The British are European. We are mongrels and proud of it!

Posted on by Opher

I hear all this rubbish about us being Anglo-Saxon as if we are an homogenous race apart from Europe and the rest of the world. What garbage. They don’t know what they are talking about.

We are a mixture of races – mainly European but also with genetic input from all over the world.

A short look at our evolution starkly demonstrates that.

  1. The Iron Age inhabitants were the Celts who probably originated in India and came to Britain from France and Germany
  2. The Angles and Saxons (Jutes and Frisians) came from Germany and Denmark
  3. The Romans came from Italy
  4. The Normans came from France
  5. The Vikings came from Sweden, Norway and Denmark
  6. Through trade and Empire we took in immigrants from China, Africa, Arabia and Indonesia.
  7. The waves of immigration from the Huguenots, Jews, Sikhs, Jamaicans, Turkish, Pakistanis, Indians, Ugandans and so on – all enriched our culture

Genetically we have mixtures of all these races. There is nothing ‘pure’ or homogenous about the British. We are full of hybrid vigour.

Our language reflects our genes. It is basically German/Danish with many French, Italian and other smatterings. That is what makes it so rich, colourful and expressive. We draw on so many cultures and have such great nuance. Our language is as much a mongrel as we are and all the better for it.

So basically the British are German with incorporations from all across Europe and sprinklings from the rest of the world.

Anglo-Saxons – you must be joking. I’m thoroughly European with a heavy dose of the rest of the world. I’m British.

What have I got in common with America? Two nations separated by a common language. Who said that? George Bernard Shaw.

Am I British or European?

Posted on by Opher

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2400 year ago Britain was inhabited by the Celtic tribes who came across from Europe in 300 BC. So the first Britons were European.

The Angles and Saxons came across from Germany, Netherlands and Denmark to displace the Celts.

Then the Romans came across from Italy, the Vikings (mainly in the north) from Norway, Denmark and Sweden and the Normans from France.

Then there were the major mass immigrations – the Huguenots from France and Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe.

The trade links of the British Empire opened up trade routes and there was an influx of people from further afield – Arabs, Indians, Africans, Chinese and hosts of others.

In the 20th century we had further waves of immigration from Jamaica, Pakistan, India, Africa, Turkey, Greece and the Middle East.

The stand out thing about the British is that we are mongrels, full of hybrid vigour. All these people have contributed greatly to our culture. Our language is the best example. It is basically German/Danish but with much French, Italian, Indian, Jewish, Arabic and Dutch imports. This provides the richness of language that enables nuance and an array of subtleties that most other languages do not have. It is this richness that gives us writers like Shakespeare.

To be British is truly to be European in every sense of the word.