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129-519: This glossary of names for the British include nicknames and terms, including affectionate ones, neutral ones, and derogatory ones to describe British people , Irish People and more specifically English , Welsh , Scottish and Northern Irish people . Many of these terms may vary between offensive, derogatory, neutral and affectionate depending on a complex combination of tone, facial expression, context, usage, speaker and shared past history. Brit
258-541: A British Day to celebrate. One of the central issues identified at the Fabian Society conference was how the English identity fits within the framework of a devolved United Kingdom. An expression of Her Majesty's Government 's initiative to promote Britishness was the inaugural Veterans' Day which was first held on 27 June 2006. As well as celebrating the achievements of armed forces veterans, Brown's speech at
387-467: A Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 and was then ratified by the parliaments of both countries with the passing of the Acts of Union 1707 . With effect from 1 May 1707, this created a new sovereign state called the " Kingdom of Great Britain ". This kingdom "began as a hostile merger", but led to a "full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world"; historian Simon Schama stated that "it
516-608: A Welsh nationalist politician active in the late 20th century, rebuffed Britishness as "a political synonym for Englishness which extends English culture over the Scots, Welsh and the Irish". In 2004, Sir Bernard Crick , political theorist and democratic socialist tasked with developing the life in the United Kingdom test said: Britishness, to me, is an overarching political and legal concept: it signifies allegiance to
645-563: A "marked change in attitudes" in Great Britain towards Catholics and Catholicism. A "significant" example of this was the collaboration between Augustus Welby Pugin , an "ardent Roman Catholic" and son of a Frenchman, and Sir Charles Barry , "a confirmed Protestant", in redesigning the Palace of Westminster —"the building that most enshrines ... Britain's national and imperial pre-tensions". Protestantism gave way to imperialism as
774-525: A "particular sense of nationhood and belonging" in Great Britain; Britishness became "superimposed on much older identities", of English , Scots and Welsh cultures, whose distinctiveness still resists notions of a homogenised British identity. Because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by Unionists . Modern Britons are descended mainly from
903-528: A Naval pedestal mounting was the first to open fire in defence of London during the war. However, the shell was too small to damage the German Zeppelin airships sufficiently to bring them down. The Ministry of Munitions noted in 1922: "The pom-poms were of very little value. There was no shrapnel available for them, and the shell provided for them would not burst on aeroplane fabric but fell back to earth as solid projectiles ... were of no use except at
1032-565: A Portuguese pidgin developed that served as the lingua franca. The term Farangi ( Franks ) has been used in Persian language since the 13th century to refer to all Europeans, Western Europeans in particular. Hindustani / Hindi has adopted this word from Persian and it is used to refer to the Europeans in general (including the British). The adjective Gora ( Gori for females)
1161-468: A belief in Australia that sunburn occurs more frequently amongst English immigrants, turning those with fair skin the colour of pomegranates. Another explanation – now generally considered to be a false etymology – was that "pom" or "pommy" were derived from an acronym such as POM ("prisoner of Millbank"), POME ("prisoner of Mother England") or POHMS ("prisoner of Her Majesty's Service"). However, there
1290-660: A combination of disease, Spanish hostility, Scottish mismanagement and opposition to the scheme by the East India Company and the English government (who did not want to provoke the Spanish into war) this imperial venture ended in "catastrophic failure", with an estimated "25% of Scotland's total liquid capital" lost. The events of the Darien Scheme, and the passing by the English Parliament of
1419-591: A light anti-aircraft gun. Hiram Maxim originally designed the Pom-Pom in the late 1880s as an enlarged version of the Maxim machine gun . Its longer range necessitated exploding projectiles to judge range, which in turn dictated a shell weight of at least 400 grams (0.88 lb), as that was the lightest exploding shell allowed under the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 and reaffirmed in
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#17327717335281548-726: A much lower elevation than a Zeppelin attacking London was likely to keep". Lieutenant O. F. J. Hogg of No. 2 AA Section in III Corps was the first anti-aircraft gunner to shoot down an aircraft, with 75 rounds on 23 September 1914 in France. The British Army did not employ it as an infantry weapon in World War I, as its shell was considered too small for use against any objects or fortifications and British doctrine relied on shrapnel fired by QF 13 pounder and 18-pounder field guns as its primary medium range anti-personnel weapon. The gun
1677-530: A national 'tradition'". The First World War "reinforced the sense of Britishness" and patriotism in the early 20th century. Through war service (including conscription in Great Britain), "the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish fought as British". The aftermath of the war institutionalised British national commemoration through Remembrance Sunday and the Poppy Appeal . The Second World War had
1806-766: A numerical minority, these Britons "exercised a dominant influence" upon the culture and politics of those lands. In Australia, Canada and New Zealand , "people of British origin came to constitute the majority of the population", contributing to these states becoming integral to the Anglosphere . The United Kingdom Census 1861 estimated the size of the overseas British to be around 2.5 million, but concluded that most of these were "not conventional settlers" but rather "travellers, merchants, professionals, and military personnel". By 1890, there were over 1.5 million further UK-born people living in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa . A 2006 publication from
1935-484: A portion of the British Empire , provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Briton if made so in benefits and justice; but if not, we are Irishmen again. Ireland, from 1801 to 1923 , was marked by a succession of economic and political mismanagement and neglect, which marginalised the Irish, and advanced Irish nationalism . In the forty years that followed
2064-443: A similar ruling in 2010. The BBC , the British national broadcaster, has used the phrase on occasion. There are several folk etymologies for "pommy" or "pom". The best-documented of these is that "pommy" originated as a contraction of " pomegranate ". According to this explanation, "pomegranate" was Australian rhyming slang for "immigrant" (like "Jimmy Grant"). Usage of "pomegranate" for English people may have been strengthened by
