TV show set to prove "No such thing as English"

[Monkshood]

'100% English', 13 November, 9pm, Channel 4
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/11/05/svgenetic05.xml&page=1

Lord Tebbit, Carol Thatcher and other volunteers thought they were pure Anglo Saxon - until they were DNA-tested. Andrew Graham-Dixon watched their jaws drop on discovering racial origins from Africa, the Middle East, even Mongolia. We are all mongrels now, he says

Another of our participants has since discovered a family connection in Turkey which partially confirms her DNA test results. For others, it was not such a welcome revelation. Four days after hearing that her DNA suggested Romany origins, the 'ethnic English' campaigner was threatening legal action.

However, these tests could be a powerful tool in the fight against racism. It is not just that they prove, once and for all, that any notions of race or racial purity are patently absurd and scientifically wrong. Their power lies in that they prove it by showing people what is in their own blood. When the truths of science become personal truths, they get taken more seriously.

[Red Skull]

Ugh, I feel sick.

How selective that DNA test must be.

[RedJack]

Sounds mighty fishy to me.

[Thruthheim]

http://www.radiotimes.com/ListingsServlet?event=13&broadcastType=1&searchDate=13/11/2006&searchTime=19:00&jspGridLocation=/jsp/tv_listings_grid.jsp&jspListLocation=/jsp/tv_listings_single.jsp&jspError=/jsp/error.jsp&listingsFormat=G

Monday 13th November, Channel 4, 8pm

Andrew Graham-Dixon presents this documentary that challenges our notions of national identity. Eight self-proclaimed English 'pure-breds' - including Garry Bushell and Carol Thatcher - provide samples of their DNA to undergo state-of-the-art tests. Uncovering the truth of their ancestry culminates in some surprising results as Turkish, Ukrainian, African and even Chinese origins are revealed.

I'm not looking forward to this programme, sounds as though it aims purely to undermine identity. Multicultural Propoganda perhaps.

[Æmeric]

What theses DNA test do'nt reveal is how far in the past the admixture accured. It could have been many thousands of years ago before many of the current races of mankind evolved. They do'nt actually show ancestry as much as they show which peoples a person shares genetic traits with. If someone has 10% East Asian ancestry it means you have common ancestors with East Asians but it does'nt your greatgrandmother was Chinese. It means the majority of the descendents of those common ancestors are East Asian.

[Hardrada]

Sounds like another gimmicky approach to Genealogy...and I'm suspicious of any technology that claims it can demarcate a person's racial identity with such clarity...what criteria are they using, a liking for curry...?

For men, asssessing one's ancestry is fairly straightforward...but it only hints at deep ancestry, it's next to impossible to predict definitively where your father's line originated...also you have to set a limit on how far back you want to go in order to establish a racial or tribal identity.
I took part in a DNA test some time ago, and came out as Northern European (Continental) suggesting that the ancestors on my Dad's side came from somewhere in Northern Mainland Europe.
No great surprise there, but this covers a huge geographical range and doesn't give me a clear idea of how my folk came to the UK.
You've got to look at your great - great - great grandfather's origins,( pre Industrial Revolution) to establish a likely ethnic origin.
Again, I'm extremely fortunate that both my GGG Grandfathers's birthplace and surname are particularly prevalent in the old Danelaw...so the probability, and it is only a probability, is that the original " English" ancestor was a Danish Farmer/Soldier whow settled here in the last millenium or so...Equally though, he could have been an Anglo Saxon or a Norman...all three groups are very closely related genetically...

So to use my own example as a case in point...there just doesn't exist the technology to definitively prove your ancestry in any meaningful way..

I do, however, believe affinity and a sence of racial identity...so follow your instinct ..if you feel ethnically Germanic, and even Viking if you want to tie it down that far...then why not...? You're probably nearer the mark than some spurious DNA assay..

Skol,

Hardrada

[Fortis_in_Arduis]

Ok. I need to understand the difference between DNA, haplotypes and sub-races and how the hell to classify people.

I think that it has to do with where the genetic markers are...? A qualitative rather than quantitive analysis.

At the end of the day, we will need a huge genetic audit and we will have to feed all those stats into a very large computer (The Matrix perhaps???) and map everything?

All I know is that the map of sub-raceS correlate with the map of the haplotypes, certain haplotypes correlate with sub-races and that the English nation is a construct anyway...(Sorry guys, but it is a construct.)

Who are the English? A mix of various sub-races who speak the same language and share a common history (to a degree!)

:??:

So what does this programme prove anyway? Someone's m-RNA is more common in Japan and that makes them a 'mongrel'? How very unconclusive!

How can they be a 'mongrel' if race does not exist anyway?

[Oswiu]

All I know is that the map of sub-raceS correlate with the map of the haplotypes, certain haplotypes correlate with sub-races
News to me. :|
and that the English nation is a construct anyway...(Sorry guys, but it is a construct.)
What on Earth is a construct?
Are you a Scottish Nationalist? Is the Scottish nation a construct?
Who are the English? A mix of various sub-races who speak the same language and share a common history (to a degree!)
How is that not true of any nation? [and you ought to have included common mythology, stereotype of behaviour, and endogamous breeding network]

[Pro-Alpine]

Now these f****** multiculturali$t are messing with English fiction?

[Siegfried]

the English nation is a construct anyway...(Sorry guys, but it is a construct.)

All nations are social constructs, but not all are equally good constructs ;)

[Ealhswið]

Turkish, Ukrainian, African and even ChineseThat's remarkably specific!

