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Are the only true Britons Caucasian ?

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Butts

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No this is not a BNP recruitment slogan.

English,Scottish,Welsh or Irish traditionally they are all thought of as being of the above extraction.

How do non-caucasian current day Britons relate to the almost exclusively white history to be found in Castles and other such institutions stretching back millenia.

Can you be part of something that your forebearers barely existed within ?

I would be interested to hear how non-indigenous modern day Britons feel about this.
 
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A good question, and one which is food for thought in a globalised, post-colonial society...

I can only speak for myself, and as a Caucasian of Celtic and Saxon heritage I'm close to what I'd call the "default" in such a question. However as far as I'm aware none of my ancestors on either side were what one might call landed gentry. Had my heritage been different who knows which part of my history I'd be most comfortable with... I'd like to think that had I been born elsewhere I'd still be fundamentally the same person I am now, but my experiences of life may have been significantly different.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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No this is not a BNP recruitment slogan.

English,Scottish,Welsh or Irish traditionally they are all thought of as being of the above extraction.

How do non-caucasian current day Britons relate to the almost exclusively white history to be found in Castles and other such institutions stretching back millenia.

Can you be part of something that your forebearers barely existed within ?

I would be interested to hear how non-indigenous modern day Britons feel about this.

Put in simplistic terms, the three main sub-divisions are:-
Caucasoid
Mongaloid
Negroid

Only the Caucasoid division were ever known to reach what we call Western Europe in their global movements.
 

tony_mac

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Only the Caucasoid division were ever known to reach what we call Western Europe in their global movements.

I am told, by anthropologists, that the term 'Caucasoid' is pretty much meaningless unless you are broadly referring to peoples from the Caucuses. There is too much diversity to meaningfully classify people into distinct groups like this.

And 'Caucasoid' people did not reach Western Europe at all.
The genetic mutations that cause skin depigmentation only took hold after the populations had reached Northern latitudes, because it becomes a distinct advantage in low levels of sunlight to have paler skin.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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I am told, by anthropologists, that the term 'Caucasoid' is pretty much meaningless unless you are broadly referring to peoples from the Caucuses. There is too much diversity to meaningfully classify people into distinct groups like this.

And 'Caucasoid' people did not reach Western Europe at all.
The genetic mutations that cause skin depigmentation only took hold after the populations had reached Northern latitudes, because it becomes a distinct advantage in low levels of sunlight to have paler skin.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin

If you refer back to my original posting, I was at pains to state that the three main classifications were put in simplistic terms. I was not about to go into a full detailed definition.

The term "Caucasoid" is more specially used as a biological classification that is used in the field of forensic anthropology.
 

tony_mac

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These racial terms are not widely used any more, as they are scientifically pretty meaningless - humans are not split up into distinct 'races' in any biological sense.
Where there is some limited use is because it can help identify groups of people who are more likely to have certain genetic similarities. But even there, its use is usually discouraged in favour of more useful descriptions.
 

GrimsbyPacer

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I have a 1950s atlas which has a whole section on 'races' it really confused me.
Races have no such borders and boundaries, anyone could have a kid with another 'race' member and what would the line be then? It's all based on appearence and genetic history with very little practicallity behind it. I've never liked the names out there such as Caucasian, Negress etc why are they needed exactly? Only to rank people by their look which is totally wrong.

As far as I'm concerned the only races are:
Human, Elf, Orc, Goblins, etc as seen in fantasy, fullstop.
Is it a valid question as to ask what it's like to see a history with no one looking like you in it though. I guess it's ignored to some extent, like US history ignoring the Apache as it's not 'their' history in their eyes.
 

gordonthemoron

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Anglo Saxons aren't Britons (although they are British), Britons are Celts & Picts, dunno where the latter came from but Celts are from Bavaria
 

tony_mac

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I've never liked the names out there such as Caucasian, Negress etc why are they needed exactly? Only to rank people by their look which is totally wrong.
That's pretty much what they have been used for!
The Wikipedia article on the 'Caucasian Race' suggests an interesting history for the term.

There are some uses in terms of genetics; some genes are very much more commonplace in some sections of the population than in others.
It can be handy to be able to describe those sections, e.g.; if you want to find matching people for a drug trial or organ donation.
 

GrimsbyPacer

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Anglo Saxons aren't Britons (although they are British), Britons are Celts & Picts, dunno where the latter came from but Celts are from Bavaria

The Picts tribe are from Ireland I think. This is good point.
Humans have always been migrating since pre-history.
The first Britons must of been some cavemen before civilisation began, also before the English Channel existed.
 

Harbornite

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Anglo Saxons aren't Britons (although they are British), Britons are Celts & Picts, dunno where the latter came from but Celts are from Bavaria


I always associated the Picts with Scotland, I never gave it thought as to where they had come from before.
 

asylumxl

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To me, the only true Caucasians are the inhabitants of the Caucuses. I might be biased though, due to my background.

The term Caucasian has always seemed like an Americanism to me, but perhaps that's because it's rarely used nowadays.
 

Harbornite

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To me, the only true Caucasians are the inhabitants of the Caucuses. I might be biased though, due to my background.

The term Caucasian has always seemed like an Americanism to me, but perhaps that's because it's rarely used nowadays.

Aye, for white people in Europe I prefer using terms like Nordic, Celtic, Saxon, Mediterranean and, if you want to go back further, Indo-Aryan.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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See http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/peoples_01.shtml, but I'm not sure about your statement; if Britain didn't yet exist, how could the inhabitants have been Britons?;)

I note the term "Caucasoid" is used in the report, despite an earlier posting casting doubts upon its usage in modern times.

The last Ice Age experienced in what we call Britain is not very long ago in time and the North Sea was blocked by the formed ice sheets up to a period of circa 10,000 years ago. The melting of these ice led to the changes of land mass stability, with Britain sinking southwards, leading to constant building up of the meltwaters which eventually broke through to form the English Channel.

Our generalised knowledge seems to concentrate on those peoples who inhabited Britain after the last Ice Age and I often wonder as to the genetic types of beings of those peoples who lived in the area that we call Britain prior to that particular epoch. The last known Neanderthal people were living in Britain in Marine Isotope stage 3 that covers a time period of 60,000 to 42,000 years ago.

Has anyone more detailed information to share on this thread concerning human life in the area of Britain in the inter-glacial epochs?
 
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asylumxl

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Before we know it, we will be debating on the language-type of both Finland and Hungary....:D
Why not?

Hungarians like to claim their language is unique, but having learnt some Hungarian because of a past girlfriend, I can tell you it shares a lot of similarities with Turkish. Particularly in terms of grammar and front/back vowels. This isn't surprising if you consider they supposedly came from Central Asia as the Magyar, as did the Turks.
 

Butts

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So do non-caucasians really feel British or one of the four sub-sets ?

If I was born and lived in India as a white person would I feel Indian despite most of those around me being from a different ethnic background.

I suppose the best example would be to ask "white settlers" who remained in Kenya or Nigeria or India after independence. Today most of their siblings would have only experienced "black rule" and not Colonial.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Hungarians like to claim their language is unique, but having learnt some Hungarian because of a past girlfriend, I can tell you it shares a lot of similarities with Turkish. Particularly in terms of grammar and front/back vowels. This isn't surprising if you consider they supposedly came from Central Asia as the Magyar, as did the Turks.

Well that seems to answer half the query. I note that you made no mention of the Finnish language.
 
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