2193-475: A similar unifying effect upon the British people, however, its outcome was to recondition Britishness on a basis of democratic values and its marked contrast to Europeanism . Notions that the British "constituted an Island race, and that it stood for democracy were reinforced during the war and they were circulated in the country through Winston Churchill 's speeches, history books and newspapers". At its international zenith, "Britishness joined peoples around
2322-648: A voyage of exploration around the British Isles . Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them. Pytheas called the islands collectively αἱ Βρεττανίαι ( hai Brettaniai ), which has been translated as the Brittanic Isles , and the peoples of what are today England , Wales , Scotland and the Isle of Man of Prettanike were called
2451-457: Is Blighty . Malayalis of Kerala use the term Sayyippu or Vellakkaran to refer to a male westerner. In Assam (which became part of British India in 1828), the British are called Boga Bongal (literally meaning 'white foreigners' or 'white intruders'). In Tamil Nadu the Tamil word Vellaikaaran means 'white man' and usually refers to members of the British colonial government in
2580-521: Is a commonly used term in the United States , the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere, shortened from "Briton" or "Britisher". " Limey " (from lime / lemon ) is a predominantly North American slang nickname for a British person . The word has been around since the mid-19th century. Intended as a pejorative , the word is not commonly used today, though it retains that connotation. The term
2709-399: Is a slang word to generally refer to white westerners. It has a history of racial degradation, however it can be used non-racially and more generally in modern Hong Kong. "Gwei" means ghost and "lo" means guy, referring to their pale skin. In Japanese, the term Igirisu ( Katakana : イギリス ) is used interchangeably with Eikoku , but is considered slightly more foreign because it comes from
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#17327717335282838-401: Is also commonly used amongst Britons with subcontinental roots to refer to white Britons, although the term literally translates to 'fair-skinned one', and thus could and is applied to individuals of any ethnicity with a fair complexion, including British Asians themselves. The adjective has also been used as a noun to describe white people – hence its potential usage as a racial slur. In Nepal,
2967-583: Is an obsolete ethnic slur historically used by the French to refer to the English, based on their frequent expletives. The name originated during the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) between England and France, when English soldiers achieved notoriety among the French for their frequent use of profanity and in particular the interjection "God damn". In one of the Vindolanda tablets from Hadrian's Wall
3096-428: Is called Anglia . British people in general are called brit or in plural britek but the term is less widespread and very uncommon. Great Britain is called Nagy-Britannia but the United Kingdom is called Egyesült Királyság . Inselaffe ("island ape") is a pejorative German term allegedly dating back to English scientists Darwin and Wallace 's publications on evolution. The original explanation of
3225-521: Is known as the Matter of Britain . The Matter of Britain, a national myth , was retold or reinterpreted in works by Gerald of Wales , a Cambro-Norman chronicler who, in the 12th and 13th centuries, used the term "British" to refer to the people later known as the Welsh. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic , Anglo-Saxon , Norse and Norman ancestry. Between
3354-609: Is known to have been used as early as 1743. Rudyard Kipling published the poem " Tommy " (part of the Barrack Room Ballads ) in 1892 and in 1893 the music hall song "Private Tommy Atkins" was published with words by Henry Hamilton and music by S. Potter. In 1898 William McGonagall wrote "Lines in Praise of Tommy Atkins". The term is still used today in the British Army in the abridged version "Tom", especially in
3483-615: Is no evidence that such terms, or their acronyms, were used in Australia when "pom" and "pommy" entered use there. Other theories are that they come from the use of "pom-pom" guns by the British in the First and Second Boer Wars , from a corruption of "Tommy Atkins", or from "Pompey", a nickname for Portsmouth . A pejorative used colloquially in Ireland, referring to the Black and Tan forces supplied by David Lloyd George to Ireland during
3612-470: Is phonetically similar to "Eng", as in "England", and the second character 国 means 'country', 'nation', or 'kingdom'. While Korean is now written in the phonetic Hangul alphabet, when writing or using Chinese characters Koreans will use the traditional character for "kingdom," 國, rather than its simplified counterpart 国, which is in everyday use in China and Japan. In Hong Kong, gweilo (pronounced [kʷɐ̌i lǒu])
3741-559: Is thought to have originated in the 1850s as lime-juicer , later shortened to "limey", and was originally used as a derogatory word for sailors in the Royal Navy . It derives from the Royal Navy's practice, since the beginning of the 19th century, of adding lemon juice or lime juice to the sailors' daily ration of watered-down rum (known as grog ), in order to prevent scurvy . Initially, lemon juice (from lemons imported from Europe)
3870-717: The Etymologicum Genuinum , a 9th-century lexical encyclopaedia, mention a mythical character Bretannus (the Latinised form of the Ancient Greek : Βρεττανός , Brettanós ) as the father of Celtine , mother of Celtus, the eponymous ancestor of the Celts . By 50 BC, Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles . However, with the Roman conquest of Britain ,
3999-566: The Act of Settlement 1701 asserting the right to choose the order of succession for English, Scottish and Irish thrones, escalated political hostilities between England and Scotland and neutralised calls for a united British people. The Parliament of Scotland responded by passing the Act of Security 1704 , allowing it to appoint a different monarch to succeed to the Scottish crown from that of England if it so wished. The English political perspective
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4128-537: The Age of Discovery gave new-found imperial power and wealth to the English and Welsh at the end of the 17th century, Scotland suffered from a long-standing weak economy. In response, the Scottish kingdom, in opposition to William II of Scotland (III of England) , commenced the Darien Scheme , an attempt to establish a Scottish imperial outlet—the colony of New Caledonia—on the isthmus of Panama . However, through
4257-549: The Age of Discovery , the British were one of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate out of Europe , and the British Empire's expansion during the first half of the 19th century triggered an "extraordinary dispersion of the British people", resulting in particular concentrations "in Australasia and North America ". The British Empire was "built on waves of migration overseas by British people", who left
