The British: People from worldwide origins (ePub)

Seminar paper from the year 1999 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, University of Osnabrück (Fachbereich Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften), course: Constructing Britishness: Fiction, Film, Press, language: English, abstract: "We call our islands by no less than six different names,
England, Britain, Great Britain, the British Isles, the
United Kingdom and, in very exalted moments, Albion."
This quotation taken from George Orwell's essay
England, Your England (1941) clearly shows that the names
quoted above are often used as synonyms, although they
patently are not. So it is no surprise that some people define
themselves as being "Englishsorrybritish" - a term which
occurred in the newspapers several times over the last few
months. A lot of people seem to be quite confused about their
identity, about who they are and where they belong. But using
the words "English" and "British" interchangeably is, in my
opinion, not very fair - especially with regard to the inhabitants
of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In fact, the so-called United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland comprises four different indigenous
nations: English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish. And
considering the fact that the British Isles (cf. map 1, page 2) - of
which the United Kingdom3 is a part - have attracted settlers
and immigrants for several centuries, it is not surprising that the
contemporary British are a very diverse people, or - as is stated
in the title of my paper - people from worldwide origins. The
question arises whether the majority of people in the United
Kingdom consider themselves to be British or rather to be
English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish or part of any other
community often referred to as a so-called ethnic minority
group.