What is the relationship between Wales and England?

[Dr.Drake]

@Malacandra

That doesn’t make them the aboriginal inhabitants; merely the most recent invaders to have completely exterminated their predecessors.

True. I wonder if there’s a term for that?

[Polycarp]

@Malacandra

That doesn’t make them the aboriginal inhabitants; merely the most recent invaders to have completely exterminated their predecessors.

You could have Pict a better definition!

(And even if the Picts were Celts, you still have the Brythonic Celts partially replacing the Goiledic Celts.

And, as C.S. Lewis once pointed out, there are two surviving words in Modern English that remain essentially unchanged from the Pre-Celtic inhabitants’ tongue, whatever it was: “apple” and one of the dozen terms for “hill.” I remember this because he was discussing the name of Something-pentor Hill … the elevation whose name literally means Hillhillhill Hill.

[Malacandra]

@Polycarp

You could have Pict a better definition!

(And even if the Picts were Celts, you still have the Brythonic Celts partially replacing the Goiledic Celts.

And, as C.S. Lewis once pointed out, there are two surviving words in Modern English that remain essentially unchanged from the Pre-Celtic inhabitants’ tongue, whatever it was: “apple” and one of the dozen terms for “hill.” I remember this because he was discussing the name of Something-pentor Hill … the elevation whose name literally means Hillhillhill Hill.

Torpenhow Hill. Wikipedia link omitted. I thought “land” was on the list, or so I vaguely remember from my 1971 Guinness Book of Records.

Did “apple” go the other way into German then?

[Dr.Drake]

@Polycarp

…(And even if the Picts were Celts, you still have the Brythonic Celts partially replacing the Goiledic Celts.

The Picts were Brythonic Celts. Admittedly popular culture is still wedded to the outdated idea that they’re pre-Indo-European, but linguistically the surviving evidence pretty clearly suggests Brythonic.

[Kozmik]

The Prince of Wales

[The_Stafford_Cripps]

@Dr. Drake

The Picts were Brythonic Celts. Admittedly popular culture is still wedded to the outdated idea that they’re pre-Indo-European

I know - that’s all the Big Brother contestants ever talk about. I think Paris Hilton is going to release an album of songs perpetuating this fallacy

[Acsenray]

@jjimm

There’s a rather unpleasant anti-Welsh sentiment that I encounter in England, too. It’s along the lines of “I hate Welsh people” or “Welsh people are horrible”, based solely on ignorance and the fact that it’s not taboo to repeat the slur.

I met an English medical student of Indian heritage who spoke of his surgery instructor as a “Welsh bastard” and made fun of is accent. I know that students often hold grudges against former instructors, but the ethnic nature of the comment suprised me.

[GorillaMan]

@acsenray

I met an English medical student of Indian heritage who spoke of his surgery instructor as a “Welsh bastard” and made fun of is accent. I know that students often hold grudges against former instructors, but the ethnic nature of the comment suprised me.

I suppose it’s often neither intended nor viewed as an ethnic comment, and is on the same level as joking about thrifty Yorkshiremen or light-fingered scousers. Yes, it can cross the line into something more unpleasant and less appropriate, when used as a an element of a more serious grudge or prejudice, but it seems to me pretty obvious that ‘sheep-shagger’ was never going to be the most cutting nickname.