4386-608: The British Army is particularly associated with World War I . The German , the French and the British Commonwealth armies used the name "Tommy" for British soldiers. "Tommy" is derived from the name " Tommy Atkins " which had been used as a generic name for a soldier for many years (and had been used as an example name on British Army registration forms). The precise origin is the subject of some debate, but it
4515-578: The Chartered Institute of Housing , Amnesty International , University of Oxford 's social geographer Danny Dorling , and other public figures. The earliest migrations of Britons date from the 5th and 6th centuries AD, when Brittonic Celts fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasions migrated what is today northern France and north western Spain and forged the colonies of Brittany and Britonia . Brittany remained independent of France until
4644-665: The Commonwealth of Nations during the mid-20th century. Since the British Nationality Act 1948 and the subsequent mass immigration to the United Kingdom from the Commonwealth and elsewhere in the world, "the expression and experience of cultural life in Britain has become fragmented and reshaped by the influences of gender, ethnicity, class and region". Furthermore, the United Kingdom's membership of
4773-495: The European Economic Community in 1973 eroded the concept of Britishness as distinct from continental Europe . As such, since the 1970s "there has been a sense of crisis about what it has meant to be British", exacerbated by growing demands for greater political autonomy for Northern Ireland , Scotland , and Wales . The late 20th century saw major changes to the politics of the United Kingdom with
4902-571: The Hague Convention of 1899 . Early versions were sold under the Maxim-Nordenfelt label, whereas versions in British service (i.e. from 1900) were labelled Vickers, Sons and Maxim (VSM) as Vickers had bought out Maxim-Nordenfelt in 1897 but they are the same gun. The Belgian Army used the gun on a high-angle field carriage mounting. About 60 were built by Finnish company Ab H. Ahlberg & Co O during World War 1 for
5031-652: The Immigration Act 1971 . Having faced removal, or been deported, many British people of African Caribbean heritage suffered with loss of home, livelihood, and health. As a result of the political scandal, many institutions and elected politicians publicly affirmed that these individuals, while not legally holding British citizenship or nationality, were, in fact, British people. These included British Prime Minister Theresa May , London Mayor Sadiq Khan , Her Majesty's CPS Inspectorate Wendy Williams and her House of Commons -ordered Windrush Lessons Learned Review ,
5160-488: The Institute for Public Policy Research estimated 5.6 million Britons lived outside of the United Kingdom. Outside of the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories , up to 76% of Australians , 70% of New Zealanders , 48% of Canadians , 33% of Americans , 4% of Chileans and 3% of South Africans have ancestry from the British Isles . Hong Kong has the highest proportion of British nationals outside of
5289-708: The Irish War of Independence in order to assist the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in combating the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The force was composed mainly of First World War British Army veterans, who wore distinctive Khaki British Army uniforms with dark RIC overcoats. The term's use is often used in Irish republican contexts. By extension, Great Britain is sometimes referred to as "Tanland". The name Tommy for any soldier in
Glossary of names for the British - Misplaced Pages Continue
5418-580: The Iron Age , whose descendants formed the major part of the modern Welsh people , Cornish people , Bretons and considerable proportions of English people . It also refers to citizens of the former British Empire , who settled in the country prior to 1973, and hold neither UK citizenship nor nationality. Though early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages , the Union of
5547-867: The Maxim Flak M14 . Four guns were used mounted on field carriages in the German South West Africa campaign in 1915, against South African forces. The British government initially rejected the gun but other countries bought it, including the South African Republic (Transvaal) government. In the Second Boer War , the British found themselves being fired on by the Boers with their 37 mm Maxim-Nordenfelt versions using ammunition made in Germany. The Boers' Maxim
5676-640: The Napoleonic Wars with the First French Empire advanced, "the English and Scottish learned to define themselves as similar primarily by virtue of not being French or Catholic". In combination with sea power and empire, the notion of Britishness became more "closely bound up with Protestantism", a cultural commonality through which the English, Scots and Welsh became "fused together, and remain[ed] so, despite their many cultural divergences". The neo-classical monuments that proliferated at
5805-646: The Philippine–American War . Previously, with the advent of the steel-hulled "New Navy" in 1884, some ships were equipped with the 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolving cannon . In the aftermath of the Battle of Blair Mountain , the United States Army deployed artillery, including pompoms: "Their armament was strengthened with a howitzer and two pompoms." Rapid-firing (single shot, similar to non-automatic QF guns) 1-pounders were also used, including
5934-508: The Windrush scandal illustrated complex developments in British peoplehood, when it was revealed hundreds of Britons had been wrongfully deported. With roots in the break-up of the empire, and post-war rebuilding; the Windrush generation had arrived as CUKC citizens in the 1950s and 1960s. Born in former British colonies , they settled in the UK before 1973, and were granted "right of abode" by
6063-551: The federation of Australia was achieved on 1 January 1901. Its history of British dominance meant that Australia was "grounded in British culture and political traditions that had been transported to the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century and become part of colonial culture and politics". Australia maintains the Westminster system of parliamentary government and Charles III as King of Australia . Until 1987,
6192-532: The import of Scottish products into England and its colonies (about half of Scotland's trade). However, the Act contained a provision that it would be suspended if the Parliament of Scotland entered into negotiations regarding the creation of a unified Parliament of Great Britain , which in turn would refund Scottish financial losses on the Darien Scheme. Despite opposition from within both Scotland and England,
