British or English ?

[Filimon]

You know when I was a kid in the late 60's I well remember a busload of Indians arriving at my school. They were from Uganda I think, when Amin had one of his purges....

Anyway, all these kids were put into class 4I, 'I' for 'Immigrant' - Christ imagine the fuss over that nowadays!

Another thing is the cutural aspects of 'where you are from' as against 'where you belong'....

In the UK, we tend to associate nationality to place of birth, for example, my two youngest kids where born in Scotland (me and the rest of the kids are English). They are my 'Jock-kids'! Also one of my collegues was born in Germany (father in Army) so we always referred to him as 'German' depsite him being as British as they come. Prince Philip is Phil the Greek cos he was born in Corfu!

Conversly Russians consider their ethnicity as their nationality. My gf is Russian but her mother was born in Kazhakstan but of Russian ethnicity, so she considers herself Russian. The Soviets did what Cromwell did to Ireland and relocated Russians throughout the lesser Republics.

Kazakhstan has the Kazakhs, the indiginoeus Arab/Turkish race, but most are of Russian stock now, and depite their place of birth, are Russian. If a child is born even in USA to Russian parents, the child is considered Russian and not American.

Interestng topic!

Steve

I don't agree with that. The reason why Russians call themselves "Russians" no matter where they live is that there are two different words in Russian language for a Russian ethnicity and Russian nationality (citizenship). There is "russkiy", which means "of Russian ethnicity" and would be equivalent to "English", "Welsh", "Scottish", etc. And there is "rossiyanin", which means "citizen of Russia" and would be the equivalent of "British". Both are translated into English as "Russian". Thus a person of Russian decent born in Kazakhstan would be able to call himself Russian but would still be Kazakh by citizenship. Same with America.

[K2004]

finally i got the following response from WAYN.com

"Thank you for your email.

Thank you for your email. You are right - we haven't added this it would seem. I will add it to the list of updates that need to be made and will hope to include this in the next release in the coming weeks. Apologies for the delay and thankyou for letting us know!

Regards,

WAYN.COM Support"

[lemess]

if northern irish people can call themsevles British, even when they are not part of great Britain, so being british, can i call myself English?that was my first question.... .

Since there is no official status called "English" I guess deciding to call yourself that is entirely up to whether you feel a strong sense of Englishness - distinct from Britishness which also denotes a citizenship and is therefore easier to be 'accurate' about.

Personally I find it easy to think of myself as British but although I have lived in England for a very long time, I don't think of myself as English. I guess this depends on the individual

[mhunjn]

Same here... British... but can't call myself as English... would still be Indian!...

Personally I find it easy to think of myself as British but although I have lived in England for a very long time, I don't think of myself as English. I guess this depends on the individual

[ezh]

Fillimon is absolutely right.

We need to distinguish one's ethnical origin and belonging to a state/country. To call youself ethnical English or just English you have to have many generations of your family living in England (say 300 years or even more). Note here that there is no such a country as England any more. To belong to a country you need just 4WP+1ILR (or now 5WP+1ILR). So we, newly naturalized people, are not English, Scottish or Welsh ethnically - we are British or Unitedkingdomians

There is another even more confusing case. Some 200 years ago many German, Polish, Austrian etc people of jewish religion fled from persecutions in their contries to Russia. They were not called Germans, Polish, Austrian etc in Russia but Jews. In fact even now 200 years later the decendents of those Jews are caled Jews in Russia and in their passports it is stated "Jew" and not "Russian". Elswhere in the world you could be called a "Jew" because your religion is Judaism but the same time you cuold be called an American or a British or an Israily etc whichever country you belong. Only in Russia "Jew" means ethnisity and "Jews" are oddly considered also as a nation/nationality.

[lemess]

Fillimon is absolutely right.

We need to distinguish one's ethnical origin and belonging to a state/country. To call youself ethnical English or just English you have to have many generations of your family living in England (say 300 years or even more)..

With respect, if you feel English you can call yourself English . It has nothing to do with how long you or your family have lived here. There is no law about these things - all depends on how you see your identity.

[basis]

can someone summarise in what's been discussed in three pages and thirty odd messages so far in this topic.

[tt]

That Westminster calls everyone in the UK British. Everyone in Ireland calls the Northern Ireland folks Irish. The people themselves within the UK call themselves whatever they like. And the people within Ireland definitely call themselves Irish.

That UK is the country, and English, Welsh and Scottish are simply nationalities (John) - or that England, Wales and Scotland are the real countries (Wanderer) - and K2004 will be confused when the UK dissolves. That the Northern Irish have the same nationality as those from Great Britain (JAJ, Filimon) - or (ezh, Filimon), they don't.

Or, everyone can call themselves whatever they want (lemess).

Apologies to those not mentioned.

[Wanderer]

That Westminster calls everyone in the UK British. Everyone in Ireland calls the Northern Ireland folks Irish. The people themselves within the UK call themselves whatever they like. And the people within Ireland definitely call themselves Irish.

That UK is the country, and English, Welsh and Scottish are simply nationalities (John) - or that England, Wales and Scotland are the real countries (Wanderer) - and K2004 will be confused when the UK dissolves. That the Northern Irish have the same nationality as those from Great Britain (JAJ, Filimon) - or (ezh, Filimon), they don't.

Or, everyone can call themselves whatever they want (lemess).

Apologies to those not mentioned.

What about the Manx, Channel Islanders, and the Cornish separatists?! And the Judean Peoples Front - SPLITTERS!!

Steve

[JAJ]

With respect, if you feel English you can call yourself English . It has nothing to do with how long you or your family have lived here. There is no law about these things - all depends on how you see your identity.

It seems that naturalised Britons are more likely to call themselves "British" rather than "English", "Scottish", Welsh" and "Northern Irish".

But this is not a phenomenon unique to the United Kingdom. Naturalised citizens in Australia, Canada and the United States are more likely to identify with the country as a whole rather than with specific states/territories/provinces.

[JAJ]

What about the Manx, Channel Islanders, and the Cornish separatists

All British citizens. Same goes for Bermudians, Falkland Islanders, Gibraltarians and those from the other British Overseas Territories.

[ezh]

Okay, guys -

what we need to rememebr - we are all EARTHonians and suppose to have equal rights.

To be distinguished from people/humanoids of the other galaxies may I sugges the next naming or coding for us (on the example of our highly respected John):

SWE-MW-SS9-E-UKGBB-nnnnnnn-John-WPIB-M,

where SWE stands for the direction towards us from the centre of the Universe (it is South-West-East, of course), MW - our galaxy "Milky Way", SS9 - the ninth planet of the Solar System counted from the Sun , E - Earthonian, UKGB - place of being on the Earth surface (United Kingdom of Great Britain, Birmingham), nnnnnnn - UK passport number, John - name given by parents, WPIB - Work Permit Immigration Board, M - the Moderator.

Everyone is welcome for improving suggestions

[basis]

A Venn diagram clarifying the terminology. Geographical locations are written in red, political entities are written in blue




British Isles Terminology

British

Alternative Word for British