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The English (from Old English '' Ænglisc '') are a Nation and Ethnic Group native to England and speak English . The largest single population of English people reside in England — the largest Constituent Country of the United Kingdom . 10 Downing Street official website . Retrieved 17 August 2007. DEFINITIONS Writing about the "English people" is complicated because England has historically been settled by several waves of invaders and immigrants, and has also spread its influence, and its populace, worldwide. Hence, some writers use the term to refer to a perceived English ethnic group that shares a common ancestry. Others use it more broadly to refer to the 'English nation', which comprises anyone who considers themselves English and are considered English by most other people. The English as an ethnic group It is difficult to clearly define English ethnicity, owing to the close interactions between the English and their neighbours in the British Isles , and the waves of immigration that have added to England's gene pool for thousands of years. The '' Oxford English Dictionary (OED)'' states that the earliest recorded sense of the word 'English' is "Of or belonging to the group of Teutonic peoples collectively known as the ''Angelcynn'' {Link without Title} comprising the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes , who settled in Britain during the 5th C .". However, the ''OED'' continues that "With the incorporation of the Celtic and Scandinavian elements of the population into the ‘English’ people, the Adj. came in the 11th C. to be applied to all natives of ‘England’, whatever their ancestry." The only exception was the period following the Norman Conquest , when "English" was "for a time restricted to those whose ancestors were settled in England before the Conquest".''The Oxford English Dictionary'', 2nd. edtn (1989).
It is unclear how many people in the UK consider themselves ethnically English. In the ; see p. 43); see also Philip Johnston, "Tory MP leads English protest over census", ''Daily Telegraph'' 15 June, 2006 . Following complaints about this, the 2011 census will "allow respondents to record their English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, Irish or other identity." 'Developing the Questionnaires', ''National Statistics Office'' . A further complication is England's dominant position within the has suggested that like most dominant groups, the English have only demonstrated interest in their self-definition when they were feeling oppressed.Quoted by Kumar, ''Making'' reference needed Despite these complexities, some Genetic and Demographic studies have utilized the concept of English ethnicity. In 2006, Richard Webber, also of University College, studied the ethnic variety of the UK (via names rather than genetics) and found that " Ripley In Derbyshire is the “most English” place in England with "88.58% of residents having an English ethnic background", whereas " Southall in west London has the least English gene pool — just 17.82% of residents in the area nicknamed 'little India' are of English ethnic origin." Robert Winnett and Holly Watt, "Found: Migrants with the Mostest", ''The Sunday Times'', 10 June, 2006 The English as a nation The term "the English people" can also be used more inclusively to discuss the English as a "nation" rather than an ethnic group, using the ''OED'''s definition of "nation" as a group united by factors that include "language, culture, history, or occupation of the same territory", rather than ancestral ties alone."Nation", sense 1. ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', 2nd edtn., 1989'. The concept of an 'English nation' (as opposed to a British one) has become increasingly popular after the says, "The people of England includes everyone who considers this ancient land to be their home and future regardless of ethnicity, race, religion or culture". 'Introduction', ''The Campaign for an English Parliament'' In an article for '' The Guardian '', novelist Andrea Levy (born in London to Jamaica n parents) calls England a separate country "without any doubt" and asserts that she is "English. Born and bred, as the saying goes. (As far as I can remember, it is born and bred and not born-and-bred-with-a-very-long-line-of-white-ancestors-directly-descended-from-Anglo-Saxons.)" Arguing that "England has never been an exclusive club, but rather a hybrid nation", she writes that "Englishness must never be allowed to attach itself to ethnicity. The majority of English people are white, but some are not ... Let England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland be nations that are plural and inclusive."Andrea Levy, [http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,138282,00.html "This is my England", ''The Guardian'', February 19, 2000. However, this use of the word "English" is complicated by the fact that most non-white people in England have a greater allegiance to Britain as a whole than to England. In their 2004 Annual Population Survey, the Office Of National Statistics compared the ''ethnic'' identities of British people with their perceived ''national'' identity. They found that while 58% of white people described their nationality as "English", the vast majority of non-white people called themselves "British". For example, "78 per cent of Bangladeshi s said they were British, while only 5 per cent said they were English, Scottish or Welsh", and the largest percentage of non-whites to identify as English were the people who described their ethnicity as " Mixed " (37%). 'Identity', ''National Statistics'', 21 Feb, 2006 HISTORY Overview The term 'English people' is not normally used to refer to the earliest inhabitants of England: Palaeolithic Hunter-gatherer s, Celtic Britons , and Roman colonists. Instead it refers to a heritage that begins with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon s in the 5th Century who settled lands already inhabited by Romano-British tribes. That heritage then comes to include later arrivals, including Scandinavian s, Norman s, and other groups, as well as those Romano-Britons who still lived in England.'English', ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', 2nd edtn., 1989. The Anglo-Saxons and previous inhabitants The first people to be called 'English' were the ''. Either way, the Anglo-Saxons gave their name to England (Angle-land) and to the English people. However, the Anglo-Saxons arrived in a land that was already populated by people commonly referred to as the '''' history website. Retrieved 21 July 2006. although this description is debatable since not all North Africans are black). The exact nature of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and their relationship with the Romano-British is a matter of debate. Traditionally, it was believed that a mass invasion by various Anglo-Saxon tribes largely displaced the indigenous British population in southern and eastern , p. 122. