what was to become the English language were not solely derived from Germanic sources. Alun 17:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is Gaelic about all of Scotland?  Tartan?  Northumbria has a tartan.  Gaelic influence?  Cumbria was settled by Gaels, as was north Wales and parts of north west England.  Original Gaelic culture?  The Gaels arrived only two centuries before the Teutons and when they did arrive they supplanted the Brythonic culture.  What links all of Scotland together as a culture that is distinct from England other than a Scottish national identity?  Nothing.  How do Scottish people live daily differently to the rest of the British?  They don't.  But all the British eat, work, live in houses and drink their tea exceedingly different to how the Germans, French, Spanish or Italians live.  How is English culture more largely Germanic than Scotland or Wales?  Aside from the fact that you'll hear Welsh in most parts of Wales and Gaelic in the Hebrides and other isolated places, not much.  Bagpipes are no more alien to London than they are to Edinburgh, hedgerows and afternoon tea doesn't end at Carlisle and they eat Welsh rarebit in Sussex I can assure you. Enzedbrit 11:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay mate, fess up.  WHAT about Wales is Brythonic that England doesn't have?  What about England is Germanic that Wales/Scotland doesn't have?  C'mon!  I can think of the Eisteddford... and that's it.  You really don't like the idea of England not being Germanic don't you.  You say you're English - may I ask you: are you offended by the linking of England's indigenous heritage to its modern existence?  It's not just me noting your obsession with making England out to be this amazing Germanic entity.  When did you get this into your head and do you think you will ever change it?  Enzedbrit 07:35, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I have no particular objection to including the Danes and Frisians, though I don't think the Dutch should be included, and nor the Germans. TharkunColl 17:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds reasonable, I see there's been a lot of heated debate since I was last here. Was there a consensus to only count peoples from the British Isles as ethnically related? Can't see a problem with it myself. Had a request to join the debate, but thought you two seemed to have most of it covered. This talk page needs archiving, but I don't want to archive any ongoing debates, so I might try to archive a few of the older discussions by subject rather than by date finished. Alun 17:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Related Ethnic Groups