6321-524: The red coats as those were unsuitable for the South African climate. Another now largely archaic term used by Afrikaners to describe South Africans of British descent is soutie or soutpiel , meaning 'salty' or 'salty penis' respectively. The meaning behind this is that they have one foot in Britain and one foot in South Africa, leaving their penis to hang in the salty sea water. In
6450-406: The style "King of Great Britain", though this title was rejected by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland and thus had no basis in either English law or Scots law . Despite centuries of military and religious conflict, the Kingdoms of England and Scotland had been "drawing increasingly together" since the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and the Union of
6579-423: The Πρεττανοί ( Prettanoi ), Priteni , Pritani or Pretani . The group included Ireland , which was referred to as Ierne ( Insula sacra "sacred island" as the Greeks interpreted it) "inhabited by the different race of Hiberni " ( gens hibernorum ), and Britain as insula Albionum , "island of the Albions". The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls , who possibly used it as their term for
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#17327717335286708-399: The 18th to 19th century. It is used in the present day to refer anyone who is White with European origin; many rural Tamil villagers still believe that all Europeans are either British or of British descent. In Malaysia , one common Malay equivalent is Mat Salleh . The term may have originated from the general depiction of Royal Navy sailors who were often drunk (Mad Sailors); due to
6837-441: The 8th and 11th centuries, "three major cultural divisions" emerged in Great Britain: the English , the Scots and the Welsh . The earlier Brittonic Celtic polities in what are today England and Scotland were absorbed into Anglo-Saxon England and Gaelic Scotland by the early 11th century. The English had been unified under a single nation state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh . Before then,
6966-408: The Anglo-Saxon invasions. However, the term "Britannia" persisted as the Latin name for the island. The Historia Brittonum claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for Brittonic kings , followed by the Historia Regum Britanniae , which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the Kings of England . During the Middle Ages , and particularly in the Tudor period ,
7095-446: The Boer War, in addition to the standard common shell. The common pointed shell proved unsatisfactory, with the base fuse frequently working loose and falling out during flight. In 1914, the cast-iron common shell and tracer were the only available rounds. The U.S. Navy adopted the Maxim-Nordenfelt 37 mm 1-pounder as the 1-pounder Mark 6 before the 1898 Spanish–American War . The Mark 7, 9, 14, and 15 weapons were similar. It
7224-427: The British are often referred to as Kuires / Khaires , which means 'people of white or pale colour'. It is also used in general for any European person with white skin. Ingraj is used in Maharashtra ( Marathi ) and West Bengal ( Bengali ) in India to refer to British people.The word Vilyati is also used for describing British people.It comes from Vilayat for foreign land. The English variation of Vilayat
7353-427: The Chinese 聯合王國 Liánhéwángguó and Japanese 連合王国 Rengōōkoku literally meaning 'United Kingdom'. Separate words exist in all of these languages for each of the constituent parts of the UK, including England, although, as elsewhere, there is little awareness of correct usage. The Chinese Dàbùlièdiān ( Hanzi : 大不列颠 ) is used for historical purposes to mean 'Great Britain'. The first character means 'Great' and
7482-426: The Crowns in 1603 and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness and a shared British identity was forged during the 18th century and early 19th century when Britain engaged in several global conflicts with France, and developed further during the Victorian era . The complex history of the formation of the United Kingdom created
7611-415: The Crowns in 1603. A broadly shared language, island, monarch, religion and Bible (the Authorized King James Version ) further contributed to a growing cultural alliance between the two sovereign realms and their peoples. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 resulted in a pair of Acts of the English and Scottish legislatures—the Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 respectively—that ensured that
7740-647: The East African Bantu languages mzungu has come to mean any white European but more often than not especially the British or English, due to their prior presence in the region. Argentinians use the Spanish term pirata ( pirate ) to pejoratively refer to the British, in reference to the longstanding Falklands dispute . During the British Mandate in Palestine, British troops of the 6th Airborne Division were often referred to as כלניות or Kalaniot , being Hebrew for Anemones , reflecting their red berets. In Iraq , British occupying forces post WWI were known as “Abu Naji” In Hindi , Hindustani and Urdu
7869-403: The English (known then in Old English as the Anglecynn ) were under the governance of independent Anglo-Saxon petty kingdoms , which gradually coalesced into a Heptarchy of seven powerful states, the most powerful of which were Mercia and Wessex . Scottish historian and archaeologist Neil Oliver said that the Battle of Brunanburh would "define the shape of Britain into the modern era"; it
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#17327717335287998-454: The French term rosbif is that it referred to the English tradition of cooking roast beef , and especially to the song " The Roast Beef of Old England ". In Portugal, the term bife (literally meaning ' steak ', but sounding like "beef") is used as a slang term to refer to the English. There is a feminine form, bifa , mainly used to refer to English female tourists in Portugal. Les goddams (sometimes les goddems or les goddons )
8127-508: The Great 's victory against the Vikings performed to Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1740 to commemorate the accession of George I and the birthday of Princess Augusta . " Rule, Britannia! " was the climactic piece of the opera and quickly became a " jingoistic " British patriotic song celebrating "Britain's supremacy offshore". An island country with a series of victories for the Royal Navy associated empire and naval warfare "inextricably with ideals of Britishness and Britain's place in
8256-401: The Infantry Regiments, to specifically refer to a junior enlisted soldier. In Finnish the abbreviation of iso-britannialainen (literally "Great/Large Briton") Britti is colloquially most commonly used for a British person, often also referring interchangeably to a person from England. In Poland, a regular formal term to describe an English man is Anglik , in plural Anglicy, derived from
8385-413: The Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia (modern day Scotland north of the rivers Forth and Clyde), although the people of Caledonia and the north were also the selfsame Britons during the Roman period, the Gaels not arriving until four centuries later. Following the end of Roman rule in Britain , the island of Great Britain