Either Andrew Graham-Dixon and friends have access to a super-accurate DNA test that the rest of the world is hitherto unaware of or they're telling porkie pies. Hmm, I wonder. ;)

What's the betting that these overzealous multi-cult loons have taken something like 0.94% North African or East Asian from a person's DNA results and wrongly presented it as proof of recent Subsaharan African or Chinese ancestry?

[Bhreac]

Well Ive often wondered how deep paranoia runs...now I know- its genetic,who cares what an unproven theoretical test by some un proven group discerns! I dont I know what I am and I am not concerned as to some geno techies opinion!

[Tryggvi]

However, these tests could be a powerful tool in the fight against racism. It is not just that they prove, once and for all, that any notions of race or racial purity are patently absurd and scientifically wrong. It is amazing and frustrating to witness the degree of enthusiasm with which the politically correct crowd desires to assure us that race does neither matter nor exist. They turn a blind eye to reality in order to justify their bankrupt globalist and multi-cultural policies. In anticipated obedience the anti-ethnocratic minions don't miss any opportunity to declare true what they, in their hearts, so desperately desire to be true, namely that there are no noteworthy biological differences between human groups and populations. Unfortunately, their comprehension of race and genetics is worrying, to say the least.

As Madoc had already hinted, Chinese or Ukrainian ancestry is something an ancestral DNA test can exactly not prove -- not in the strict sense of the word, and race is per definition not a precise concept. There are markers that are wide-spread among the Chinese and Ukrainians and proportionally less so among other peoples, but neither do all Chinese or Ukrainians carry them, nor are these markers limited to them. Consequently, their presence does not indicate Chinese or Ukrainian ancestry either; at most they would suggest that a person that carries them and many modern Chinese have common ancestors. It wouldn't necessarily prove that these ancestors were Chinese. The markers don't tell us anything about the when, and, actually, not even about the why, as the markers' presence could as well be the result of ocurrences that happened after divergent evolution. In addition, most of such markers and their origin are still the subject to much academic controversy; you could be considered a Chinese, but in five years they come along and let us know that the gene is not Chinese in origin.

However, it is so trendy to claim that everyone is Chinese, African, Turk and Hispanic in one -- so let's not build the fence to Mexico, and let's admit Turkey to the European Union. Don't worry about immigration, we are all the same.

The constant, repetitive assertion that race is not rooted in biology, but is a social concept, fulfills a similar purpose. And, actually, racial categories might really be more a social convenience than a biological product. But social or not, race is an important concept, and a valid concept, and these are the points on which we should focus. Race explains group behavior, group dynamics, and group performance, and it is as important a concept as the family or the ethnicity is, both of which are social constructs, too.

The reality of race is that there aren't hard, clear-cut borders. It is a flexible and inclusive concept; the leftists should actually love it. The fields of transition that do exist are a matter of social convenience, but race introduces order into the manifoldness and describes reality. If all other factors are equal, race still describes and explains observable differences. Human beings recognize race and make it a parameter of their actions. Their behavior and conduct is altered by the recognition of race.

Already a young child can distinguish a Negro from a European based on a synthesis of his phenotypical traits (not necessarily color alone, as the albino Negro is not mistaken for a European). Whether an octroon would be considered European or not, is surely a matter of social convenience and acquired knowledge. But do the fluent transitions render race invalid? Not if one considers other concepts that have fluent transitions valid. Most concepts are characterized by them. At what size, equipment and design does an automobile cease to be an automobile and begins to become a truck?

I feel that none of the arguments egalitarians have presented, shatter the existence of race or the significance race has in the social world. Disregarding the fact that not only human individuals but also human groups have system characteristics that differ and that race is an important factor in human relations can only lead to erroneous policies with disastrous consequences.

[Horagalles]

That's remarkably specific!

Either Andrew Graham-Dixon and friends have access to a super-accurate DNA test that the rest of the world is hitherto unaware of or they're telling porkie pies. Hmm, I wonder. ;)

What's the betting that these overzealous multi-cult loons have taken something like 0.94% North African or East Asian from a person's DNA results and wrongly presented it as proof of recent Subsaharan African or Chinese ancestry?That was also my thought. If we are all mixed, how is it possible to attribute DNA to a certain area:jeer ?!
How do they know it's not the other way round? That Turks, Chinese, Ukrainians, Subsaharans don't have "English Genes".
I mean: There were Galatians in Turkey, Togars in China, Ukrainians in are related to Goth etc.



Sometimes I think, they don't know remotely, what the meaning is of what they are measuring.

If phenotype and DNA do not somehow correlate. Then possibly the DNA is not indicating anything meaningful. Mapping DNA is one thing interpreting its meaning is another.

[Fortis_in_Arduis]

Th
If phenotype and DNA do not somehow correlate. Then possibly the DNA is not indicating anything meaningful. Mapping DNA is one thing interpreting its meaning is another.

This is what confuses me. The sub-races and the haplotypes do have an overall correlation, but I have heard it said that there is generally more genetic variance between white peoples than between black and white people.

Surely the number-crunchers are applying a quantitative analysis to something which is qualitative?

Anyway, as I said, we need a voluntary audit and for the results to be fed into one of those huge computers:

http://imagesource.allposters.com/images/pic/FIP/NP-00212-C~Univac-Early-Computer-Posters.jpg

[Kaiser]

What theses DNA test do'nt reveal is how far in the past the admixture accured.

Exactly! At one point, I am sure that that the Daschund and Rottweiler both had the same daddy. They even still have the same markings now whereas negroids, asians, and Whites do not. They have evolved and have been selectively bred apart. And we certainly do not see people buying Dashunds to patrol industrial parks.