message: Genetic research is evolving so fast that new discoveries are tantalizing, in many cases shattering in relation to views held until now. I have noticed that this article misses crucial information that is being published now as a result of the revolution in genetic research, here you have some interesting links: 
1. haplogroup R1b
2. https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?card=my050
3. http://www.worldfamilies.net/Tools/r1b_ydna_in_europe.htm
HCC
:Linguistically speaking, both Welsh and English are better understood as Creoles - Celtic/Romance and Germanic/Romance respectively. How familiar are you with Welsh, by the way? How come almost all its vocabulary is Latin? TharkunColl 11:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be that the native British language (whether it was Celtic or not) was totally replaced by a Latin derived language as in the rest of the Western Empire, and that modern Welsh is a mixture of this, and Irish - the Irish conquered and settled in large areas of western Britain at the same time as the Anglo-Saxons in the east. But my point is simply to refute notions that there is any such thing as a "Celtic" or "Germanic" race, as you suggested earlier. TharkunColl 11:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I’m not sure what you mean with ‘’short lived enclaves’’ in England and Wales.  They didn’t up and leave, they can’t have.  They might have become absorbed or dominated by the Norwegians in Cumbria (a new theory I’ve read recently is that the Angles hardly got  a foot into Cumbria at all) but traces of their presence remains, and North Wales has always been a target for Irish migration, starting who knows when.  I am sure too that there were Celtic races but that is achronistic (is that the word or the context?) or rather is not the case today.  I’m not even sure that ‘race’ is the right word.  Tribe, perhaps?  The Celtic speaking peoples wouldn’t have seen each other as somehow kin as opposed to Germanic speakers – they were all different tribes.  The Brythons of Britain had as much to contend with from the Irish than they did from the Teutons, and both of the latter invaded and settled in Britain driving out the native culture (but hardly the people).  If you want to say that the English are a Germanic people and the Welsh and Scottish aren’t, the ONLY basis for this is that they live in a country (which is part of a larger, older country) named for a Germanic tribe whence comes a Germanic language.  Culture, blood, identity – it’s all British and wonderfully indigenous Enzedbrit 00:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Hi An Siarach, can you reconcile these two posts of yours I’ve pointed out before how totally meaningless it is do take Genetics as something far more important than it is and The English are Germanic - their language, origins, race are all Germanic. The English are not racially Germanic (how can you claim this while also saying that Genetics is not important, you are contradicting yourself), they are a mixture of an immigrating Germanic people and indigenous people (it is absurd to talk of Celtic people, there is no evidence that peoples speaking Celtic languages formed any sort of homogeneous cultural or racial group), English culture is also a mixture of indigenous and immigrating people. Most archaeologists see continuity in the archaeological record, and Genetic studies (and it is you who have made the point about race, you cannot have it both ways) confirm that all the peoples of the British Isles have an indigenous genetic component. Invasionist theories are out of date, and probably wrong. To try to claim that the English are exclusively Germanic (and I use the word advisedly as an adjective of German) and somehow racially and culturally distinct from the indigenous population of the rest of Great Britain is to ignore the facts. This is an English people article, these articles are based on Ethnicity. I think that it is totally inappropriate and incorrect to make racial claims.  Alun 12:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The English weren’t culturally distinct 100 years ago or even long before and never have been.  My favourite example – as I’m sure you’re all aware! – is my mother’s Northumbria.  Their dialect, dress and outlook has always been far more aligned with southern Scotland than southern England.  The English west country is highly distinct from the north, the western Midlands are from East Anglia, and so on.  Are these all Germanic cultures compared with a Celtic culture into Wales and Scotland?  No, they’re not.  English speaking people in Britain have been the majority of Scotland and Wales (and Ireland) for centuries.  If we are to discuss genetics, the differences between the English, Welsh and Scottish are so minimal when compared with other ethnic groups spread out in large countries that they lose much of their distinctiveness, except of course for a few inbred individuals in pockets of north Wales, Yorkshire and the western Isles. Enzedbrit 00:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think you are just expressing your opinions as if they were solid facts. In the end it is of little significance. What counts on wikipedia is verifiability and neutrality, this means that you have to accept that other people will have a different POV to you, as long as they can verify it you have no right to exclude it from an article. I do not know what source you are using to claim that the English are predominantly Germanic, can you provide one?  