8514-431: The Polish word for England, Anglia , with the word Brytyjczyk meaning a British from the Polish name for Britain. Polish people often use terms Anglik and Anglia to talk about the whole UK, including Scotland, Wales etc. Derogatory or disdainful (or sometimes just funny or ironic) terms coined in recent years are Angol and Brytol however, due to negative connotations they are not used in formal writing or by
8643-477: The Portuguese word Inglês (English) – despite this origin, Igirisu refers to the United Kingdom as a whole, and not specifically to England , which is Ingurando ( Katakana : イングランド ) and so Igirisu is more commonly used. As with the South East Asian term Farangi and the Northern Australian term Balanda (see above), the Māori term Pākehā and general Polynesian term Palagi have been used generically for Europeans for many years; given that
8772-415: The Russian army, and when the Finnish civil war ended about half of these were still unfinished and thus remained in Finland. The White Army captured a total of 50–60 guns in the Civil War of 1918. The guns used a column mount designed for naval use. It offered 360-degree traverse and about 70-degree elevation, allowing them to theoretically be used as antiaircraft-guns. The Finns managed to get over 30 of
8901-438: The Scots and the English respectively, with the former gaining some preference in Scotland, particularly by the economists and philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment . Indeed, it was the "Scots [who] played key roles in shaping the contours of British identity"; "their scepticism about the Union allowed the Scots the space and time in which to dominate the construction of Britishness in its early crucial years", drawing upon
9030-471: The Second World War, people from the United Kingdom made up a large majority of people coming to Australia, meaning that many people born in Australia can trace their origins to Britain. The colony of New South Wales , founded on 26 January 1788, was part of the eastern half of Australia claimed by the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1770, and initially settled by Britons through penal transportation . Together with another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies,
9159-421: The UK, the British diaspora totals around 200 million with higher concentrations in the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, with smaller concentrations in the Republic of Ireland, Chile, South Africa, and parts of the Caribbean. The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Great Britain may have come from 4th century BC records of the voyage of Pytheas , a Greek geographer who made
9288-579: The Union, successive British governments grappled with the problems of governing a country which had as Benjamin Disraeli , a staunch anti-Irish and anti-Catholic member of the Conservative party with a virulent racial and religious prejudice towards Ireland put it in 1844, "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world". Although
9417-548: The United Kingdom by people from what is now the Republic of Ireland , the Commonwealth , mainland Europe and elsewhere; they and their descendants are mostly British citizens, with some assuming a British, dual or hyphenated identity. This includes the groups Black British and Asian British people , which together constitute around 10% of the British population. The British are a diverse, multinational , multicultural and multilingual people, with "strong regional accents, expressions and identities". The social structure of
9546-440: The United Kingdom has changed radically since the 19th century, with a decline in religious observance, enlargement of the middle class , and increased ethnic diversity , particularly since the 1950s, when citizens of the British Empire were encouraged to immigrate to Britain to work as part of the recovery from World War II. The population of the UK stands at around 67 million, with 50 million being ethnic British. Outside of
9675-765: The United Kingdom and "reached across the globe and permanently affected population structures in three continents". As a result of the British colonisation of the Americas , what became the United States was "easily the greatest single destination of emigrant British", but in Australia the British experienced a birth rate higher than "anything seen before", resulting in the displacement of indigenous Australians . In colonies such as Southern Rhodesia , British East Africa and Cape Colony , permanently resident British communities were established and, whilst never more than
9804-540: The United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories, with 47% of Hong Kong residents holding a British National (Overseas) status or a British citizenship. The next highest concentrations of British citizens outside of the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories are located in Barbados (10%), the Republic of Ireland (7%), Australia (6%) and New Zealand (5%). From the beginning of Australia's colonial period until after
9933-544: The ballistics needed for proper antiaircraft-use. The reliability of old fuses used in their high-explosive shells also proved questionable. During World War 2 some of these guns were used in coastal artillery forts, where their unsuitability for anti-aircraft use became painfully obvious. However, the guns proved somewhat reliable when fired with only low elevation. This was likely because shooting with low elevation did not stress their fabric ammunition belts as much as shooting with higher elevation. Their theoretical rate of fire
10062-486: The captured guns to working order and they were used in warships and coastal artillery fortifications. Two of these guns also saw service in armoured trains from 1918 to late 1930s. The weapon was never popular in Finnish use as it was unreliable and had quite a short range. Main reason for the short range was in 37 mm x 94R ammunition (with moderate muzzle velocity of only about 440 m/sec), which did not really have
10191-516: The census Bureau has stated that most of these are of Anglo-Celtic colonial stock. All six states of Australia retain the Union Jack in the canton of their respective flags. QF 1-pounder pom-pom The QF 1 pounder , universally known as the pom-pom due to the sound of its discharge, was a 37 mm British autocannon , the first of its type in the world. It was used by several countries initially as an infantry gun and later as
10320-722: The citizens of the United Kingdom , the British Overseas Territories , and the Crown dependencies . British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, by descent from British nationals. When used in a historical context, "British" or "Britons" can refer to the Ancient Britons , the Celtic -speaking inhabitants of Great Britain during
10449-456: The counsel of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset , advocated a union with the Kingdom of Scotland , joining England, Wales and Scotland in a united Protestant Great Britain. The Duke of Somerset supported the unification of the English, Welsh and Scots under the "indifferent old name of Britons" on the basis that their monarchies "both derived from a Pre-Roman British monarchy". Following