So to use my own example as a case in point...there just doesn't exist the technology to definitively prove your ancestry in any meaningful way..

I do, however, believe affinity and a sence of racial identity...so follow your instinct ..if you feel ethnically Germanic, and even Viking if you want to tie it down that far...then why not...? You're probably nearer the mark than some spurious DNA assay..



False. And, False again, brother. The technology does exist. The race-mixers do not want to publish what we already know is so blatently true. And it is a false liberal notion that you can be whatever you want to be. Telling Johnny the slobering retard that he can become an astronaut if he sets his feeble mind to it only frustrates Johnny and insults intelligent people everywhere. Telling a negroid he can be White is equally sick and wrong. But hey, the liberal mantra is if it feels good do it right? Unless of course your're an evil "nazi".

Ok. I need to understand the difference between DNA, haplotypes and sub-races and how the hell to classify people.



Start by reading:

The Races And Peoples Of Europe is a book that was published in 1977 by Bertil Lundman of Sweden. The book classifies europeans into 10 subraces, which are:

scando-nordid
faelish
west-meditarranean
dinarid
east-baltid
east-alpine
scando-lappid
east-meditarranid
armenid
arabid



At the end of the day, we will need a huge genetic audit and we will have to feed all those stats into a very large computer (The Matrix perhaps???) and map everything?



Amen! The human genome has already been mapped out. This is an idea I presented before.

I, for one, would like to see a Department Of Racial Identity, or D.O.R.I. It need not be "racist" at all. Simply scientific in nature. By identifying the human genome and the modern discoveries in DNA, we could use that as a means to identify every (willing) person's racial identity markers on Earth. This endeavor would actually be very good for jews and negroids as well. Finding a cure of Tay Sachs and Sickle Cell Anemia comes to mind.

It would work like this:

A complete revisited study of racial uniqueness could be instituted absent of political bias. Besides skull patterns, bone structure, and other physical traits, behavior, pheromones, brain and body chemistry, intelligence, and even esoteric tendencies toward religion could be recorded. Then, people the world over could voluntarily submit to an analysis of what lineage/lineages they hail from. Even a (voluntary) fee could be imposed to help cover the cost of this research. For those wishing to associate with other members of their family tree, they could submit a request to do so and at the discretion of the individual members such confidential correspondence could also voluntarily be formed. If one wants to continue practicing miscegenation instead, so be it. D.O.R.I. is a program simply designed to accurately study racial peculiarity.

The possibilities are endless in not only forming racial bonds and the wholesome pursuit of racial identity, rather, multiple defects and diseases could be thus tracked and eventually cured with far more ease and empirical validity than currently exists.

The dawning of the new day of humankind could finally evolve into the next phase of development and blossom into a racial utopia for all. Besides major diseases, even the need for corrective vision, dental work, and obesity could be solved to the benefit of every human on this planet. Homo Sapiens-3 (cubed) or Human SuperWise, could finally walk the earth in sufficient numbers to aid all of mankind.

The Wise Seers of www.skadi.net should form a panel at D.O.R.I. which classifies much of this planet's populace for sure!

BUT WE MUST GAIN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONTROL FIRST FOR THIS TO BLOSSOM!

[Thruthheim]

Who's been watching this show then? It's on right now, I just caught a glimpse, but i made sure I didn't watch most of it due to the obvious motives of such a programme.

What did you think of the show?

[Monkshood]

Who's been watching this show then? It's on right now, I just caught a glimpse, but i made sure I didn't watch most of it due to the obvious motives of such a programme.

What did you think of the show?

Well it's on Channel Four, what is there to expect? "Everyone's mixed race and there is no such thing as English anyway". Maybe it's a simple case of perspective. Let's look into the DNA at Channel Four:

The Chief Executive of Channel 4 is Jew Michael Grade, who succeeded its creator Jew Jeremy Isaacs. The endless diet of filth and perversion which Channel 4 feeds to the public has earned Michael Grade the sobriquet Britain's "pornographer-in-chief".

Managing Director of Channel Four International Ltd and Director of Acquisitions at C4 is Jew Colin Leventhal. This busy man's acquisitions for the channel have included such American shows as Roseanne and The Cosby Show which are produced by Jew Caryn Mandabach's Carsey Werner company.

The next time you have the misfortune to see the disgusting pieces of decadence which so often pass as "plays" on Channel 4, you should direct your complaint to the channel's Head of Drama, Jew David Aukin, or the Senior Commissioning Editor for Drama, Jew Peter Ansorge, although the latter spoke out strongly in favour of the sympathetic depiction of incest on the soap Brookside at peak family viewing time.

If, on the other hand, you are offended by the extreme "liberal" tone and content of Channel Four News, reflect on the fact that the News Editor since March 1996 has been Jew Sara Nathan, supported by Jew Elinar Goodman. While Jon Snow, the extremist liberal Channel Four newscaster is not Jewish, he has made his sympathies clear by joining Jewish journalists in addressing a Jewish Chronicle sponsored meeting on ethics in journalism.