Your criteria for making the distinction seem to vary, you refered me to the Germanic people page yesterday, but this just lists people who speak Teutonic languages, it has no relevance to ethnicity. and it is absolutely absurd to say they did not form a cultural group - this is precisely what they were and even those coming out with the tired  old "they never called themselves Celts" tripe  accept this as fact. I do not accept this as a fact, no one can prove this, this is just a theory, there is no consensus in the archaeological community, and it is just wrong to claim there is. Alun 12:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you for admitting that you are expressing orthodox opinion and not fact. Please accept that other opinions exist that are equally valid and have as much right to be expressed here as the outdated. Alun 16:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Here's Francis Pryor as a source, to support what I say about other points of view Simon James has cojently argued that the Celts themselves probably never existed as a distinct cultural entity. I take it you will aknowledge this as a reliable source. Alun 17:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think you have hit the nail firmly on the head. Alun 16:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: There ia also a cultural element to ethnicity that needs to be addressed, but much of this discussion seems to be people just expressing opinions with no real debate. I don't understand the claim that English culture is Germanic and somehow different to Welsh and Scottish culture, I also do not see any great similarities between Scottish and Welsh culture, except for those that they also share with the English. I think it would be better to discuss the sources of peoples POVs and try to come to a consensus on how to incorporate all points  of view. There is  clearly a POV that somehow English people are ethnically Germanic and distinct from the rest of the people of Great Britain, I personally find this difficult to believe. Even if one does subscribe to this POV then one has to accept that British/English people have shared the same Island for over a millenium and a half, and the claim that some sort of ethnic apartheid occured during these centuries doesn't strike me as very believable. Nevertheless I am prepared to accept that this is a valid POV, contingent on properly verified sources. There is also the question of Scots, which is also a Teutonic language, so should we consider the speakers of Scots Germanic as well? If one accepts that the English are the descendants of the indigenous British inhabitants of Great Britain (which they are) and also of some immigrating people (who possibly but not certainly constituted an invading force), that the observed cultural change introduced by the Anglo-Saxons may just have equally been introduced by cultural diffusion over several centuries (and no one disputes that there was some migration, but Danes settled in the Danelaw at the end of the nineth century, and there certainly doesn't seem to have been any great displacement of indigenous people) and that the English language is not necessarily an indication of mass migration or a rapid cultural change, then it is also a reasonable point of view that the indigenous culture changed over time (as it had in previous times). Most archaeologists now point to greater continuity rather than any rapid change. From a linguistic point of view Welsh serves as a good example here, at the start of the 20th century the vast majority of people spoke Welsh as a first language in Wales, indeed immigrating English people who came to work in the heavy industries of South Wales in the nineteenth century had to learn Welsh. By the 1940s Welsh was a minority language. In A History of Wales John Davies argues that the Welsh gave up speaking Welsh voluntarily. He reasons that the internationalist nature of Socialism (strong in Wales) and the progressive nature of Non-conformists led to a consensus that language could be a barrier. He also argues that there is no evidence that coercive measures like the Welsh not had any significant impact. No one is arguing that there was a mass migration in Wales at the beggining of the 20th century, nor is anyone arguing that Welsh people gave up their identity or culture, they just stopped speaking Welsh. Alun 05:57, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis. Is there a supporting source? If there is then it might good to include this information in Anglo-Saxons and Sub-Roman Britain. Unfortunatelly it is not wikipedia policy to include original research, and so edits must be based on published material, so a source for this would be very good to have, it would add nice balance.Alun 10:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I’ve not doubt that there were Germanic speakers during the Roman occupation and it’s good to see some sources for this!  Thank you.  Surely though they would have been all over the Roman territory of Britain? Enzedbrit 00:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Great, I'm reading Britain BC at the moment and have a copy of Britain AD waiting to be read. I'm keen to include some sources other than genetic ones in the pages, as some of the historians there seem to be suspicious of my edits regarding the genetic research (my degree is in genetics so I have been trying to remedy some of the groser distortions of the findings). There seem to be a lot of historians on these two pages, but few biologists or archaeologists. Genetics and archaeology seem to concur on this, it's the historcal sources (written much later and by undisputably biased people like Bede) that seem to get most of the attention. It might be worth including some of this stuff in Immigration to the United Kingdom as there is a lot of stuff on pre-historical invasions there also. Thanks for the sources. Alun 16:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins of the English and the British. 

