Saturday, January 10, 2009

What's my nationality?

An extract from the Wiki on Alfred_Russel_Wallace:-

"Since Wallace was born in Monmouthshire, Wales, some sources have considered him to be Welsh.[7] However some historians have questioned this because neither of his parents were Welsh, his family only briefly lived in Monmouthshire, the Welsh people Wallace knew in his childhood considered him to be English, and because Wallace himself seems to have consistently referred to himself as English rather than Welsh. One Wallace scholar has stated that because of these facts the most reasonable interpretation was that he was an Englishman born in Wales."

This reminds me of the sort of conversations we have with Dan, who was born in Swansea, his father is English, his mother is Welsh with maternal Grandparents both born in England. Actually, his Grandfather was born from Welsh parents, who happened to be living in Bristol at the time, and his Grandmother, born in Folkstone, lived there for 21 years, but lived in Swansea for 52 years. I could go on to say that his Gran was descended from Irish and Dutch stock, but I won't.

No wonder he is confused! He feels he should support his Dad, an Englishman in Wales, (living with a Welsh teacher, Mother of Rhodri & Hannah), but when pushed, claims to support Scotland.

I guess it all goes to show what twaddle Nationality is.

2 Comments:

Blogger Nick Browne said...

The provisional gloss that I have decided to put on this challenge for the time being is that the modern Welsh are in essence an aspirational, non-exclusive ethnic group, membership of which is open to anyone supporting fifteen men in red when they run out at Twickenham on Feb 4, and a superset of the honoured speakers of the Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken natively in the western part of Britain known as Cymru, and in the Chubut Valley, a Welsh immigrant colony in the Patagonia region of Argentina.

Jan 2006

1:29 pm  
Blogger chris said...

just so, just so.

11:00 am  

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