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Yes, basically. Plunderers, along with the Vikings (that came much later). The island was left to their own means when Roman retreated, and pirates, predators and scavengers festered on the corpse. The Britons (real English) were subject to all kinds of abuse. Then, Normans came during the 11th Century and kicked the butts of descendants of pirates and subject them to serfdom. Normans brought some civilization and French became the court's language, that's why English is a semi-Latin language, not a totally barbaric one.
No, I don't think so there is hardly any difference. Ok we might have our own little things but is that really any different to states in america having differences?
It seems like to some extent, the Celtic ethnicities are less 'English' now than they were 100 years ago, as they are reclaiming their languages and customs.
Really? I live in Northern Ireland and things here are more english/british than ever.
People might learn Irish but they don't speak it in public.
LOL it isn't as simple as that though is it? We are all arguably Irish because we are born on the island of ireland. But I think you are confusing ancestry with nationality, yes some of us are mostly british ancestry and others irish.
When I say more english/british than ever I mean the lifestyle.
Isn't Northern Ireland quite different though, since only about 50% of the people there are actually Irish?
Can you define what you mean about 50% of the people are actually Irish?
My father was a protestant who thought of himself as an Irishman.or do you mean 50% of people who Think they are 100% Native Gaelic? Considering my Mothers side of the family was Catholic with some Planter blood, i think that ends that myth.
Ethnicity is defined by culture not by genes. When we say that Irish, Welch or Scotish people are celts while English are Germanic it refers to their language. Today, the "celtic nations" are not culturally celtic anymore since quite a few centuries, excepted for small minorities taht continue to practice celtic languages.
There are not "celtic" genes; the actual inhabitants of Irland or scotland are, like others areas in Europe the result of the genetic mixing of the various waves of peoples that left part of their genepool.
The Irish, Welch and Scottish people are not especially descendant of the original Celts who were originally a people from central Europe. Celtic culture has spread to most of western Europe, from the British isles to Spain. That doesn't mean that Celts (from central Europe) have displaces or killed the previous people, they have just change their culture, with maybe some limited genetic mixing (the same way Spanish people did in the American colonies, they spread their culture, language and some genes, but in most latin American countries the population is a mix with a majority of pre-colombian genes.)
That said, there might exist some light differences between the different peoples of the British isles, but not necessarily between English and the rest. I tend to think that we can find also variantions between those "celtic nations"; for exemple between Welch and Scottish, who despite being lumped as "celtic" do not necesseraly share more genetic links than with the English.
Globally speaking I tend to think that most of the British isles is in a genetic continuum with the rest of northern Europe, whatever the lands used to be culturally celtic (which they are not really anymore) or Germanic. We should not forget that the north sea did not existed a few milleniums ago, the hunters were freely moving from northern Germany to England passing thru what is now the Netherlands. so that is not surprising they largely overlap, included in the "celtic nations" http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.c...apofeurope.jpg
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