message: There are precious few sources used for verifiability in this article. I have marked a few  in the History section (and not all at that). Given that the thre core principle policies on wikipedia are verifiability, neutrality and no original research this is really quite pathetic. If you make an edit you need to verify it from a reliable source. If you do not do this then it can be removed at any time. Editors are responsible fro verifying their own edits. If you do not have a source for your edit then you should find one, you might find that you are actually wrong. If you want to generate a good article, then you need to do this for credibility. Currently the only properly verified sections are the info box and the section on Y chromosome analysis (that I did). See also Citing Sources and Wikiproject fact and reference check.Alun 17:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alun, indeed alot of referencing is needed here, but do you not agree that alot of information can be considered "common knowledge" or agreed upon by users editing the article ? This seems to be how most articles are created on Wikipedia and most contain large amounts of non-sourced information. Epf 02:49, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Read the policies Epf. I do not write them, but they exist for a reason, these are policies and not guidelines remember. As I say, what you think is common knowledge may be wrong. Wikipedia is full of people making occasional entries and including what they think are facts, often they are wrong. I have done it myself, gone to get a reference for a fact I know only to find my memory faulty. I have also seen so many incorrect facts included in wikipedia over the last few months (for example, that the Hyksos perpetuated Akenaton's religion, but the Hyksos had been expelled from Egypt 200 years before Akenaton came to the throne, so this was impossible, it was in Monotheism) I don't see the point of editing wikipedia if one is not going to check their assertions. The discussion above is a good case in point, no one is prepared to supply verifiable sources to back up their argument, and An Siarach left the discussion PDQ when I asked what sources he was using. There is also the problem with edit wars, there seems to be an increasingly militant air about editors regarding their opinions, which has led to edit wars, these are futile in my opinion and are a waste of time and energy, it's a bit pathetic IMHO to just keep reverting someone else's edit. There is never any point in blind contradiction as has accured on so many talk pages. Get sources before making edits, reference them while making the edit and include all points of view for balance. This is a good philosophy and it's a shame that most people just seem to want to propagate a single point of view to the exclusion of all others, and don't even bother to reference their edits. The talk page exists to make queries, suggestions and for debate as to how to include the various POVs, it's not there to claim one POV is better than another, and anyway this claim is in breach of the neutral point of view policy. Alun 06:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed Alun, all information on here should be cited with references of some sort, but with most articles in Wikipedia, large portions (in many cases the entirety of it) are not, which is partially why Wikipedia pretty much has no credibility in academic circles anywhere. Sources take alot of time to gather though which most normal people don't have, especially if those sources are not available online. Most people on the discussion boards dont source their claims, including even yourself in the same discussion you quote your having with An Siarach above. The fact is that much of the debates are on topics that are subjective and have little or no official source or references to draw upon. The same sources by some users are even taken from different angles to support opposing POV's, no matter which one is factual or not. For now though, I really think you should take alot of the  icons off because over half the articles on Wikipedia can be labelled with those throughout the whole of each article which just goes to show how much POV, whether right or wrong, is found in this free "encyclopedia" if it can even be called that. Epf 06:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't always cite sources on talk pages, but I do always cite sources when I make edits, and I do provide sources when I am asked to do so on talk pages, this is something I haven't always done, but I hope I have developed this habit as an editor. If I try to find a source for a talk page and find I am wrong I always admit my mistake and appologise, I see no merit in fighting to the bitter end for something I am wrong about. We are all wrong sometimes and there is no shame in it, which is why I have made the point about militancy. If a single source gives two points of view, or can be interpreted in two ways this is a good thing and doesn't preclude this from being included in the article. There are lots of pages which don't cite any sources at all, and these should be labelled with the same template as here, the unreferenced template at the start of the reference section. I am only concerned with a few pages on wikipedia, and it is those pages which I am currently trying to get fully referenced. I will point out to you this statement that is included on the verifiability, neutrality and no original research policy pages: The three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus. The Seax article is one I have done some work on, it is only a stub, but I have worked hard to try and include as much information as I can find and know about, I have also redirected about four other pages to it, like Scramaseax. It may only be a stub, but it is fully referenced (all my work) and I keep an eye on it to see if any erroneous information creeps in. You will see that I have tagged the last addition as it is not referenced. I will remove it in a week or so if no reference is forthcoming. Alun 10:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, true Alun, I agree with that you are saying. Its just that so many articles don't have referencing or only have little referencing and most of the information in each is based on agreeance between users from common or un-sourced knowledge. Obviously it would be ideal for every article to be completely referenced, but I think the WIkipedia community knows that this simply is not the case with so many articles currently. As long as the information entered into articles is agreed upon from a neutral perspective of various users, that is what is most important, especially when not all information can be specifically sourced/referenced (even in recognized encyclopedias like Britannica). Epf 18:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which part of The three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus do you not understand? Your statement is in direct contradiction to the core philosophies of wikipedia. There is much information that is included that is not agreed upon, you yourself have engaged in pointless edit wars (and so by definition these edits were not agreed upon) most discussion simply involves contradiction rather than constructive debate about how to include all POVs. I do not think the argument that other articles are crap, so it's OK for ours to be as well is really an acceptable position to take. I take pride in the work I do for wikipedia, and want people who use it as a reference to be sure that they are getting good information, this is only possible when everything is properly referenced. It is pointless arguing with me over this, this is a policy, I have not made the policy, I am merely drawing attention to it and pointing out that nearly everytning on this page could be removed perfectly fairly as unreferenced edits can be removed at any time. If you take issue with the policy then I suggest you take it up at talk verifiability. Alun 05:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:V|Verifiability]]

