Originally posted by Shuckins
There is Indian ancestry on both sides of my family Laurie. The news of our extermination has been greatly exaggerated.
If we are going to discuss all the evils done in the past by one ethnic group against another, then perhaps it is only fair to bring up the depredations of Hengist and Horsa, and of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes forcing the "indigenous" Celts of Britain onto the wilder and less hospitable lands of Wales, Ireland and Scotland, after a long period of warfare and wholesale slaughter.
Regards, Shuckins
Nice post Shuckins, including the bit I deleted. Just a couple of points tho'.
By the time the Germanic tribes arrived in England (and it was mostly England that they came to), the population was strictly speaking "Romano-British" and had been for 450 years since the Roman invasion & occupation. Many Romans settled in Britain & became "British" and many Brits became Romanised as the two cultures merged. When the Roman armies (made up largely by northern european mercenaries) were forced to leave as a result of Vandals & Goths threatening Rome the British pleaded with them not to go, fearing raids from hostile Scandinavian & Germanic tribes. The Angles were initially invited to Britain as mercenaries to protect the indigenous population, but got a bit out of hand! It was the Romans who displaced the "Celts", not the Germanic tribes. In fact it was probably less of a displacement and more an integration. The less hospitable lands were already occupied by Celtic speaking tribes who were just left alone by the Romans. Hadrian's and Antonine walls were built to keep the Picts & the Scots out. The lowlands of Scotland to the north of Hadrian's wall is a very pleasant and fertile place to live.
The concept of the "Celts" as a race or tribe is a myth. More accurately it describes a diverse variety of races and cultures who spoke "Celtic" languages derived from an Indo-European Celtic root, whose origins were from the birthplace of agriculture - the Middle East, what is now Iraq & Iran. These Celtic speakers moved west and displaced or integrated with the ancient Brits a few thousand years ago - nobody is exactly sure when. When the Romans arrived in Britain they found it occupied by a mixed bag of Celtic speaking tribes who spent much of their time fighting each other. None of the British tribes described themselves as Celts. The story of notable local resistance and revolt against the Romans by Boudicca and the Icenae tribe is a catalogue of inter tribal treachery and betrayal. The popular modern image of the Celts being some sort of romantic, pastural, musical, spiritual unified race in touch with nature is nonsense.
The Celt myth was largely invented by a guy called Edward Lhuyd at the beginning of the 18th century. He was a Welsh patriot who resented English dominance and wanted to give Wales it's own history separate from England's. He claimed that the Celts had been a great warrior race who dominated Europe and had terrorised the Romans, and that the Welsh were their direct descendants. These nationalistic, anti-English sentiments struck a chord in parts of Scotland and Ireland and hence the Celt myth prospered, particularly in the romantic mid and late 19th century.
Celtic languages are still spoken in west Scotland, north & central Wales, west Ireland, south-west England & north-west France, but they are all distinct and separate languages, and I hope they don't become extinct. Modern English has many words from Celtic languages.
The "Celts" were not the indigenous population of Britain.
Regards
