Post by Dan Dare on Dec 4, 2023 17:06:24 GMT
Tommo Don't understand this quote dan. The first groups of humans began arriving in what is now England at the end of the last ice age. No one knows who these people were , or what language and culture they had , but they weren't Celts. Who erroneously refers to them as Celtic?
me Nobody hopefully. But I wasn’t refering to the ‘first groups’ that arrived after the Ice Age, but rather to those of Indo-European origin who began to appear later, in the Neolithic. The people who arrived earlier, in the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, were WHG (western hunter-gatherers) who emerged from the refugia after the last glacial maximum and (very sparsely) populated western Europe including the British Isles. But there are very few descendents of these folk around now. As noted, the overwhelming majority of the (native) population of England today are the result of three migrations from the continent, all of common genetic ‘stock’ but differentiated by language and to a lesser extent, culture.
By the end of the 9th century then, the genetic profile of England had become fixed.
Tommo How so? The genetic profile of a country is always in a state of change surely? Of course you also don't need a mass change in people to fundamentally alter the character of a nation…
me I’m not talking about the character of the nation, but rather its genetic profile, as expressed in terms of the dominant haplogroups. In 9th century England the dominant (male) haplogroups were R1b, R1a and I1/I2b just as they are a thousand years later. None of the later wavelets of immigration, whether Normans, Flemish weavers or Huguenots added anything new to the genetic mix. I might note also that neither has the post-famine Irish diaspora.
Tommo Eh? How so? You seem to want to selectively cherry pick some pure English stock to look up to in the dark ages , while ignoring all the rest up to the modern age.
me Until the Jewish immigration of the late 19C and the Afro-Asian wave of the post WWII period all earlier waves of migration were of the same genetic stock (ie haplotypes) as the existing population. I would argue anyway that the migrations of the 19-21C have little had effect since there has been little racial admixture despite official propaganda which would have us believe the opposite. A similar if slightly more complex story applies for the matrilineal line, where the native population is dominated by four or five Mt-DNA haplogroups, all of which are considerably more ancient that the Y-DNA groups.
Tommo Alfred was never king of the English. At one point , his kingdom was a swamp in Somerset , at best , he was king of Wessex. …
me I never said he was. He did however style himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons which he in fact was after 886 except for those in the Danelaw.
Tommo You can quote who you like , but the English language and literature is famous for borrowing.
me I don’t know of any language that isn’t, even French although it is officially frowned upon. But the point was not about language but literature. What do you believe the English have borrowed and from whom?
me Even during the Imperial interlude the English have always been the dominant group within the larger community of England and then the United Kingdom.
Tommo Not sure that is true. It took five hundred years for the anglo saxons to carve out the country we now know as England (for comparison the germanic franks overran much of gaul in 50 years) for a good two hundred years the Danes were a dominant group within England , and then the native English lost that domination after the Norman conquest.
me Once again we appear to be at cross-purposes. My use of ‘dominant’ refered to numerical dominance not political, the time period implied is the tenth century and after and the post-Conquest period of Norman (not French) predominance was both shorter and less profound than popular accounts take it to be.
me Nobody hopefully. But I wasn’t refering to the ‘first groups’ that arrived after the Ice Age, but rather to those of Indo-European origin who began to appear later, in the Neolithic. The people who arrived earlier, in the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, were WHG (western hunter-gatherers) who emerged from the refugia after the last glacial maximum and (very sparsely) populated western Europe including the British Isles. But there are very few descendents of these folk around now. As noted, the overwhelming majority of the (native) population of England today are the result of three migrations from the continent, all of common genetic ‘stock’ but differentiated by language and to a lesser extent, culture.
By the end of the 9th century then, the genetic profile of England had become fixed.
Tommo How so? The genetic profile of a country is always in a state of change surely? Of course you also don't need a mass change in people to fundamentally alter the character of a nation…
me I’m not talking about the character of the nation, but rather its genetic profile, as expressed in terms of the dominant haplogroups. In 9th century England the dominant (male) haplogroups were R1b, R1a and I1/I2b just as they are a thousand years later. None of the later wavelets of immigration, whether Normans, Flemish weavers or Huguenots added anything new to the genetic mix. I might note also that neither has the post-famine Irish diaspora.
Tommo Eh? How so? You seem to want to selectively cherry pick some pure English stock to look up to in the dark ages , while ignoring all the rest up to the modern age.
me Until the Jewish immigration of the late 19C and the Afro-Asian wave of the post WWII period all earlier waves of migration were of the same genetic stock (ie haplotypes) as the existing population. I would argue anyway that the migrations of the 19-21C have little had effect since there has been little racial admixture despite official propaganda which would have us believe the opposite. A similar if slightly more complex story applies for the matrilineal line, where the native population is dominated by four or five Mt-DNA haplogroups, all of which are considerably more ancient that the Y-DNA groups.
Tommo Alfred was never king of the English. At one point , his kingdom was a swamp in Somerset , at best , he was king of Wessex. …
me I never said he was. He did however style himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons which he in fact was after 886 except for those in the Danelaw.
Tommo You can quote who you like , but the English language and literature is famous for borrowing.
me I don’t know of any language that isn’t, even French although it is officially frowned upon. But the point was not about language but literature. What do you believe the English have borrowed and from whom?
me Even during the Imperial interlude the English have always been the dominant group within the larger community of England and then the United Kingdom.
Tommo Not sure that is true. It took five hundred years for the anglo saxons to carve out the country we now know as England (for comparison the germanic franks overran much of gaul in 50 years) for a good two hundred years the Danes were a dominant group within England , and then the native English lost that domination after the Norman conquest.
me Once again we appear to be at cross-purposes. My use of ‘dominant’ refered to numerical dominance not political, the time period implied is the tenth century and after and the post-Conquest period of Norman (not French) predominance was both shorter and less profound than popular accounts take it to be.