message: Yes, they are very bigoted against Continental influences.  I consider myself Anglo-French, because of all our history.  Would Canada survive without our common blood-culture and history?  Would Canada have even been tried as such a compromise, without that stuff?  The opponents refuse to look at the archaeological record and read publications that discuss without prejudice, just how the Franks and French culture largely determined English history--ever since the A-S conquest of Britannia.  Even before then, archaeology supports a common material culture straddling the English Channel, between the Britons and Gauls and before history was written.  Lord Loxley 16:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  You ([[User:TharkunColl]]) have yet to answer my discussion-matter posted here! 

message: New perspective on the history of the British Isles: Genetic and archaeological research points to a minor influence of Anglo-Saxons and other invaders in the English and British Genetic pool: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0719_050719_britishgene.html
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.144.186.189 (talk • contribs) 
I read your link here, its found in other articles and also almost a year old. It doesn't present anything new that hasnt been already seen with earlier studies and it even says at the end that alot more testing needs to be done before origins of the English, Welsh, etc. peoples is actually known. Pointless link.
Epf 08:33, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  National Geographic News. 

message: What about New Zealanders, Australians, Canadians, and Americans? Or don't they count as ethnic groups? TharkunColl 10:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't think they do (yet).  Anyway, these are people descended from Britons and if people in these countries wish to identify as American, Canadian, etc., then they are breaking that link with Europe and Great Britain.  People in these countries who are of British heritage usually identify with that heritage. Enzedbrit 03:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Other related ethnic groups

message: I am not English myself, however I do know bits and peices about England's history and I must ask do the English as we know have enough common features to warrant them being called an ethnic group?
:It depends on how you approach the term Ethnic Group.  As there is an English identity and a realisation that one is English and that is associated with England which is a political/national entity, then yes, there is justification for an English ethnic group the same as there is for most ethnic groups.  English can also be linked with other British isles peoples for a blood-based ethnic group, or broken up into other ethnic groups based on distinct cultural, linguistic and historical commonalities. Enzedbrit 01:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English ethnic group? 

message: Check it out, why do we need proper citations. Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check. Alun 12:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fact and reference check

message: People here continue to use 19th century terminology, while they ignore 21st century genetic anthropology. Do they really ignore all this information here! Most Britons and Western Europeans are not of "Indoeuropean" or "Celtic" origin, they are of Iberian origin. I could really flood this place but here you have just a few samples:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gallgaedhil/haplo_r1b_amh_13_29.htm
http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/Cavalli.htm
http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/Y-MAP.GIF
World Haplogroups Maps (As recent as 2005)
Origins of haplogroup R1b. (Very interesting too)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_%28Y-DNA%29
http://www.worldfamilies.net/Tools/r1b_ydna_in_europe.htm
http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/Maps.htm
HCC
umm, none of this information concludes that British peoples are of Iberian origin, lol. Also, "genetic anthropology" is in its infancy really and it is by no means completely reliable. Also, 20th cent. information was based on phenotypic traits almost completely and is still somewhat useful since it is information from a different perspective (in fact correlations between physical anthro. and pop. genetics are quite numerous). Epf 06:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with EPF. Enzedbrit 09:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I think that EPF is expressing, although not too well, what a lot of people would feel in this situation, and that is that the findings you are putting forward, even though they might be based on research the findings for which you have provided links, are extremely radical and offer a point of view that is markedly different to what we have been lead to believe.  I think this warrants a lot more discussion.  Similarly on these pages other topics have sprung up with new information, one of those of interest to me being the Cornish language and its relevance to England as a language of England.  HCC, we would need to find more consensus and discuss this more among the dedicated users on this page before we accept that the British and Irish peoples are direct descendents of Iberians. Enzedbrit 10:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

text: descended in varying degreees from ancient Britons who may or may not have "origins" in Iberia since the R1b group was spread across the western fringes.Epf 04:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed, largely in England and Scotland, people also descend from these peoples in varying degrees (except the Romans and Normans who did not leave a lasting demographic impact). Having the marker again does not mean descended from "ancient Iberians" and there are varying proportions of this Y-chrom./MtDNA markers in each group along with markers from other Y chrom./MtDNA groups.Epf 04:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Again, as is shown in the links above, not characteristic of solely Iberia in Upper Paelotlithic times.Epf 04:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