Channel 4's youth programme production company, Planet 24, has, according to the Jewish Chronicle "an uncanny knack of fronting its popular Channel 4 programmes with blondish Jewish women." These include Jew Dani Behr playingaleading role on The Word and Surf Polatoes and Jew Gabi Roslin of the Big Breakfast and the Gabi Roslin Show. etc etc etc etc etc
http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/gbmedia/gbmedia.htm

[Oswiu]

I just watched it, and was not surprised at what a load of shite it proved to be!
The central aim was not to examine English ancestry and Englishness, but to prove Ian Wright is 'English'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/presenters/media/wright_2.jpg
Norman Tebbitt turned out to be a highly typical Englishman, and this was immediately described as 'boring' - that's right everyone, go out and breed with the nearest African, wouldn't want to be 'boring' like Norman Tebbitt! Perhaps there's no coincidence that such an old grey-haired 'uncool' figure as himself was chosen to represent 'normal Englishmen', and thus link grey Toryism and fuddyduddyness with old style Englishness.
When the smarmy condescending presenter was talking about this, he made sure to make clear in one sentence which stuck out "Mixture is good". Er, why? :shrug

I don't really have to explain how they've twisted the science to the regulars here, but suffice to say for anyone else less familiar with the subject - look at Tebbitt's analysis - there was so much 'Near Eastern' and so much 'SE European' or whatever; these are therefore an INTEGRAL part of a typical Englishman, and shouldn't be referred to under these misleading geographical names!

I would like to know just what right of complaint, if any, I have against such blatant politicking? Is Channel Four unfortunately free to spout whatever lies and twisted half-truths it pleases, or is there some way of pulling them up on this?

[Derek]

"What a load of Rubbish"!

All dogs evolved from the wolf, but they don't all share the same genes.

Englishness evolved from 1066. Black blood is chemically different to white blood, you will never receive black blood if you need a blood transfusion!

Derek.

[Sigurd Volsung]

They didn't even tell the audience how they conducted this so-called 'scientific analysis'. I was quite suprised as the vast majority of the people on the show appeared to be either Anglo-Saxon or some kind of Atlantid-Keltic intermediates -- that is if we use our own amateur understanding of anthropological taxonomy.

They even made a comment which aroused my suspicion, as they claimed that at least every Englishman has some form of "South-East Asian, Middle Eastern, or South-Eastern European heritage", something I fail to agree with. Can you imagine that yourself?

Personally, I think it's just a scam to make Englishmen feel inadequate about themselves and systematically make us believe that we are not -- dare I say -- 'pure' enough amongst other nationalities; if this happened to, say, the Scottish or Irish, there would be uproar!

[Æmeric]

They even made a comment which aroused my suspicion, as they claimed that at least every Englishman has some form of "South-East Asian, Middle Eastern, or South-Eastern European heritage", something I fail to agree with. Can you imagine that yourself?

That comment implies or would leave persons who believe it to be true with the impression that all English people have an Vietnamese, Arab or Greek ancestor within the last couple of hundred years. By not explaining that the testing shows common ancestry from many thousands of years ago the producers are intentionally misleading the public & are helping to spread the Blair lie that Britain has always been a nation of immigrants.

[Oswiu]

They didn't even tell the audience how they conducted this so-called 'scientific analysis'.
Typical of how our 'democratic' liberal media chattering classes look down on the people, and unashamedly use any tactic against them; here blinding them with 'science'. As soon as science says anything they don't like, it's subjective, or even 'institutionally racist/patriarchal' etc., but if they can find some justification for their utopian schemes then it's Gospel. :cuss

[SubGnostic]

You can make unquestionable truths of whatever rubbish or blatant propaganda with the blessing of "science". All healthy humans share the same genes. It's the alleles, eg. mutations, that vary. So consider this: northern Europeans traditionally drink raw milk, whereas Mediterranean people eat cheese because it is low in lactose. The mutation that keeps a gene responsible for the production of lactase (an enzyme necessary for the digestion of lactose) on after infancy is more frequent in Northern Europeans than in Southerners. But the same is true for the Bedouin and Tuareg nomad tribes, the Tutsi and the Fulani (a western African tribe); because they have a similar history of pastoralism. These people are bound to have genetic similarities, but not because of shared ancestry!

[Tancred]

This programme was just a clever piece of left wing propaganda. Scientifically, utterly meaningless. Basically, with genetics, you can virtually prove that men are apes, so using this method to try to 'prove' that the English are a mixed race has zero scientific validity. Dropping some wine into beer will not turn the beer into wine any more than some Arab ancestry will turn an otherwise very white man into an Arab!

The truth is that every white European - without exception - has some non-European ancestry. This is hardly surprising, given that mankind has moved around quite a lot over many thousands of years. But what does this prove? That whites are not white? Nonsense! Races do exist and there are clear and visible phenotypical differences that prove this beyond any doubt whatsoever. Using genetics to disprove this cannot eliminate this simple fact any more than it can prove that men and apes are equal just because they share 98% of their DNA. Absurd.

[Leofric]

From a linguistic perspective, I would say that their main problem (aside from being liars) is that they're working with an outdated semantic model.

Decades ago, someone got the cool idea that words meant the presence or absence of a set of characteristics. So the word man means [+human][+adult][+male], while woman means [+human][+adult][-male], and so forth. You can even find dictionaries they made with every entry broken down into a list of semantic features like this.

The base assumption behinds this older model is that everything exists in some kind of binary opposition. It's either on or off.

More recently, semanticists have realized that that's not how people see the world at all, really. Instead, they figured, it's more of a prototype model. Take the words boot and shoe. Can you find the dividing line between those two words by breaking each down into semantic features? Not a chance! With footwear on the border between the two, you won't find a lot of agreement among native speakers about whether it's one or the other. But with something closer to the prototypical boot, everyone will call it a boot, and with something closer to the prototypical shoe, everyone will call it a shoe.

