Talk:English people/Archive 9

message: User Anwar saadat was correct about the use of this - "a large number of people living in England" not being relevant to an article on English people. This article is about English people, it is not about "people living in England". The information is perfectly relevant to the England article (though it is not clear if the figures given were specifically for England, or England & Wales or the UK as a whole. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to quote the full paragraph. "The gradual integration of migrants from India and Pakistan since the 1950s means that a large number of people living in England practise Islam (818,000), Hinduism (467,000), or Sikhism (301,000)." I don't see why this should have been taken out. These migrants and their descendants are English people therefore they shouldn't be excluded in my opinion. (84.13.245.18 16:35, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is nothing to do with exclusion. This article is about English people and not the country of England which has its own article and where that sentence is most definitely relevant, especially in that format. The sentence states, "people living in England" which means that those people are not necessarily English people. This article is about English people and not people living in England. In addition, the figures do not seem to be backed up by any source, for all we know the figures could be made up of English, recent immigrants and foreign nationals living in the country, which it almost certainly will include. Also,the figures could be for as I said above, England and Wales or the UK as a whole for all anyone knows, as there is no source given. The sentence, as it is worded, is perfectly relevant to the England article. Of course some English people practice various different religions including those above as well as for instance, Buddhism but the way it is worded it is only relevant to the England article. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 18:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

text: That wasn't the point at all. The figures given for the religions state that they are for "people living in England" - which could and almost certainly will, include foreign nationals living in England - those who for instance are working or studying in the country and who have no intention of remaining in the country and becoming a British citizen and therefore part of the "English people". The figures are I presume taken from the 2001 census which is for England & Wales , and as far as I can tell from the source is not just the figures for England but also for Wales. Of course there are English people who are Sikh, Muslim, Hindu as well as Jewish, Buddhist etc as I myself fall into one of those categories. But the way it is worded with virtually the exact figures, is open to interpretation as it seems to be for both England and Wales, as well as being misleading stating "people living in England".♦Tangerines♦·Talk 18:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It's equally true that there are many people who are not integrating culturally, which is why it is possible to provide statistics like this in the first place. Although a country can be culturally heterogeneous, a "people" or nation must be culturally homogeneous. Of course this is semantics and religion rather confuses it. Someone claiming to belong to a religious group could be moderate or fanatical about it - the latter might allow it to interfere with other cultural beliefs and habits (eg. a pro-Sharia law Islamic hardline terrorist) whereas the former (eg. a go-to-church -once-a -year Christian) probably would not. Wiki-Ed 10:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "people living in england"

message: I think we all need to do some reading or this will just go round in circles. Here are some places to start. Please add more if possible. My guess is that none of these promotes some kind of simple definition, but instead discusses the various ideas about the subject. Cop 663 13:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's not that simple. The "English people" can be regarded as a nation, or they can be regarded (less inclusively) as an ethnic group. Google the phrase "ethnically English" and you'll find many people who believe the latter (some of them scary right wing nutters, some of them not). I'm trying to find a way we can describe both concepts in the article. Cop 663 17:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doing such a search threw up this article 100% English -- I would quibble with your comment about "some of them scary right wing nutters" and put the nutter quotient much higher. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Also  Google  "about 1,980 English pages for "ethnically English" -wikipedia." and "about 215,000 English pages for "English Nation" -wikipedia." That means the ratio of crude unfiltered page hits between "English Nation"  and "ethnically English" to about one hundred to one. That makes it a very small ratio to justify giving much weight to concepts of "ethnically English" --Philip Baird Shearer 12:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but most of your hits for 'English nation' are dealing with England as a political entity, not with the idea of the 'English people'. I have demonstrated above that English ethnicity is a serious academic subject. And are you seriously saying that the idea of English ethnicity has not been important in the past? Let me stress that I am not actually opposed to your principles - I am just trying to find a way to make the article clearer, so that readers can understand why someone might hold your point of view. Cop 663 13:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reading list

message: I have removed this tag for the second time - both placed by the same IP. Although this is a sort of sweeping statement, it would seem also to be self evident by the following text and not a controversial statement requiring citation / verifiability per WP:V and WP:CITE. It would probably be preferable to have a referenced source on this but I don't view it as essential within the spirit of those two policies, and the acompanying list of artists / scientists in the prose of the article. Pedro |  Chat   13:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation Tag 

