Oh, “nation” is used outside America to mean “country, independent or not, comprised mostly of a people of that ethnicity.” Part of the reason for the plethora of Grand Dukes, Prince-Electors, Margraves and Landgraves, and such in pre-Napoleonic Germany was that they were all part of the “German nation” which could have only one king, who was also Holy Roman Emperor. Bohemia was the exception, because they were the Czech nation. Several rulers ‘cheated’ – the Margrave of Brandenburg was also the King of Prussia (i.e., the land of the extinct Prussian nation, former East Prussia in more modern times); several Electors of Saxony contrived to be elected King of Poland; the Count of Holstein was King of Denmark; etc.
Scotland, Wales, and England are ‘nations’ – political entities mostly comprised of a population of Scottish, Welsh, or English ethnicity – within the country called the United Kingdom.
Born in: England
Nationalities: Irish & British
Passport: Irish, although I could get a British one if I wanted
Self-identified as: Irish when anywhere other than Ireland, English when there, and when I’m talking online about things related to Britain.
Ancestory, or rather grandparentage: 50% Irish, 25% Welsh, 25% English
Football: England, then Ireland, couldn’t give a toss about Wales
Rugby: England, then Wales, then Ireland
Can I confuse things please?
Born in: England
Nationality: British (although now qualify for Swedish if I so wish)
Passport: British
Self-identified as: British
Ancestry: Father from England, Mother from Scotland. Mother’s family splits into bits from Scotland and others from Northern Ireland. Judging by my name my Father’s family probably eventually has connections to Scotland.
Football: England, then Scotland. Will always support a country from the British Isles when playing a non-British Isles country.
Rugby, England, then Scotland. Will always support a country from the British Isles when playing a non-British Isles country.
I never, ever refer to myself as English despite having being born there, lived there until I was 25 and having an English accent.
‘It is the United Kingdom of Great Britain.’
‘Ireland gained independence from Great Britain…’
‘All other countries gained independence from the British Empire…’
‘…Great Britain (which is interchangeable with United Kingdom)…’
Sorry, but these are errors, not a lack of specifics.
Born in: England
Nationalities: British
Passport: British (EU Passport)
Self-identified as: British, technically. Even though i’m pretty much entirely English by culture, that half my family are Scottish makes me wary of going solely by English.
Ancestory, or rather grandparentage: 50% English, 50% Scottish.
Football: England, Scotland, Wales have a football team now?
Rugby: Honestly i’m afraid I don’t care.
Also I put my vote forwards that the cover note for the British passport is simply impressive-sounding.
Born in England
Nationality: British
Passport: British (EU)
Self identified: English
Ancestory: Great great Grandad was from Germany but we ignore that call me 99% English
Football: England, don’t care about the rest
Rugby: Couldn’t care less, same with cricket
Born in: Northern Ireland
Nationalities: Irish & British
Passport: Irish, although I could get a British one if I wanted
Self-identified as: Northern Irish
Ancestory: 100% Irish as of my grandparents, with Scottish ancestry creeping in the further back you go
Football: Don’t really watch it, but it’s nice to see Northern Ireland winning, or even scoring against a team of furriners
Rugby: Devoid of nationalities for me, players and spectators fall under the same broad (negative) stereotype
Born in: England
Nationalities: British, American
Passport: UK
Self-identified as: Confused
Ancestry: Indian (dots, not feathers)
Football: En-ger-land!
Rugby: Wales (Don’t ask… Neil Jenkins was my hero)
Officially, it was only entitled to use the word “empire” nominally (as opposed to descriptively) during the time its monarch held the title “Emperor/Empress of India.” When there’s no emperor/empress, there’s no empire.
This has been addressed in other posts, but it seem to me that it’s pretty common in Britain to refer to the country as “Britain” or “Great Britain.” In fact the ISO abbreviation for the United Kingdom is “GB.”
Frisians? I don’t recall there being a major migration of Frisians to Britain. Do you mean Danes?
A country is territory. A nation is people. A state is a territory ruled by an autonomous government. A nation-state is a state that rules a defined set of people in a defined territory.
Born in: The Republic Of Ireland
Nationality: Irish
Passport: Rep. Of Ireland
Self-identified as: Irish, then European, then a global citizen
Ancestry: Irish for the most part, a bit of Scots
Football: No interest
Rugby: Even less interest
I’ve heard it said that when Ireland is playing any team other than England then the English support Ireland and that when England is playing any team other than Ireland the Irish support the other team.
The Frisians showed up in Britain at the same time as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. There just weren’t as many of them as there were Angles and Saxons, so they tend to be mentioned less.
In fact, British History textbooks (and teachers) always mention them in that order when explaining the Germanic migrations to Britain: “Angles, Saxons, Jutes… and Frisians”.
Not necessarily. “Empire” has more than one meaning, and is not restricted to the territory ruled by an emperor. See, for instance, the definition at dictionary.com:
Northern Piper, I refer you to my use of the words “officially,” “nominally,” and “descriptively.”
Britain commanded “an empire” so long as it ruled over multiple nations. But it was “the British Empire” only from 1876 to 1947, when the monarch held the title “Emperor/Empress of India.”
Note that all the examples of regimes using the word empire in their names listed in your definition all had persons holding the title “emperor” or its equivalent.
Or Hong Kong (obviously no longer applicable), the Falklands, the various Caribbean islands that nominally remain British territories, , Gibraltar, etc.
In the loosest sense, “empire” refers to any nation-state with overseas possessions.
Except that there’s only one nation-state that still has an emperor, which is Japan. Japan has no overseas possessions (unless you count Okinawa, which is close to the Japanese archipelago, and is fully integrated into Japan administratively, so is no longer a “possession”).
I’d agree that those are errors but to be fair they’re not uncommon ones, and I don’t think they entail any intentional disrespect for Northern Ireland: 1, 2 and 3 stem from a common misconception, certainly here in England, that ‘Great Britain’ can be used as a short name for the UK. And that misconception is not borne out of malice or an arrogant disregard for Northern Ireland, it’s simply because people think that’s a valid short name for our whole country (not just the island of England, Scotland and Wales), in the same way that ‘the UK’ is.
It’s odd isn’t it? Here in England we love the Irish, but they ‘hate’ us, and we don’t even seem to realize. English people (jokingly) hate the Scots, the Welsh, the French, the Germans and the Australians - who all merrily hate us back - and we’ll crack jokes about Americans all day long. But we love the Irish, even though they not only seem to hate us in the same jokey-way, but a fair few Irish people still harbor genuine resentment against the English (me and some friends were given fierce glances and mutterings of ‘fuck off’ from some locals in a pub in Dublin on account of our English accents).
call me 99% English