That's a lot closer to how people define nationalities like English. We've all got this idea in our heads of the prototypical Englishman. When we meet someone, if he's closer to the Englishman prototype than he is to any other competing prototypes, then we call him English. If he's not, then we call him whatever he's closer to. If he's kind of equidistant from a couple of possible models, we hesitate, or flounder, or hyphenate, or something else.

These folks are trying to do high-tech research to prop up an antiquated semantic model. They think that they can define English in terms of semantic features, one of which is a feature related to genetics. If they can show that most Englishmen lack the requisite feature, then they're done.

Well, that'd be fine if that were the way we really used language, but it's not; and most semanticists realize that. Nobody in real life defines English in terms of a semantic feature analysis. The prototype model is a much better fit of the way the word is defined. And prototypes of Englishness do exist!

As does Englishness itself.

So, as a linguistics student, this show seems about as meaningful to me as a documentary on how someone is using the Hubble telescope to calculate the epicycles of Pluto would seem to an astronomer.

[Hardrada]

I just watched it, and was not surprised at what a load of shite it proved to be!
The central aim was not to examine English ancestry and Englishness, but to prove Ian Wright is 'English'.



Oswiu,

If this was the premise of the programme, did they do a test on his DNA...?

It may well have shown European elements in his DNA, if his paternal ancestor was Anglo Saxon...A lot of these paternity incidents, as they are known, happened during the slaving era...but that said, it doesn't make him ethnically English.

Englishness is defined, I think, by having an established origin in this country beyond the Norman Conquest, and there are very few families outside the Royal family that can make this assertion...( They're a real mix as well, by the way...not counting the extensive German influence from the Hanoverians, and of course Victoria and Albert)

I think the central issue of this programme was not one of ethnic identity, but more the concept of nation status and what this confers on its inhabitants.

Ian Wright may well consider himself Natively English, in that he was born here, but ....

"A dog can be born in a stable, but it doesn't make him a horse...."

(- and I wouldn't wish to insult him or anyone who is clearly a productive citizen and wears their English nationality with pride,-)

English is derived from a term which described the original Angles who settled here over 1500 years ago, and their homeland was Angeln, a province of what is now Jutland.

So if you can prove a DNA link with these folk, or their descendants the Danes, then I think you have a right to call yourself English..

I forked out on a Y line DNA test amd I'm I1c continental...largest concentration to be found in NW Germany and Denmark.....

Get a Y line test all you male Skadi members, and lets see who's really English..tee hee !!:D


Love and fraternal best wishes,

H

[æþeling]

Originally Posted by Fortis In Arduis
Who are the English?


The English population, I believe, are largely Palaeolithic/Mesolithic settlers. After that the genetics, and archaeology, seem to support a minor Neolithic settlement. The genetics also show a minor R1a element, which is often linked to the Indo-European/Kurgan/Corded Ware peoples. I prefer Mallory’s theories over Renfrew’s, so I would support that. There is little to no evidence of an Iron Age settlement so Celtic culture and languages seem to have develop by acculturation, and may contain many pre-IE loan words. I believe that there is substantial evidence to support a Germanic settlement, and I think Heinrich Harke’s figures are about right, he suggests 200,000 Germanic immigrants into a population of 1-2 million.

We get our name from the Angles, whose name originates from Ingui’s Folk, Ingui being either the God Nerthus, or his human avatar.

The idea of an English ethnos exists as long ago as the Angle tribe back in the Cimbric Peninsula. After they had migrated to the British Isles, possibly whole sale, they encountered the native Britons, a mainly Celtic speaking population. It seems that the Saxons may not have settled in large numbers in the British Isles, and it also seems from an interesting study in Stephen Openheimer’s book that the Angles and Saxons may have differed somewhat. Linguistically the Angle dialect may have been closer to the Norse dialect before the Danish settlement. None the less they were similar enough for Bede to understand the concept of an English people as early as the 8th century. The Britons were most probably largely absorbed, losing their language and culture over time, although elements did survive with Cumbric being spoken in parts of Derbyshire as late as the 11th century. In western England, and south of the Thames they may have formed the majority of the population.

With the Danish settlements of the 9th century, numbers unknown, English culture became more linked to that of Scandinavia, although even before the Norman Conquest England was beginning to look across the Channel as much as she did across the North Sea. The Norman Conquest, of course, ripped England away from the northern world and embroiled it in Western European affairs for practically the rest of our history.

For me the English people are not Celtic, or Germanic, or Latin, or British, we are simply English. As an Englishman whose ancestors mostly come from the counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire I can say that my forefathers were Angles who sailed down the Trent some 1,500 years ago and named this land. But they were probably also the people who erected the stone circle at Arbor Low, or elsewhere in Derbyshire, and they were probably Brigantine tribesman who lived around Chesterfield at the time of Queen Cartimandua.

Whether you want to argue over varieties of Northern European peoples does not alter the fact that the English are racially homogenous, in fact Northern Europe is one of the least diverse areas on earth. English culture today is the product of the welding of several different, but closely related, peoples into one distinct ethnos.

[æþeling]

Originally Posted by Hardrada
Englishness is defined, I think, by having an established origin in this country beyond the Norman Conquest,


Why before the Norman Conquest? The Normans are a part of our identity, whether some of us like it or not.

I forked out on a Y line DNA test amd I'm I1c continental...largest concentration to be found in NW Germany and Denmark.....

The problem with these tests is that they can give you one, and only one, unbroken paternal link. They don’t take into account, indeed they cannot test, any other paternal ancestor.

So for example, given what I know about my paternal ancestry and its area of concentration, which is the Trent River valley, and the Salford area of Manchester, I could have the test and it could come up with most likely a Germano-Danish link, or an outside shot Irish, or possibly Norwegian. All that would tell me is that out of the thousands of my forefathers, one of them came from that region.