text: And do not confuse "facts" with ones interpretation of these "facts" and the most common regions with R1b is indeed the Basque Country, Ireland and certain parts of Wales. It is more common in these areas than in England and other parts of Iberia and there are obviously both Y-chrom. and MtDNA markers that the populations do not share in common (haplogroup G common in Spain and Portugal, but not in the British Isles). Also, the sampled localities are not specified in many cases in the data provided.Epf 04:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most Britons and Western Europeans are of Iberian origin 

message: Should something be added about the English character? I know it's hard to generalise, but there are certainly a few truisms that could be mentioned. Also, some quotes could be includes. "An Englishman's home is his castle", "Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way" etc.
Or should that be in tne English Culture article? Mojo-chan 10:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English character 

message: The English people are most connected as a historically singular entity, with those nations in pre-Jacobean personal union with England itself.  This means; France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden (the South or 'Geatland', as I remember my study of Canute and Beowulf).  There are the Manx, but they were a subsidiary of Norway anyways for most of their pre-English time.  Also, the general connection between England and other nations is summarily described by the Plantagenet web of power most often described as the Angevin Empire.  That includes the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Castile-Leon/Spain through John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster or Philip II of Spain, the Holy Roman Empire via Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall or Sicily via Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster.  I don't feel so tied to the modern United Kingdom so much as the Old England.  All of us have English Plantagenet blood, most of us Tudor and the Jacobean era shrinks our royal connections with distant lands.  I much prefer the Kingdom of England over the British Empire.  This is coming from a Canadian-American, who nevertheless enjoys the Coat of arms of Canada for his immediate heritage and the Great Seal of the United States for his Roman/European heritage.  One might say that I accept the Stuart confederacy in British history, but feel entirely alienated by the totalitarian machinations of the Hanoverians and other Germanists.  England is defined as Angle-Land and not Saxland.  The Angles were from Denmark, not Germany.  So what if West Saxon kings followed Offa of Mercia?  It was just a local shift of power and not of identity, the Saxons clearly a ruling minority amongst the clearly Scandinavian AKA Norman tribes of England.  Tell a Whiggist and they'll scream their bloody heads off with political correctness about Saxon superiority and disdain for the French style of a Frankish France copied as an Anglish England.  The Saxons may hate Charlemagne (Bloody Verdict of Verden), but every single one of them is his offspring today and even during the 1649/1689/1701/1707 co-opt of our identity to serve fat cat aristocrats and foreign princes.  I don't care, even though my father's mom's maiden name is South Saxon.  The Danevirke existed for a reason--to protect the Anglian tribe from Saxon incursions, but the Kings of Kent and Mercia loved the Franks. (Too bad so sad, Prussia and Austria--your fanatical hate of Denmark means nothing to precedent and truth!)  Let's please avoid provincialist fratricides, or a cultural dependence on the Heptarchy and subkings like the Welsh Princes and Irish Kings or Scottish Clans.  We are above this, if looking to the French model.  It took oppressive social engineering to enact the present federation of 1707.  Don't believe me?  Just ask the Scottish and Irish!  I'm not a goddamned Nazi!  If England had its own way, we would have sided with Mussolini and not Hitler or Stalin.  I am proud of my Greek roots with Brutus of Troy and Latin roots in the Romano-British, unlike the Germans.  That being said, we are definitely our own people.  It is sad that Denmark and England have Saxon monarchs, not Danish or Anglian ones.  Long live the Capetian fascism and a French France!  Out of all my ancestry, none am I more proud of than the Plantagenets!  What have other dynasties done for us English, despite their Frankish blood?!  Huh?!   What's the difference between Anglians/English and Frisians/French, or Yngvi and Freyr?  Lord Loxley 04:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand a word of what you're saying other than that you have a fascination with things 'Celtic' and how much you hate it.  You completely misunderstand what 'Celtic' is and what the relationship is between the English and the related ethnic groups on the page.  Things 'Celtic' have nothing to do with it.  Celtic refers to a cultural period that flourished in Britain before the Romans and has endured with the Brythonic and Gaelic languages and incorrectly to refer to the culture of the non-English parts of Britain.  The related peoples are there because of a genetic basis, a shared contemporary culture, language and identity and other groups have been omitted or better yet sacrificed, such as Dutch, Germans, French, to keep it simple and obvious.  I'm sorry but I really do think that you are some sort of retard. Enzedbrit 21:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Germanism and the Third Reich as something English?