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-00-712693-X. Historian Malcolm Todd writes :"It is much more likely that a large proportion of the British population remained in place and was progressively dominated by a Germanic aristocracy, in some cases marrying into it and leaving Celtic names in the, admittedly very dubious, early lists of Anglo-Saxon dynasties. But how we identify the surviving Britons in areas of predominantly Anglo-Saxon settlement, either archaeologically or linguistically, is still one of the deepest problems of early English history."'' Anglo-Saxon Origins: The Reality of the Myth '' by Malcolm Todd . Retrieved 01 October 2006. Geneticists have explored the relationship between Anglo-Saxons and Britons by studying the -like system, preventing intermarriage between Britons and Anglo-Saxons and asserting political dominance.Mark G. Thomas, ''et al'', "Evidence for an Apartheid-like Social Structure in Anglo-Saxon England", ''Proceedings of the Royal Society B'', 2006. . For a summary, see [http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/07/19/anglo-saxons.html "'Apartheid' society gave edge to Anglo-Saxons, study suggests" , ''CBC'', July 19, 2006. Other geneticists tell a different story. A follow-up study to Weale ''et al'' in and Eastern England experienced a high level of intrusion from Continental Europe (the study could not distinguish Germans from Danes and Frisians), southern England did not and the population there appears to be largely descended from the indigenous Britons (the scientists acknowledge that this conclusion is "startling"). The 2003 study also noted that the transition between England and Wales is more gradual than the earlier study suggested. '' A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles ''; Cristian Capelli, Nicola Redhead, Julia K. Abernethy, Fiona Gratrix, James F. Wilson, Torolf Moen, Tor Hervig, Martin Richards, Michael P. H. Stumpf, Peter A. Underhill, Paul Bradshaw, Alom Shaha, Mark G. Thomas, Neal Bradman, and David B. Goldstein '' Current Biology '', Volume 13, Issue 11, Pages 979-984 (2003). Retrieved 6 December 2005. Stephen Oppenheimer has argued that the majority of English people, much like the other populations within the British Isles , have some genetic relationship to the original hunter-gatherers who settled Britain between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, after the last Ice Age . 1 The Danish Vikings and the unification of the English s.]] The English population was not politically unified until the Ninth Century . Before then, it consisted of a number of Petty Kingdom s which gradually coalesced into a Heptarchy of seven powerful states, the most powerful of which were Mercia and Wessex . The English Nation State began to form when the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms united against Danish Viking invasions, which began around 800 AD. Over the following century and a half England was for the most part a politically unified entity, and remained permanently so after 959 . At first, the Vikings were very much considered a separate people from the English. This separation was enshrined when Alfred The Great signed the Treaty Of Alfred And Guthrum to establish the Danelaw , a division of England between English and Danish rule, with the Danes occupying northern and eastern England.''The Age of Athelstan'' by Paul Hill (2004), Tempus Publishing. ISBN 0-7524-2566-8 However, Alfred's successors subsequently won military victories against the Danes, incorporating much of the Danelaw into the nascent kingdom of England. The , BBC website. Retrieved 30 October 2006. as Wessex grew from a relatively small kingdom in the South West to become the founder of the Kingdom of the English, incorporating all Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the Danelaw . A. L. Rowse , ''The Story of Britain'', Artus 1979 ISBN 0-297-83311-1 Danish invasions continued into the 11th Century , and there were both English and Danish kings in the period following the unification of England (for example, Ethelred The Unready was English but Canute The Great was Danish). Gradually, the Danes in England came to be seen as 'English'. They had a noticeable impact on the '', Volume 13, Issue 11, Pages 979-984 (2003). Retrieved 6 December 2005. Normans and Angevins The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought Anglo-Saxon and Danish rule of England to an end, as the new Norman elite almost universally replaced the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and church leaders. After the conquest, the term "English people" normally included all natives of England, whether they were of Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian or Celtic ancestry, as it and was used in opposition to the Norman invaders, who were regarded as "French" even if born in England, for a generation or two after the Conquest.'' OED '', 2nd edition, s.v. 'English'. The Norman dynasty ruled England for 87 years until the death of King Stephen in 1154, when the succession passed to Henry II , of the Angevin French House Of Plantagenet , which ruled until 1399 . The Norman aristocracy used Anglo-Norman as the language of the court, law and administration. It continued to be used by the Plantagenet kings. However, over time the English language became more important even in the court, and the French were gradually assimilated into the English people, until, by the late 1200s, both rulers and subjects regarded themselves as English and spoke the English language. Despite the assimilation of the French, the distinction between 'English' and 'French' survived in official documents long after it had fallen out of common use, in particular in the legal phrase '' Presentment Of Englishry '' (a rule by which a Hundred had to prove an unidentified murdered body found on their soil to be that of an Englishman, rather than a Norman, if they wanted to avoid a fine). OED , s.v. 