Talk:Welsh people

Harvard Refs
John Davies was cited in 10 different places and citations were a mix of bare Harvard format and duplicates of full references. As Harvard referencing is used on the page I have converted all 10 to Harvard refs with a single full citation (in further reading). This is much neater, and if the change sticks, I propose to clean up other duplicated refs in a similar manner.

However, it could elicit discussion because referencing style is one of those questions. I used Harvard refs rather than the Rp template to regularise these because the page already used Harvard referencing - just not in the appropriate template. If anyone has strong feelings that we should not be using Harvard referencing, please can we discuss now before I spend any more work on the page. Just this one change has taken me over an hour and a half, so I don't want to waste my time if its all going to get reverted. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 11:54, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

ETA: It occurs to me that editors may not reply to this if they are not sure what the difference between referencing systems is. To see a Harvard reference, one of the ones I improved, click reference [13] in the second paragraph of the article. See how it has "(Davies, 1994, p.54)" but if you click that you see the full citation for the book, which can be found at the bottom of the page (currently in "Further Reading", but that will probably move into "References" if we are all happy with Harvard refs). Clicking ref [12] in the paragraph above shows the more usual referencing style. One advantage of Harvard refs is that you can re-use refs whilst updating the page number and inserting quotes, and each re-use is quite easy. Re-using the other ref style needs the ref either to be repeated in full when referencing different page numbers, or else adding the Rp template to insert a page number beside the ref.

The disadvantage of Harvard refs is most people on Wikipedia are familiar with the other citation style, and that is what the tools put in for you.

This page was using Harvard style for the Davies quotes but not for just about everything else. So, despite my improving the Harvard referencing earlier, I am not sure I can recommend that we stick with Harvard. If we don't, I will convert all those Harvard refs to a single ref using the Rp template for page numbers and efn notes to insert the quotations. But it would be helpful to get some input as to which editors of this page would prefer.

Do we need an RfC? Or should I just pretend all the Davies quotes were not in Harvard format and go back to the more standard ref style? :) -- Sirfurboy (talk) 21:55, 24 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Whilst helping out with the Timeline of Welsh history I got used to both sfn and rp referencing. I'm guessing Harv is one of those. Anyhow, I don't think anyone's going to revert you for improving referencing, even if they are a mixture of styles.  Tony Holkham   (Talk)  22:39, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Tony. The sfn footnotes are Harvard references (the only minor difference is that sfn does not put in brackets around the reference). When you used sfn footnotes, were there mixed styles on the same page? Or was the whole page using sfn? -- Sirfurboy (talk) 22:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No need to answer that. Just took a look at the page. Yes, it used both, and it solved the compatibility issue between the two by having a section after references called "sources". Looks like major sources then are in Harvard style and single use refs are left in the normal ref style. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 22:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

People born/grew up in Wales of non-Welsh descent are Welsh or not?
I've come across multiple individuals of Welsh ancestry who believe someone born in England to Welsh parents = Welsh, even if they grew up in England. And the same individuals believe that someone born in Wales to English parents = English, regardless of whether or not they grew up there. Would someone of non-Welsh ancestry, particularly first gen English "immigrants", consider themselves Welsh? Would they be allowed to consider themselves Welsh? We need more research on Welsh ethno-nationalism, particularly as it's often criticized as being racist towards non-Caucasian people who grew up in Wales. --2A00:23C4:3E08:4000:9894:82:6973:5EA4 (talk) 12:04, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTFORUM. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:24, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Great, but I specifically asked if there was any research into this and whether it should be mentioned. If anyone has any background knowledge on this it would help in locating relevant info. (Insufferable xenophobia and racism in England is not a get out of jail free card for the Celtic nations, you know)2A00:23C4:3E08:4000:69C7:E9EF:AB27:91F9 (talk) 13:43, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * But you asked unanswerable questions like "Would someone of non-Welsh ancestry, particularly first gen English "immigrants", consider themselves Welsh?" - it depends. "Would they be allowed to consider themselves Welsh?" - of course, it's up to them.  There may be some useful info and links at Cultural relationship between the Welsh and the English.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This article is about the Welsh ethnic group not residents of Wales CicolasMoon (talk) 15:31, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I fail to see how people not descended from historical Brittonic populations, who speak only English, likely have names from languages which are not Welsh could in any sense be classed as 'Welsh' whatever they identify as and whatever others identify them as. However, interestingly, only around 58% of the people in Wales descend from Brittonic peoples. And I'm willing to bet good money many of the people in Wales claiming to be 'true Welsh' today ultimately trace their descent from the Danish-like source interpreted as largely representing the Anglo-Saxons (22%), the Norwegian Vikings (3%), or from further south in Europe, possibly related to French immigration during the Norman period (13%). Perhaps the Welsh identity is rather flimsy. Like all based on vapid concepts of 'blood'. Perhaps it's more of a geographic identity today outside of the actual Welsh-speaking parts of Wales. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.79.26 (talk) 08:39, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Fortunately, we base WP articles on what can be verified in sources, not on what random editors do or don't fail to see or are willing to gamble on the truth of. I'll go so far as to agree that ethnic identities can be confusing and frustrating and illogical; other than that, do you have a point relating to improving the article?  happy days, LindsayHello 10:07, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Generally speaking most ethnic identities have a far more firm founding than modern 'Welshness' does, although Welsh is definitely far from the most ridiculous 'ethnic group' I've seen on Wikipeda, and you could well argue the Welsh-speaking parts of Wales are Welsh, it's just that a lot of people claiming to be Welsh today in the British Isles are about as Welsh as 'German Americans', or in many cases even LESS so, which funnily enough Europeans like the Welsh often scoff at and mock mercilessly on a daily basis. I mean at this point Welsh people are as much an ethnic identity as Star Trek fans are. I guess if 'verifiable sources' start referring to Star Trek fans as an ethnic group one day, Wikipedia will follow suit... Well my point is we should really be referring to 'ethnic groups' like the Scottish and so on as 'categories of people who identify with one another', as they fit none of the traditional criteria for ethnic groups as they've been traditionally defined throughout history. There's a couple of sovereign states which historically (Soviet Union, Finland etc.) which have introduced official checklists for what an ethnic group needs to have in order to be legally classed as one, so you don't get ridiculous situations where every town and village declares itself a 'distinct people' and enjoys the privileges and protections of being an ethnic minority, the Welsh of 2021 would fail every single one of them. I think the term ethnic group is a valid concept, but I think stretching the meaning of an ethnic group to 'people who identify with one another' is a bit ridiculous and makes it seem like a very vapid and pointless exercise. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.79.26 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 15 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Can you provide more information on these “official checklists for what an ethnic group needs to have”? Sounds interesting. Adda&#39;r Yw (talk) 07:12, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Sure here's one from the people we actually adopted the term 'ethnic group' (ethnos) from, the Greeks. They had a different term for strict biological ancestry which was 'genos' from which of course we get genetics: "The terms used to define Greekness have varied throughout history but were never limited or completely identified with membership to a Greek state.[136] Herodotus gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating" - shared descent (ὅμαιμον – homaimon, "of the same blood"),[137] - shared language (ὁμόγλωσσον – homoglōsson, "speaking the same language")[138] - shared sanctuaries and sacrifices (θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι – theōn hidrumata te koina kai thusiai)[139] - shared customs (ἤθεα ὁμότροπα – ēthea homotropa, "customs of like fashion").

