English?

**Fishman** · 12-20-2006

How do you define 'English'? I do not mean 'British', since that simply refers to anybody who lives in Britain.

**Fishman** · 12-20-2006

Originally Posted by amirah_87

Or if you can find Black anglo-saxons then yeah. lol

You gotta have it in your blood right? to be an ethnicity. :confused:

Anglo-Saxon is an ethnicity, just like 'African-Caribbean'. It is impossible to be both black and Anglo-Saxon at the same time, it would be contradictory. You could be mixed-heritage though. But there are black families who have been in England for hundreds of years, imported with the slave trade. Would you consider them to be English?

**Al-Zaara** · 12-20-2006

Yes.

If they have a long family tree from England, then yes, they are English. No matter if black or white. I think of rather how long their families have lived in England, how many generations and so on, then the "original ethnicity" comes second hand.

**amirah_87** · 12-20-2006

As salaamu Alaykum,

Anglo-Saxon is an ethnicity, just like 'African-Caribbean'. It is impossible to be both black and Anglo-Saxon at the same time, it would be contradictory.

Yep I know, I was kiddin'

But there are black families who have been in England for hundreds of years, imported with the slave trade. Would you consider them to be English?

This is pretty tricky, I don't know.

But what i do know is that with the Muhaditheen/Ulamaah who were before us, when they'd make hijrah or go to a country for da'wah and they'd lstay for a long time, they'd relate/refer themselves to that country so if they were Iraaqi and resiing in Yemen They'd have in there titles :Al-Iraaqiy Al-Yemeniy or Al-Iqraaiy thummal Yemeniy (so & so the Iraaqi and then the Yemeniy)..

So maybe yeah you could!

**Fishman** · 12-20-2006

Originally Posted by MTAFFI

Anyone who lives in America and wants to be called American is, therefore i believe anyone who lives in England can be English if they want... or at least that is my opinion

That's pretty similar to what I believe...

**Muezzin** · 12-20-2006

English, despite what certain tabloids may claim, is not an ethnicity, it is a nationality.

**Woodrow** · 12-20-2006

As an American we Define English as a Language derived from Anglo-Saxon and also as a person who is born in Breat Britain or has Ancestry going back to Great Britain.

In America most of us refer to ourslves as an English speaking people, but very few Americans are of British ancestry. Most of us are not English, and a very large proportion are non-white. at the moment fully 25% of the American population is non-white and at the growth rates the Americas will be roughly half white and half non-white.

The 20th century has witnessed the transformation of the United States from a predominately white population rooted in Western culture to a society with a rich array of racial and ethnic minorities. As the century began, the U.S. population was 87 percent white. The nonwhite minority was composed primarily of black Americans living in the rural South. At the century's end, non-Hispanic whites account for less than 75 percent of the U.S. population. The minority population is comprised of nearly as many Hispanics as blacks, surging numbers of Asians, and a small but growing American Indian population. By the middle of the 21st century, non-Hispanic whites will make up a slim and fading majority of Americans. Hispanics will be nearly one-fourth of the U.S. population. Blacks, Asians, and American Indians together will make up close to one-fourth of the population. "Minority" is likely to have a very different meaning in the 21st century.

America's ethnic landscape also includes a rapidly growing Arab population, a sizeable Jewish population, and other ethnic groups. But in the 1990s, the term "minority" usually refers to four major racial and ethnic groups: African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics.

Source: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...09/ai_n8872409

Soon in America the Term English will most likely just refer to a language and not any race or nationilty. Spanish will soon be the majority language in several States.

**England** · 12-20-2006

Anyone that is born in England is obviously English. Some people would rather be classed as English rather than British for the reason of their National identity not being associated with the Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish.

As for Americans speaking English, they've messed about with the English language so much that you can't really call it English.

**snakelegs** · 12-20-2006

someone born in england.
the other category i would refer to as "english speaking".

**Skillganon** · 12-20-2006

Born and speak english. I qualify. Can I get a certificate?

**LRonLovesYou** · 01-20-2008

If you ask me it's really up to the individual to decide whether they feel English or not. I know a lot of non-saxons think of themselves as British rather than English and that's cool. If you want to be patriotic and declaire yourself English then that's even better