[Hardrada]

Why before the Norman Conquest? The Normans are a part of our identity, whether some of us like it or not.



The problem with these tests is that they can give you one, and only one, unbroken paternal link. They don’t take into account, indeed they cannot test, any other paternal ancestor.

So for example, given what I know about my paternal ancestry and its area of concentration, which is the Trent River valley, and the Salford area of Manchester, I could have the test and it could come up with most likely a Germano-Danish link, or an outside shot Irish, or possibly Norwegian. All that would tell me is that out of the thousands of my forefathers, one of them came from that region.


Yes, agreed, but in an unbroken line you are descended from a single male, and you have inherited a full 50% of your chromosonal material from him.

The Y-line can only hint at ethnicity, I know, and gives only the broadest indications of the origins of a particular ethnic group.
But, if you combine this with what you know about your male ancestry, particularly if your ancestor lived in the Danelaw prior to the Industrial Revolution, then this narrows down the possibilities a bit..

My GGG Grandfather was born near Derby, married a lass from Alfreton, and finally settled in Chesterfield...so I would contend that in the male line I am likely descended from Anglo Danish Mercians...
Not least because my haplotype is rare but concenntrated in the Danelaw and East Anglia, and on the Continent is centred around NW Germany and Denmark.
Pheotypically my family look Germanic as well, which even if you accept the influences of the female line, hints at an "invader" origin.

All entirely speculative of course...but I think I have a strong case for identifying with the Danes rather than with indigenous Celtic Brits....:)

KR's

H

[Æmeric]

Yes, agreed, but in an unbroken line you are descended from a single male, and you have inherited a full 50% of your chromosonal material from him.


Humans have 46 chromosomes. Males inherit the Y chromosome from a single male ancestor, 50% of the 23rd pair but 1/46 overall.

[æþeling]

Originally Posted by Hardrada
Not least because my haplotype is rare but concenntrated in the Danelaw and East Anglia,


Rare? Probably around 32% of the English population, mostly concentrated in East Anglia, and parts of the East Midlands, are haplo group I, is it your specific I sub-group that is rare?

I would hazard, thinking about it more, that I would probably be an R1b haplo type, I don't really see the point in having the test done to prove just one paternal line, but it would probably fit with the overall history. The Trent valley saw heavy Angle settlement, but although the Angles had dark hair as well as the Britons, all my family look more like Celts than your stereotypical Germanic types. More Conan the Cimmerian with our piercing blue eyes and dark locks!

My maternal ancestry is north-east Derbyshire, no Angles there, but some later Danish settlement, and there is also some recent Irish and/or Scottish in our blood as well.

[Hardrada]

Humans have 46 chromosomes. Males inherit the Y chromosome from a single male ancestor, 50% of the 23rd pair but 1/46 overall.

Ok, Now I'm proper confused..

I thought that Men were XY and women XX, such that the Y is inherited from the father and it is this which determines our sex....

Similarly the father will have inherited his Y chromosone from his father, and so on...which is why it remains relatively unchanged...but it still constitutes 50% overall doesn't it...?

In any event, I'm still a bloody Dane so there...!!:D

H

[Hardrada]

Rare? Probably around 32% of the English population, mostly concentrated in East Anglia, and parts of the East Midlands, are haplo group I, is it your specific I sub-group that is rare?




Yes,

"I" constitutes about 18% of all haplotypes in Europe as a whole..but it may be higher in the U.K ,because we are by and large more homogenous....
I in the UK is found in the Western Isles, Scotland, Northern England and the East coast predominantly..
However there are several different clades of I and some have profoundly differing histories....
It's been suggested that the "Isles" variety came here before the Romans, for instance, while other clades are repersentative of later Germanic and Scandinavian settlers/invaders...

My sub clade is rare, for reasons which I don't know to be honest...but it tends to be found in comparatively large numbers in the Danelaw and on the Eastern Seaboard.

I think that the influence of the Y chromosone is underestimated...there used to be a saying that " the woman is the vessel but a man's strength derives from the father..."

No doubt some of the female Skadi members will have something to say to this...but it's not meant in a derogatory way, I assure you..!!:D

All the best,

H

[Æmeric]

Ok, Now I'm proper confused..

I thought that Men were XY and women XX, such that the Y is inherited from the father and it is this which determines our sex....

Similarly the father will have inherited his Y chromosone from his father, and so on...which is why it remains relatively unchanged...but it still constitutes 50% overall doesn't it...?

In any event, I'm still a bloody Dane so there...!!:D

H
XY & XX refers to the 23rd pair of chromosomes. The other 22 pairs are XX. It's the 23rd pair that determines your sex. A woman will have 23 pairs of XX. A man will have 22 pairs of XX & one of XY. The Y chromosome cannot exchange genetic material with the X chromosome which is why it is passes unchanged from father to son except for rare occurences of mutations.

[Hardrada]

Aaah now I understand...Thanks Madoc....which rather blows my male orientated theory out of the water...although I still believe in cultural and racial affinity...which is probably not genetically predetermined admittedly..

Why do I feel such a strong affinity with the Danes I wonder...should I see a shrink...?!!

Perhaps it's wish fulfillment..since they were winners and I like to identify with them for this...


Thanks again mate,

H

[ladybright]

So does the show only look at the Y chomosone? I would think that the mitachondrial(sp?) DNA that is only passed in the female line would be as useful or more because men were more likely to travel and breed further from their homeland. I have not done any research into DNA or this show.

