4 ms·

The French national identity goes back to Charlemagne, not merely de Gaulle.

brnt 4y ago
Napoleon, in case you studied the subject. The history of Franks and France is certainly not one of direct descendence, nor was there such a thing as a nation or national identity at the time of Charlemagne. Did you know the only surviving Franconian language is Dutch?
philwelch 4y ago
And the American national identity goes back primarily to the Anglo-Saxons.
- relaxing 4y ago
  We fought multiple wars to sever those ties. Then allowed generations of non-Anglo immigration, not to mention slavery. There are far more Americans who claim German descent than English. Irish, too. And Blacks.
  - philwelch 4y ago
    That’s one of the reasons I used the word “primarily”, which is a word that I would defend. Even if many Americans don’t personally have much English descent, the shared cultural narrative of the country starts there. The central complaint of the American Revolution was that the British were infringing on our traditional “rights of Englishmen”, which evolved over centuries. We’ve retained the English language and the English common law. Many of our cultural and regional variations to this day, even down to our regional dialects, can be traced to those that existed in different parts of England. Also, please find a reliable citation that says that more Americans have African than English heritage. That strikes me as a very surprising claim.
    - relaxing 4y ago
      The US Census, self-identified ancestry. 1 German 46,403,053 2 Black/African-American (non-Hispanic) 38,785,726 3 Mexican (of any race) 34,640,287 4 Irish 33,526,444 5 English 24,787,018
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        One consequence of American, especially historical, racism (including things like the one-drop rule) is that the experience, and over time the identity, of people (and thus their descendants) who were Black and something else tend to be heavily weighted on the Black side.

brnt 4y ago

Napoleon, in case you studied the subject. The history of Franks and France is certainly not one of direct descendence, nor was there such a thing as a nation or national identity at the time of Charlemagne. Did you know the only surviving Franconian language is Dutch?

philwelch 4y ago

And the American national identity goes back primarily to the Anglo-Saxons.

relaxing 4y ago
We fought multiple wars to sever those ties. Then allowed generations of non-Anglo immigration, not to mention slavery. There are far more Americans who claim German descent than English. Irish, too. And Blacks.
- philwelch 4y ago
  That’s one of the reasons I used the word “primarily”, which is a word that I would defend. Even if many Americans don’t personally have much English descent, the shared cultural narrative of the country starts there. The central complaint of the American Revolution was that the British were infringing on our traditional “rights of Englishmen”, which evolved over centuries. We’ve retained the English language and the English common law. Many of our cultural and regional variations to this day, even down to our regional dialects, can be traced to those that existed in different parts of England. Also, please find a reliable citation that says that more Americans have African than English heritage. That strikes me as a very surprising claim.
  - relaxing 4y ago
    The US Census, self-identified ancestry. 1 German 46,403,053 2 Black/African-American (non-Hispanic) 38,785,726 3 Mexican (of any race) 34,640,287 4 Irish 33,526,444 5 English 24,787,018
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      One consequence of American, especially historical, racism (including things like the one-drop rule) is that the experience, and over time the identity, of people (and thus their descendants) who were Black and something else tend to be heavily weighted on the Black side.