I've started to wonder about this, because we refer to ourselves as 'Anglo-Saxons' largely, but the Saxons were people who came to Britain and invaded, hence the name 'England', which was firat called 'Angland' by the Saxons.

All European nations can be grouped by the race, such as the Scandinavian people of Northern Europe and the Slavic people of Eastern Europe.

But us British are a mongrel race, having a genetic ancestry given to us by the Romans, the French, the Vikings, the Normans, the Saxons and probably more.

I also watched a WWII documentary that said that the British were decently- treated in POW camps because they were the 'superior' race of Anglo-Saxons, and that so were Americans because they were of British descent.

So... are we Anglo-Saxons? And if so, whywould we be named after just another culture who invaded the Isles?

Please try and be civil about this...

P.S. sorry for any spelling or grammatical errors, I'm on my phone and can't even find the edit button.

They are, by-and-large, members of the human race.

I know that's should be a discussion topic about the British race, but you should have a look at this: English people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people

Very interesting stuff in there !!!!!

Historically, there are only 3 races- Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid (white, black, and yellow). The peoples who make up early Britain are all white. If you want to break down the races into ethnic groups, it's a whole different story.

err......English?

The Angles were also a Germanic tribe who moved west. They were not native to the island.

edit- The Celts came over from France, so they're not native, either.

edit- The modern Britains are a mix of all the tribes who moved west. Most of the groups seemed to be German or French.

Britons mixed with some German tribes mixed with some Angles, Saxons and some Normans and Scandinavians I guess. What race are the English people? A mix of many, so that's why we just call you English people.

Kind of "ethnic soup" I suppose. As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone intermingled to some extent, so broadly speaking a sort of Celtic-Anglo-Norman-Saxon-Viking-everyone-else conglomeration, probably with slightly different proportions depending where in the country you look.

I found some maps.

http://www.dightonrock.com/viking%20map-1.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Britain.Anglo.Saxon.homelands.settlements.400.500.jpg

http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil032d.jpg

http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/mbs201crusades/Lecture%20Five/NormanConquest_files/Norman1066.jpg

This.

Besides nationality; Scottish, English, Welsh, or Irish, I'd say Celtic, Viking, Norman.

Celtic/Viking mostly.

The British almost had another ethnic group in that list: Spanish; had they won during the Armada invasion. The Spanish also is a mix race that includes all kinds of tribes including Germanic(Goths)

Caucasian, but since that isn't what you actually wanted to know, I'd just say English. The place has been established for some time so, English.

the original "Brittan's" died out after the last ice age we don't know why then came a people from northern Spain who had been settling up the coast of France until they made it to Brittan. then came the Celts who did a Columbus on the Spaniards and they all died out for the most part I think people who are Welsh can find some of the blood. after that you all know the story Romans, Angals Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans.

Bretons. If I'm thinking it all correctly... Some of the very old stories back from long ago in that area (Like the King Arthur tales) refer the human race as Bretons back then quite a lot and if I remember correctly, that was in the Great British area.

That's possibly a bit of a tautology as Briton and Breton have the same etymology, IIRC (yes, I really am too lazy to reach over to the OED that's glowering behind me).

Angles and then Saxons moved from the continent, invading islands held by Celts, who had previously invaded islands held by Picts.

If you are a modern resident of the British Isles a likely distinguishing physical characteristic is your feet. Angles and Saxons arrived on feet characterized by a distinct taper from the big toe back to the outer toe while the Celts (Picts had been either exterminated or absorbed by then) were standing on feet with a much more squared off front where the little toe is almost even with the big toe. This was noted in one of the world wars when the standard British army boot was deemed very comfortable by some and called a torture device by others...unaware of the differences in the population the boot was designed for Anglo-Saxon feet and British of Celtic descent had their outermost toes squashed.

As to being well treated out of respect for their "superiority" it could be mentioned that the denizens of the British Isles (with the possible exception of the Picts) all arrived there when they were driven off the continent by other groups.

By Ysmir I hate being called British.

English, Irish, Scotish and Welsh. There is clear differences in all 4.


I think we are Sloads....