message: Hello, I have done some reading, and I've created a section headed 'Definitions'. Since most of the arguments on this page are between those who see the English as an ethnic group and those who see them as a nation, I have cited sources to demonstrate that both views are current in present day discussions of the subject. The view that the English are definable by ethnicity has been expressed by geneticists, statisticians, and the forthcoming UK census (and yes, by racist bigots too). The view that there is a multi-cultural English nation (as opposed to  British one) is expressed by the OED and by English nationalists who seek self-government or devolution for England. I'm not sure where we go from here; my gut instinct says this article would be easier to write if it was split into two pages: 'English (ethnic group)' and 'English (nation)', the latter being a much longer article. But obviously that's a controversial choice. For now, I'd be grateful for any feedback on the 'Definitions' section, which may contain many errors and false assumptions, as I'm not an expert in the field. Thank you. Cop 663 17:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done I think that is a step in the right direction. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There would be no practical difference between the English (nation) article as defined above, and the Demographics of England article that already exists. TharkunColl 19:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There would be a big difference. The Demographics of England article is just a list of statistics - informative, but dull. An article on the 'English (nation)' would be about the history of the idea of the English as a nation, the debates over who belongs and who doesn't, and perhaps material on 'Englishness' and the popular image of the person who is 'more English than the English'. There is tons of material for a great article on this - see Krishan Kumar's book on the subject, The Making of English National Identity, which I strongly recommend (if you've got a lot of time on your hands!) Cop 663 20:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New 'Definitions' section 

message: The British Isles are probably one of the best researched areas in the world from a genetic pòint of view. Why is there no article about it? I propose making one and leaving a link to the article here. Jane.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.216.137.20 (talk) 10:53, August 24, 2007 (UTC) 
:Hi Jane, and welcome. You could expand the article on the British Isles if you wanted, or create a new article if you wish. Be bold and go ahead! Pedro |  Chat   11:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article 'Settlement of Great Britain and Ireland' is mostly about genetics, but it's a real mess. You could try starting there and tidying it up. Cop 663 17:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genetics of England and the British Isles 

message: It would be better on the whole, if people like TharkunColl did not rely on a heavily propagandized version of what makes an English person by heritage.  The version currently promoted is in line with the extremely charged and jingoistic, pro-Bismark era of Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin and Rudyard Kipling.  It is not the historic view of English people as they saw themselves in the Plantagenet, Tudor or even Stuart era.  The traditional view of the English held by both themselves and the Welsh, is that they are foederatii successors to the Romans in Britain.  This is like the French or Burgundians in Gaul, Lombards or Ostrogoths in Italy, Visigoths or Suebi in Spain and Vandals or Alans in Africa.  These tribes succeeded or filled in the void left by a crumbled imperial infrastructure that they were partially assimilated to and halfheartedly promoted according to their station as allies or subordinates of Rome, although the description of events by folklorists is much less technical than I am showing it as.  A simple comparison is:  England succeeds Britain = Holy Roman Empire succeeds Roman Empire.  The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were merely the British wing of Roman foederati, invited by Vortigern, a native British ruler following Roman tradition of outsourcing the Roman military after the last legion left to protect the City of Rome in 410.  People like Vortigern hoped that they could use the "Anglo-Saxons" to repel the Gaelic invaders and also take over the rest of Britain, by expanding back to the Antonine Wall and even further, if the situation turned for the better.  Incidentally, this is also what was done during the Irish Plantations, the invitation of William III and the Hanoverians.  Unfortunately, modern day Anglo-Saxonists can't get beyond the era of the Kaiser and notions of the mythological Teuton.  This is how they distort the meaning of what an English person is ancestrally, always in a kulturkampf to deny or play down the Roman nature inherent in England's constitutional background as the chief British country.  Perhaps the Germans themselves don't have much Roman inheritance, because the tribes they sent elsewhere acculturated in Roman lands rather than Romance instutitions being promoted in the heartland of Germania.  So what?  That does not make for a negligable Roman background for the English, any more than other Germanicized, ex-Roman lands like France, Spain or Italy.  The demarcation of the English from the others, is definitely a political agenda and painfully recent as well.  It was one of the issues which led to the Great War in 1914.  
TharkunColl is once again, on the loose and obstructing neutrality by insisting on class warfare between the commons and lords, native and foreign in his own estimation for one particular period in English history only.  That has to stop, since it has been proven that the English were ruled by other social groups from foreign language speaking lands than Normandy.  Oh and equating English with Anglo-Saxon is another "hot water" declaration that bigots never stop doing.  I see that the section on Logres (the Romano-British) was converted into a playground for Social Darwinism and scientific racism.  Who wants to save Wikipedia from hatemongers?  Golly gee.  Lord Loxley 00:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ...Indeed

message: why is the infobox transcluded from ? Most articles have their infoboxes in plain view in the article text. Transclusion messes up footnote numbering: the infobox is shown at the top, but the footnotes are numbered as if it was at the end. --dab (𒁳) 15:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, this is weird. We should move it, shouldn't we? Cop 663 15:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't see any reason why not. Any one else know why it's transcluded? I can't see any damage in moving it, but let's just check. Pedro |  Chat   09:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I moved it because it clutters the page and makes it difficult to sift the main text from all the formatting when editing. (NovusTabula 10:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good call - it's better - thank you. Pedro |  Chat   11:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: infobox