'Englishry'. Late Middle Ages to present The Population Of England was at 2.5 million after the Black Death (1348). It doubled to 5 million in 250 years (by 1600), and again, to 10 million, in another 215 years (by 1815). Population tripled over the 19th century, and at the end of the First World War , English population numbered about 35 million. There has been a Jewish community in England since Roman times, although from 1290 until Oliver Cromwell 's Resettlement Of The Jews in 1656, this was forced to be small and hidden. From that time up to the present there have been waves of Jewish immigration from persecution in Russia in the nineteenth century and Germany in the twentieth. ( See History Of The Jews In England ) This has produced many Notable People , including the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli , EJP looks back on 350 years of history of Jews in the UK : European Jewish Press. Retrieved 21 July 2006.the first Prime Minister of Jewish parentage (but not Faith). Irish immigration has also added a significant contribution to the English populace over the past few centuries due to sustained and sometimes mass exodus emigration from Ireland. Current estimates place around 6 million people in the UK with at least one grandparent born in the , Liverpool , Manchester , and London are cities with significant Irish elements present. After French king Louis XIV revoked the "irrevocable" Edict Of Nantes in 1685 and declared Protestantism illegal with the Edict Of Fontainebleau , an estimated 50,000 Protestant Huguenot s fled to England. Meredith on the Guillet-Thoreau Genealogy In the 18th and 19th century, English people have settled in all parts of the British Empire (in the case of Australia , forcibly), and roughly half the number of people with English ancestry resides outside of England, the largest group being the British American s. Conversely, there had also been a very small black presence in England since at least the 16th century, due to the and Asian proportions have grown in the United Kingdom in general, as immigration from the British Empire and subsequent Commonwealth Of Nations was encouraged due to labour shortages during post-war rebuilding. Postwar immigration The National Archives "When the Second World War ended in 1945, it was quickly recognised that the reconstruction of the British economy required a large influx of immigrant labour." Accessed October 2006 GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION citizens who claim some English ancestry in the census. Dark red and brown colours indicate a higher density: highest in the northeast as well as Utah and surrounding areas. (see also Maps Of American Ancestries ).]] English emigrant and descent communities are found across the world, and in some places, settled in significant numbers. Countries with significant numbers of people of English Ancestry or Ethnic Origin include the United States (particularly Utah , New England , New York , California , Virginia and the Southern States ), Australia , Canada , South Africa and New Zealand . In the last two decades there have been increasingly large numbers of English people permanently or semi-permanently living in Spain and France , drawn there by the climate and cheaper house prices. 2 This source does not differentiate between British and English residents so the exact number of English people is unknown. 3 Article talks about Britain rather than England so precise number of English involved is not clear. 4 Although this talks of numbers of British a rule of thumb would put English numbers at 75% of these figures or higher. 5 CULTURE Contribution to humanity In the opinion of English philologist J. R. R. Tolkien , the early medieval Anglo-Saxon Mission to the Frankish Empire was "among our chief contributions to Europe, considering all our history". The English have played a significant role in the development of the Arts and Science s. Prominent individuals have included the scientists and inventors Isaac Newton , Francis Crick , Abraham Darby , Michael Faraday , Charles Darwin , Joseph Swan and Frank Whittle ; the poet and playwright William Shakespeare , the novelists Jane Austen , Charles Dickens , Virginia Woolf and George Orwell , the composers Edward Elgar and Benjamin Britten , and the explorer James Cook . English philosophers include Francis Bacon , John Locke , Thomas Hobbes , Thomas Paine , Jeremy Bentham , John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell . English Law has also formed the basis for Common Law legal systems throughout the world. Common Law by Daniel K. Benjamin, '' A World Connected ''' website. Retrieved 16 September 2006. The rules for many modern sports including Football , Rugby ( Union and League ), Cricket and Tennis were first formulated in England. Language has official or ''de facto'' official language status.]] English people traditionally speak the , a Celtic Language originating in Cornwall , currently spoken by about 3,500 people. A fourth language also of the Brythonic Celtic group, Cumbric , used to be spoken in Cumbria in northwest England, but it died out in the 11th century although traces of it can still be found in the Cumbrian dialect. Because of the 19th century geopolitical dominance of the British Empire and the post-World War II hegemony of the United States , English has become the international language of business, science, communications, aviation, and diplomacy. English is the native language of roughly 350 million people worldwide, with another 1.5 billion people who speak it as a second language. Religion Ever since the break with the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century, the English have predominantly been members of the Church Of England , a branch of the Anglican Communion , a form of Christianity with elements of Protestantism and Catholicism. The Book Of Common Prayer is the foundational prayer book of the Church of England and replaced the various Latin rites of the Roman Catholic Church. | ||||||||||||
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