Quote:
Originally Posted by Mynydd
While I will agree with much of what you've said above, and especially with your implied suggestion of focusing first and foremost on ethnicity to determine identity, I must also say that the source that you have chosen to support your argument (Oppenheimer) is far from being the best possible. If you noticed, it reads:
I hope that you are able to see how bizarre and, in the light of British historic insistance of wiping out the other identities in the islands (which in this occasion would be supported by assuming a pre-existing assimilation), how perverted it is to pretend that the English language (or an early form of it which, for the purposes of what's said there it would have to be non Anglo-Saxon) was already spoken prior to the Roman conquest.
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I agree, and I used him as an example of a contradictory interpretation in the beginning of my post. I dont agree with Oppenheimer on much he has to say about the ethnology of the British Isles, except that I do believe the English have a significant Celtic/Brythonic component, but I believe he is right when he says that genetics have no bearing on cultural history, and it is crucial to acknowledge this. If it ever comes to that point, where microbiological science must determine nation and ethnicity for us, then we are in desperate times, I must say. Nation and ethnicity are ancient cultural phenomena that far precede microbiological sciences, and they should remain independent of them as they always have up until now.
But I am glad you also acknowledge this.