[Hardrada]

So does the show only look at the Y chomosone? I would think that the mitachondrial(sp?) DNA that is only passed in the female line would be as useful or more because men were more likely to travel and breed further from their homeland. I have not done any research into DNA or this show.

That's an excellent point Ladybright....

The more static the DNA, the more easy it is to spot a geographical correlation.

I'm considering taking an MtDNA test, which should give a broader pictire of my genetic heritage...

Love and respect,

H

[VseUmnieYaDurak]

All nations are social constructs, but not all are equally good constructs ;)

Oh, guys, let it be!
Scottish ressentiment is alright. They are a rest of the great and ancient pagan nordish culture and were opressed by the English governments and Kings for centuries in very harsh way. That's in past today, so let him personally dream out what he wishes.
Scottish "construct" is not worse than english. We are all awful.

[Chlodovech]

If you want to talk about a pure social construct, then Equality should be the topic. ;)

But really, the 'social construct' argument doesn't convince me. Yeah, so what - the nation-state emerged out of the interaction between people in this or that place - as did culture (though I don't think race and culture are separable), and it was sexual intercourse that made the races as they are.

"Man made" things are real as well, you can't deny what you are. Just ask the peoples struggling for independence. :)

The real question is: Who do you love?

[Æmeric]

So does the show only look at the Y chomosone? I would think that the mitachondrial(sp?) DNA that is only passed in the female line would be as useful or more because men were more likely to travel and breed further from their homeland. I have not done any research into DNA or this show.

I didn't see the program, I believe it was only aired in Britain. But they were not examining Y chromosomes. Some those tested were female such as Carol Thatcher.

[æþeling]

Originally Posted by Hardrada
It's been suggested that the "Isles" variety came here before the Romans, for instance, while other clades are repersentative of later Germanic and Scandinavian settlers/invaders...


Yes I have read theories about that before. Some clades are thought to date back as far as the Palaeolithic representing a two pronged re-settlement of the British Isles.

My sub clade is rare, for reasons which I don't know to be honest...but it tends to be found in comparatively large numbers in the Danelaw and on the Eastern Seaboard.

Who did you have your test with out of interest?

I think that the influence of the Y chromosone is underestimated...

Don’t see how, none of us blokes would be blokes without it!!

[æþeling]

Originally Posted by Ladybright
So does the show only look at the Y chomosone?


It did.

I would think that the mitachondrial(sp?) DNA that is only passed in the female line would be as useful or more because men were more likely to travel and breed further from their homeland. I have not done any research into DNA or this show.

The Y chromosome tends to be a lot more accurate in studying migration as its mutational rate tends to be greater than in mtDNA. Also ancestral lines die out quicker in Y Chromosomes meaning that the ones that survive tend to be linked to specific regions and leave easily recognisable trails. MtDNA is also more easily dispersed within a smaller locality.

[Leofric]

There is little to no evidence of an Iron Age settlement so Celtic culture and languages seem to have develop by acculturation,
Why would this happen?

I ask because a lot of folks try to argue for continuity from paleolithic times and against prehistoric mass invasions/settlements of people based more or less solely on genetic evidence (about which relatively little is known) and lack of evidence of invasion.

There is, for example, a whole group of people who suppose that there was no IE invasion of Europe or Germanic invasion of Britain. I have even read some studies that suggest that there has never been a mass migration of people in the history of Europe and its surrounding islands. Tell that to my grandmother-in-law from East Prussia.

At any rate, all such theories posit the idea that the languages we see attested in given areas (which themselves are clearly IE or Germanic or what have you) have spread not from settlement or invasion but merely through cultural contact.

Well for the most part, people don't adopt foreign languages as their own unless the people who speak that language natively are a superior civilization. And almost all of these theories about language transfer are said to have occurred at a time when the transferred language was spoken by a civilization that seems to have been in every way inferior to the civilizations that preceded them in the same space.

Why would pre-Celtic Britons adopt Celtic language? If they could construct Stonehenge, why would they choose to accept the language of a people who were basically loose bands of barbarians? And having absorbed Celtic language so thoroughly, why would they then fail to adopt Latin, the language of a far more advanced civilization with whom they had intimate contact for four centuries? One would think that the Celtic languages south of Hadrian's Wall would have been lost as quickly as Greek was by the Egyptians when confronted with a vastly superior Arabic-speaking military presence — quicker actually, since Celtic was never as prestigious as Greek. Unless it was their ethnic language, and they were actualy Celts, descended from a common IE stock and set down in Britain.

Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of not assuming that mass invasion took place in the absence of evidence. But we shouldn't jump off the other side of the boat, either, assuming that there was no mass invasion in the absence of evidence.

Language spread just doesn't really work like that. The languages of less advanced cultures only supplant those of superior ones when there's an invasion (like Bengali in London). And the language of one culture is unlikely to supplant the language of an equally advanced culture without an invasion of some kind or another.




So does the show only look at the Y chomosone? I would think that the mitachondrial(sp?) DNA that is only passed in the female line would be as useful or more because men were more likely to travel and breed further from their homeland. I have not done any research into DNA or this show.
Both Y chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA represent a rather small amount of genetic material. Just six generations before mine (going back to the American Revolution), that represents DNA had by just 1/32 of my ancestors in that generation. Going back to the fifth century, it's an even smaller percentage.

To make judgments about prehistoric populations and their activites based such few data seems like quite a daring extrapolation to me.

[æþeling]

Originally Posted by Leofric
Why would this happen?


