English Ethnic Identity

Anglo-Celtic

The English are Anglo-Celtic. The name Anglo is from the Angles who gave their name to England and refers more generally to the Saxons and the Jutes too.

The name Celtic is from the Celts that inhabited Britain at the time of the arrival of these three Teutonic tribes and who in many areas integrated with them.

 

In Britain, people are at times asked to state their ethnic or racial identity when filling in forms. On these forms, the ethnic term English is often substituted with the more racially sounding option White British.

The latter refers to a wider racial definition, as in belonging to the British Race, whereas the former denotes the specifically English ethnicity that is part of this race.

 

Whereas the census in England gives the option to describe oneself as ethnically English, forms from other offices tend to offer the term White British. On some forms there is the option to describe oneself only as White, referring to a much broader racial definition that goes beyond being ethnically British.

 

As we have seen, the official wording used in the identification of the indigenous population living in England makes reference to both race and ethnicity. Some people prefer to identify along racial lines, others along ethnic lines, but there is a grey area between the two.

 

The major ethnic difference between the English and the other indigenous populations of the British Isles is that these latter are more generally of Celtic stock. Even then, in England there are some areas where the local population has almost entirely Celtic roots, as in Cornwall.

 

Race and Ethnicity

The term race can have a specifically tribal connotation, such as belonging to the Angles, Saxons, Jutes or other Teutonic tribes, or to one or more Celtic groups.

In this sense, the term Anglo-Celtic is the correct definition for the English, considering that the word Anglo indicates the various Teutonic tribes that moved to parts of Britain and settled among the Celts, or at least among those Celts who remained in what later became England.

 

Genetic identification through tribal origin gives the closest fit to racial identity, whereby the reference is to one or more tribes belonging to the same original ethnic folk.

In this sense, Angles, Saxons and Jutes are part of the original Teutonic folk, while Scots, Welsh and Irish are largely part of the original Celtic folk.

 

The terms racial and ethnic can even be interchangeable, as seen when referring to an original folk from which different tribes descend speaking similar languages and having a similar culture.

Ethnicity in fact is defined not only by racial origins, but also cultural and linguistic characteristics that have accumulated over centuries and even millennia.

 

In England, the prevalence of the English language over the Celtic led to the use of the term Anglo-Saxon in reference to the English.

However, the term Anglo-Celtic is the correct description of both our English and our British origin as we descend from Teutonic tribes and from the Celtic Britons.

In essence, though, Anglo-Celtic and Anglo-Saxon both correspond to being English.

 

The British are racially akin to northern and western Europeans owing to common Teutonic and Celtic roots.

Due to this racial and ethnic affinity, English people look favourably at the concept of union with the other indigenous populations of the British Isles: the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish, and are generally inclined to favour close economic and cultural ties to northern and western Europe.

 

Nationalists that are racially aware tend to consider wars fought between nations of similar racial background as brother wars rather than as patriotic confrontations.

They see such wars as a net loss to the overall cause of racial nationalism and consider the elitist circles to be the instigators. World bankers and politicians are often identified as being responsible for plotting conflicts between brethren nations.