10578-486: The death of Elizabeth I of England in 1603, the throne of England was inherited by James VI, King of Scots, so that the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland were united in a personal union under James VI of Scotland and I of England , an event referred to as the Union of the Crowns . King James advocated full political union between England and Scotland, and on 20 October 1604 proclaimed his assumption of
10707-464: The dominant component of the British Isles in terms of size, population and power"; Magna Carta , common law and hostility to continental Europe were English factors that influenced British sensibilities. The political union in 1800 of the predominantly Catholic Kingdom of Ireland with Great Britain, coupled with the outbreak of peace with France in the early 19th century, challenged
10836-422: The early 16th century and still retains a distinct Brittonic culture and language, whilst Britonia in modern Galicia was absorbed into Spanish states by the end of the 9th century AD. Britons – people with British citizenship or of British descent – have a significant presence in a number of countries other than the United Kingdom, and in particular in those with historic connections to the British Empire . After
10965-532: The end of the 18th century and the start of the 19th century, such as The Kymin at Monmouth , were attempts to meld the concepts of Britishness with the Greco-Roman empires of classical antiquity . The new and expanding British Empire provided "unprecedented opportunities for upward mobility and the accumulations of wealth", and so the "Scottish, Welsh and Irish populations were prepared to suppress nationalist issues on pragmatic grounds". The British Empire
11094-521: The establishment of devolved national administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales following pre-legislative referendums . Calls for greater autonomy for the four countries of the United Kingdom had existed since their original union with each other, but gathered pace in the 1960s and 1970s. Devolution has led to "increasingly assertive Scottish, Welsh and Irish national identities", resulting in more diverse cultural expressions of Britishness, or else its outright rejection: Gwynfor Evans ,
11223-539: The expression puu dee (ผู้ดี) meaning 'nobleman' is sometimes used to denote 'English'. Southeast Asian Hokkien and Teochew speakers also call the British ang mo (紅毛), which literally means 'red-haired'. The term was originally used to describe Dutch traders, but is now used for all white people . The following terms are used to mean 'Britain' or 'British' and use etymologies mostly unrelated to "Britain": These terms are also used to refer to England in unofficial contexts. More formal names also exist, such as
11352-416: The first event for the celebration said: Scots and people from the rest of the UK share the purpose that Britain has something to say to the rest of the world about the values of freedom, democracy and the dignity of the people that you stand up for. So at a time when people can talk about football and devolution and money, it is important that we also remember the values that we share in common. In 2018,
11481-599: The inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni , the origin of the Latin word Britanni . It has been suggested that this name derives from a Gaulish description translated as "people of the forms", referring to the custom of tattooing or painting their bodies with blue woad made from Isatis tinctoria . Parthenius , an Ancient Greek grammarian, and
11610-498: The laws, government and broad moral and political concepts—like tolerance and freedom of expression—that hold the United Kingdom together. Gordon Brown initiated a debate on British identity in 2006. Brown's speech to the Fabian Society 's Britishness Conference proposed that British values demand a new constitutional settlement and symbols to represent a modern patriotism, including a new youth community service scheme and
11739-494: The leading element of British national identity during the Victorian and Edwardian eras , and as such, a series of royal, imperial and national celebrations were introduced to the British people to assert imperial British culture and give themselves a sense of uniqueness, superiority and national consciousness. Empire Day and jubilees of Queen Victoria were introduced to the British middle class , but quickly "merged into
11868-488: The lineal descendants of the ancient Britons – a word that was still used to refer exclusively to the Welsh". For the English, however, by the Victorian era their enthusiastic adoption of Britishness had meant that, for them, Britishness "meant the same as 'Englishness'", so much so that "Englishness and Britishness" and "'England' and 'Britain' were used interchangeably in a variety of contexts". England has "always been
11997-567: The lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative spanning 2000 years, beginning with the Trojans founding the ancient British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 7th century forced the Britons to the west, i.e. Wales and Cornwall , and north, i.e. Cumbria , Strathclyde and northern Scotland. This legendary Celtic history of Great Britain
12126-671: The locals' unfamiliarity with English, it became corrupted as mat salleh (Mat and Salleh are both typical Malay names). Another possible origin of the phrase is the Mat Salleh Rebellion , led by North Borneo chief Mat Salleh, against the British North Borneo Company during the late 19th century. Another alternative to mat salleh is orang putih (literally 'white people' in Malay) or its shortened rural form, omputih . In ancient Malaccan times,
12255-645: The media or are used in social media and various alternative sources with varied connotations. In the Czech Republic the term Anglán is often used, which has the same roots as the Polish Anglik – the Czechs call England Anglie . This word carried no derogatory connotations. However, unlike the formal Angličan , it is not used by the press because of its informality. In Hungary the English are called angol or in plural angolok . England
12384-570: The national status of Australian citizens was formally described as "British Subject: Citizen of Australia". Britons continue to make up a substantial proportion of immigrants. By 1947, Australia was fundamentally British in origin with 7,524,129 or 99.3% of the population declaring themselves as European. In the 2016 census , a large proportion of Australians self-identified with British ancestral origins, including 36.1% or 7,852,224 as English and 9.3% (2,023,474) as Scottish alone. A substantial proportion —33.5%— chose to identify as 'Australian',
12513-484: The north, the demonym "Briton" became restricted to the Brittonic-speaking inhabitants of what would later be called Wales , Cornwall , North West England ( Cumbria ), and a southern part of Scotland ( Strathclyde ). In addition, the term was also applied to Brittany in what is today France and Britonia in north west Spain , both regions having been colonised in the 5th century by Britons fleeing