Well first the reason that the Celtic invasion scenario is no longer seen as credible basically rests on the archaeological evidence. We find continuity of settlement rather than abandonment/destruction, and no new settler communities. Its not to say that there wasn’t any migration, we know the Belgae, and we suspect the Arras Culture, were migrants, but there is no good solid evidence for a mass migration.

Barry Cunliffe, Stephen Openheimer, and I believe Simon James; believe that Insular Celtic languages may have been spread via trade routes. We know that the western parts of the British Isles were linked to Armorica and Iberia, mainly through trading in metals. Copper was being mined in Spain by 3,000BC; the only other place in the Atlantic at that time was Ireland. It is thought that the Celtic languages may have arose as a lingua-franca, the same way that English is the global trading language today, even in countries that the English have never settled. Incidentally some studies suggest that Gaelic may have split from Brythonic very early. Barry Cunliffe supports Colin Renfrew’s belief that IE languages were perhaps spread in the Neolithic by farming, and that the Celtic languages may have arisen in the Atlantic-Mediterranean trade zone.

[Leofric]

Barry Cunliffe, Stephen Openheimer, and I believe Simon James; believe that Insular Celtic languages may have been spread via trade routes. We know that the western parts of the British Isles were linked to Armorica and Iberia, mainly through trading in metals. Copper was being mined in Spain by 3,000BC; the only other place in the Atlantic at that time was Ireland. It is thought that the Celtic languages may have arose as a lingua-franca, the same way that English is the global trading language today, even in countries that the English have never settled. Incidentally some studies suggest that Gaelic may have split from Brythonic very early. Barry Cunliffe supports Colin Renfrew’s belief that IE languages were perhaps spread in the Neolithic by farming, and that the Celtic languages may have arisen in the Atlantic-Mediterranean trade zone.
It could have been by trade routes, but why Celtic? What prestige did the ethnic Celts have that made it so advantageous to learn their language?

People learn and use English today because the English (and those who have assimilated to them) are the dominant civilization on the planet — militarily, economically, technologically, and in every other measure of sociolinguistic prestige.

So why would Celtic be the lingua franca of an Atlantic-Mediterranean trade route? Surely there were other peoples who were stronger than the Celts?

And why would IE languages spread by farming if PIE was purportedly a language (or language group) spoken by non-agricultural pastoral nomads? Why would an agricultural civilization adopt the language of nearby pastoral nomads in the absence of invasion or settlement?

I know you may not have the answers for this — we're talking about serious scholars' speculations, it seems. But maybe we should question the validity of their speculations a bit. Just as there is no archaeological evidence to support the idea of a mass invasion or settlement, there seems to be little to no evidence supporting the idea of a linguistic spread without such an invasion or settlement. I know archaeologists don't like it when linguists use their training to make broad judgments about archaeology (and rightly so), but it's just as silly for the archaeologists to make broad judgments about linguistics.

The facts are, it seems to me, that Celtic languages, a branch of the IE language family, are spoken natively in Britain and nearby islands, and that we have no idea how that came to be. We have no good evidence for a mass invasion (the linguists' claim about archaeology). We have no good evidence of language spread through cultural contact (the archaeologists' claim about linguistics). We just know that Celtic is there and don't know why.

[æþeling]

Originally Posted by Leofric
It could have been by trade routes, but why Celtic? What prestige did the ethnic Celts have that made it so advantageous to learn their language?


This depends on where you place the origins of the Celts. As I understand it the linguistic evidence for the Hallstatt Culture is quite flimsy, but the later La Tene Culture is a definite Celtic culture. The spread of La Tene Culture could be seen as being within existing Celtic speaking regions, if you believe that the Celtic tongue is far earlier and originated elsewhere.

The “elsewhere” generally being southern France, and relying on an error in interpreting Herodotus. Apparently Herodotus was under the impression that the Danube begins in the Pyrenees, so when he states that the Celts arose on the head waters of the Danube, 19th century scholars naturally assumed in Germany.

It could well be that the Celtic tongues, if they arose in southern France, already occupied a well travelled, and wealthy, trade route between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, which in turn would have had a knock on effect on the out lying trade routes along the Atlantic coast.

And why would IE languages spread by farming if PIE was purportedly a language (or language group) spoken by non-agricultural pastoral nomads? Why would an agricultural civilization adopt the language of nearby pastoral nomads in the absence of invasion or settlement?

They didn’t. Colin Renfrew’s Anatolian theory states that the IE languages arose in Anatolia; as opposed to J. P. Mallory’s theory that the IE languages arose in the modern Ukraine. I personally prefer Mallory’s interpretation.

I know you may not have the answers for this — we're talking about serious scholars' speculations, it seems.

Since the 60’s “invasion theories” have generally been frowned upon. It is a question of separating what can be readily deduced from the evidence and what would seem to be scholars trying to make a name for them selves. Don’t over look PC bias either; there is a fair bit of that around.


The facts are, it seems to me, that Celtic languages, a branch of the IE language family, are spoken natively in Britain and nearby islands, and that we have no idea how that came to be. We have no good evidence for a mass invasion (the linguists' claim about archaeology). We have no good evidence of language spread through cultural contact (the archaeologists' claim about linguistics). We just know that Celtic is there and don't know why.


That is pretty much it. We know Celtic languages were spoken in the British Isles when the Romans arrived, we know that Old English borrowed very little from them, and that apart from a few remote areas like the Derbyshire uplands and the Fens, Old Welsh/British was driven to the western fringes of the island.

An interesting point. A number of scholars insist that the Celts never called themselves Celts, but as Caesar says in the opening of his Gallic Wars, “those who call themselves Celts, who we call Gauls”.