12642-539: The notion of a shared "spirit of liberty common to both Saxon and Celt ... against the usurpation of the Church of Rome". James Thomson was a poet and playwright born to a Church of Scotland minister in the Scottish Lowlands in 1700 who was interested in forging a common British culture and national identity in this way. In collaboration with Thomas Arne , they wrote Alfred , an opera about Alfred
12771-614: The other three have unrelated meanings, having been selected for the sound instead of meaning. In Chinese, yīngjílì ( Simplified characters : 英吉利), a transliteration of English , is also used to refer Britain in general. The Chinese Yīngguó , the Japanese Eikoku , and the Korean "Yeongguk" are all derived from the traditional Chinese characters 英国/國, where the first character 英 has no meaning in this context, although in Chinese, 英
12900-399: The pejorative Latin word Brittunculi (wretched little brits). Afrikaans speakers may use the term rooinek (literally 'red neck', another reference to sunburning) in reference to the British, or to White South Africans of British descent . During the Second Boer War , the British became known as khakis , in reference to the colour of their uniforms – which, by then, was no longer
13029-502: The predominant early European settlers in Australia, New Zealand and many Pacific islands spoke English, these terms are occasionally used specifically for English or British people. The Māori term for the English language, for instance, is Reo Pākehā . In most cases regional names are associated with those who speak with a specific regional accent, distinct to the area. British people Modern ethnicities British people or Britons , also known colloquially as Brits , are
13158-651: The previous century's concept of militant Protestant Britishness. The new, expanded United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland meant that the state had to re-evaluate its position on the civil rights of Catholics, and extend its definition of Britishness to the Irish people . Like the terms that had been invented at the time of the Acts of Union 1707, " West Briton " was introduced for the Irish after 1800. In 1832 Daniel O'Connell , an Irish politician who campaigned for Catholic Emancipation , stated in Britain's House of Commons : The people of Ireland are ready to become
13287-422: The rise of the British Empire led to a very specific drive in artistic technique, taste and sensibility for Britishness. In 1887, Frederic Harrison wrote: Morally, we Britons plant the British flag on every peak and pass; and wherever the Union Jack floats there we place the cardinal British institutions—tea, tubs, sanitary appliances, lawn tennis, and churches. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 reflected
13416-443: The shared constitutional monarchy of England and Scotland was held only by Protestants. Despite this, although popular with the monarchy and much of the aristocracy, attempts to unite the two states by Acts of Parliament were unsuccessful in 1606, 1667 and 1689; increased political management of Scottish affairs from England had led to "criticism" and had strained Anglo-Scottish relations. While English maritime explorations during
13545-639: The term Angrez is used to refer to the British. This word has its origin in Portuguese Inglês , meaning 'Englishman'. A derivative is the term Angrezan or Angrezni , meaning an Englishwoman. Among the Europeans, the Portuguese were the first to arrive in India. The influx of the Portuguese led to language contact between their tongue and the local languages. As a consequence of this,
13674-467: The term orang deringgi was also used. Balanda from Hollander is another word from Malay used by Makassarese and in northern Australia . In Thai, the word anggrit (อังกฤษ) is used to describe both the English in particular, and the British in general. In everyday speech the word Farang (ฝรั่ง) is usually used to describe British people as well as other light-skinned Europeans. Some foreigners regard this word as racist . In journalism,
13803-534: The term Pom is derogatory or offensive have occurred since 1925. The Oxford Dictionary defines its use as "often derogatory", but after complaints to the Australian Advertising Standards Board about five advertisements using the term "poms", the board ruled in 2006 that these words are inoffensive, in part because they are "largely used in playful or affectionate terms". The New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority made
13932-594: The term "British" was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people . At that time, it was "the long held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the Britons and that they spoke ' the British tongue ' ". This notion was supported by texts such as the Historia Regum Britanniae , a pseudohistorical account of ancient British history, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth . The Historia Regum Britanniae chronicled
14061-530: The varied ethnic groups that settled in Great Britain in and before the 11th century: Prehistoric , Brittonic, Roman , Anglo-Saxon , Norse , and Normans . The progressive political unification of the British Isles facilitated migration, cultural and linguistic exchange, and intermarriage between the peoples of England, Scotland and Wales during the late Middle Ages, early modern period and beyond. Since 1922 and earlier, there has been immigration to
14190-521: The vast majority of Unionists in Ireland proclaimed themselves "simultaneously Irish and British", even for them there was a strain upon the adoption of Britishness after the Great Famine . War continued to be a unifying factor for the people of Great Britain: British jingoism re-emerged during the Boer Wars in southern Africa . The experience of military, political and economic power from
14319-476: The war against the French, and of several spectacular victories, the spear was replaced by a trident... The navy had come to be seen...as the very bulwark of British liberty and the essence of what it was to be British. From the Union of 1707 through to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Great Britain was "involved in successive, very dangerous wars with Catholic France", but which "all brought enough military and naval victories ... to flatter British pride". As
14448-475: The world in shared traditions and common loyalties that were strenuously maintained". But following the two world wars, the British Empire experienced rapid decolonisation . The secession of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom meant that Britishness had lost "its Irish dimension" in 1922, and the shrinking empire supplanted by independence movements dwindled the appeal of British identity in
14577-406: The world". Britannia , the new national personification of Great Britain, was established in the 1750s as a representation of "nation and empire rather than any single national hero". On Britannia and British identity, historian Peter Borsay wrote: Up until 1797 Britannia was conventionally depicted holding a spear, but as a consequence of the increasingly prominent role of the Royal Navy in
14706-429: Was "crucial to the idea of a British identity and to the self-image of Britishness". Indeed, the Scottish welcomed Britishness during the 19th century "for it offered a context within which they could hold on to their own identity whilst participating in, and benefiting from, the expansion of the [British] Empire". Similarly, the "new emphasis of Britishness was broadly welcomed by the Welsh who considered themselves to be
14835-474: Was "responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood" in the 13th century. Schama hypothesised that Scottish national identity , "a complex amalgam" of Gaelic , Brittonic , Pictish , Norsemen and Anglo-Norman origins, was not finally forged until the Wars of Scottish Independence against the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Though Wales
14964-404: Was a "showdown for two very different ethnic identities – a Norse Celtic alliance versus Anglo Saxon. It aimed to settle once and for all whether Britain would be controlled by a single imperial power or remain several separate independent kingdoms, a split in perceptions which is still very much with us today". However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who solely
15093-410: Was also a large caliber, belt-fed, water-cooled machine gun that fired explosive rounds (smokeless ammunition) at 450 rounds per minute. Vickers-Maxim shipped either 57 or 50 guns out to the British Army in South Africa, with the first three arriving in time for the Battle of Paardeberg of February 1900. These Mk I versions were mounted on typical field gun type carriages. In World War I, it
15222-430: Was around 200–250 rounds per minute and maximum range around 4,400 meters. Finnish coastal defence decided to use them mainly as close-range defence weapons of its coastal forts against surface targets, and these old guns proved somewhat successful in this role. Still, since the coastal forts had rather limited number of anti-aircraft weapons, when needed these guns were also used against enemy aircraft. At least one plane
15351-612: Was conquered by England, and its legal system replaced by that of the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 , the Welsh endured as a nation distinct from the English ; and to some degree the Cornish people , although conquered into England by the 11th century, also retained a distinct Brittonic identity and language. Later, with both an English Reformation and a Scottish Reformation , Edward VI of England , under
15480-725: Was downed by such weapons; the Humaljoki Coastal Artillery Battery in Karelian Isthmus shot down a Soviet bomber with a 37 mm Maxim automatic cannon on 25 of December 1939. By that time they were terribly outdated, so the last remaining 16 guns were scrapped soon after the Continuation War ended in 1944. A version was produced in Germany for both Navy and Army. In World War I , it was used in Europe as an anti-aircraft gun as
15609-411: Was experimentally mounted on aircraft as the lighter 1-pounder Mk III, the cancelled Vickers E.F.B.7 having been designed to carry it in its nose. As a light anti-aircraft gun, it was quickly replaced by the larger QF 1 1 ⁄ 2 pounder and QF 2 pounder naval guns. The British are reported to have initially used some common pointed shells (semi-armour piercing, with fuse in the shell base) in
15738-625: Was featured in American newspaper headlines. The terms pommy , pommie , and pom used in Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand usually denote a British person. Newspapers in Australia were using the term by 1912, with it appearing first in Western Australia, and was said to be short for pomegranate, with the terms "jimmy" and "jimmigrant" also in use. The term Ten-pound Pom refers to British (subsidized) migrants to Australia and New Zealand after World War II. Disputes about whether
15867-570: Was left open to invasion by pagan , seafaring warriors such as Germanic -speaking Anglo-Saxons and Jutes from Continental Europe , who gained control in areas around the south east, and to Middle Irish -speaking people migrating from the north of Ireland to the north of Great Britain, founding Gaelic kingdoms such as Dál Riata and Alba , which would eventually subsume the native Brittonic and Pictish kingdoms and become Scotland. In this sub-Roman Britain , as Anglo-Saxon culture spread across southern and eastern Britain and Gaelic through much of
15996-483: Was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history". After 1707, a British national identity began to develop, though it was initially resisted, particularly by the English. The peoples of Great Britain had by the 1750s begun to assume a "layered identity": to think of themselves as simultaneously British and also Scottish, English, or Welsh. The terms North Briton and South Briton were devised for
16125-744: Was that the appointment of a Jacobite monarchy in Scotland opened up the possibility of a Franco-Scottish military conquest of England during the Second Hundred Years' War and War of the Spanish Succession . The Parliament of England passed the Alien Act 1705 , which provided that Scottish nationals in England were to be treated as aliens and estates held by Scots would be treated as alien property, whilst also restricting
16254-673: Was the first dedicated anti-aircraft (AA) gun adopted by the US Navy, specified as such on the Sampson -class destroyers launched in 1916–17. It was deployed on various types of ships during the US participation in World War I , although it was replaced as the standard AA gun on new destroyers by the 3-inch (76 mm)/23-caliber gun . The United States Army procured a small number of Maxim-Nordenfelt pieces for usage as mountain artillery during
16383-754: Was used as an early anti-aircraft gun in the home defence of Britain. It was adapted as the Mk I*** and Mk II on high-angle pedestal mountings and deployed along London docks and on rooftops on key buildings in London, others mobile, on motor lorries at key towns in the East and Southeast of England. 25 were employed in August 1914, and 50 in February 1916. A Mk II gun (now in the Imperial War Museum, London) on
16512-434: Was used as the additive to grog on the Royal Navy ships, but that was later switched to limes, which were grown in British colonies. It was not understood that limes contain only one quarter as much vitamin C as lemons. Moreover, processing and storing the juice further reduced the amount of vitamin C present, and as a result, lime juice-based grog was not able to prevent scurvy. In time, the term lost its naval connotation and
16641-548: Was used to refer to British people in general and, in the 1880s, British immigrants in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Although the term may have been used earlier in the US Navy as slang for a British sailor or a British warship, such a usage was not documented until 1918. By 1925, the usage of limey in American English had been extended to mean any British person, and the term was so commonly known that it
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