Here's another from a sociological study on Swedes in Finland: "According to a sociological study published in 1981, the Swedish-speaking Finns meet the four major criteria for a separate ethnic group: self-identification of ethnicity, language, social structure, and ancestry"

If you've ever studied ethnicity in the Soviet Union you'll be well aware that in order to be considered an ethnic group you had to fulfill certain criteria. Those were speaking your own language, having your own homeland and a few other criteria. Couples of different ethnicities were required to register their child's ethnicity by a certain age, picking from either the mother's or the father's.

That's how we don't get a free-for-all insane system as in the British Isles. After all, what's stopping me identifying as a distinct ethnic group? My family is its own tribe. We have our own idiolect. We are a genetically distinct population (albeit very similar to the people surrounding us). WE CONSIDER OURSELVES DIFFERENT AND YOU ARE OPPRESSING US IF YOU CLAIM WE ARE NOT. Bit ridiculous, is it not? Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.113.146 (talk) 09:03, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not quite sure what you're arguing for here. You jokingly claim that your family could be its own tribe/ethnic group by the very criteria (shared descent, shared language, self-identification) that you seem to approve of when it's applied to define ethnic groups in other countries. Adda&#39;r Yw (talk) 20:51, 8 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The problem is people in Wales don't share a language. Or ancestry. They're just a group of people identifying with each other because they live in an arbitrary geographic area. Now if you want to say Welsh people are exclusively the ones who are fluent in Welsh and identify as such? I'm all on board, fair enough, even the ones descended from Normans or English or various other peoples who have migrated into the region known as Wales, because those people have been assimilated into Welshness due to their speaking the Welsh tongue.
 * However you can't then also claim all the people in Wales who can only speak English are also Welsh. Because they aren't. You've already established cryptogenetics don't matter when you're willing to accept people who are emphatically not of Celtic Briton ancestry as Welsh if they speak Welsh.
 * What's even more ridiculous is that a huge percentage of the people who can only speak English in Wales today not only don't speak Welsh, they don't descend from the Celtic Britons ancestrally either. So in what sense are they Welsh? The fact they identify as such? Already you've reduced Welshness to completely vapid self-identification. And it's no longer an ethnic identity or something of any substance it's just "people calling themselves Welsh".
 * When you just try to maximize the spread of an identity like this you end up reducing it to the point of vapidness as has already been done long ago in places like "Scot"land. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.170.42.40 (talk) 05:13, 24 October 2021 (UTC)


 * "You jokingly claim that your family could be its own tribe/ethnic group"
 * Why is that a "joke"? Why is it anymore of a "joke" than claiming the 3 million people inhabiting Wales today constitute a distinct ethnic group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.170.42.40 (talk) 05:15, 24 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The fact that you ended with "Bit ridiculous, is it not?" is what made me think you were joking. Adda&#39;r Yw (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I started this topic after a rather emotional episode with my mother after telling her I wouldn't be teaching anything specifically Welsh-related to my mixed race (Chinese and European). In hindsight it was pretty stupid imo, but like I said, I was somewhat emotional (largely to do with my mums enthusiasm for Welsh things...despite her Welsh father having abandoned her & her Anglo-Scottish mother before she was even BORN). So yadda yadda enough personal crap - this is an interesting topic that could do with being explored more. Intermarriage between Welsh and English people is common and it's definitely something that gets bought up in Anglo-Welsh families that reside in England, in addition to the historical borders along the marches have always been porous etc. Also to the other IP...the English aren't a homogenous group either, with it being a romanticized myth that the English are not descended from the 'indigenous' Britons. As someone who has "Taffy blood" I find this highly amusing. Am I not English? --2A00:23C4:3E08:4000:CC94:9924:C983:7701 (talk) 21:25, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as a homogeneous group, the closest you would get is some extremely isolated tribes in Africa and similar regions who haven't had contact with others for tens of thousands of years, or have had extremely little contact.
 * Despite this even those groups aren't 'pure' and at some point came about through a mixing event with their ancestors, even if they've remained in a sort of genetic stasis since that point (ultimately they haven't regardless of no mixing due to genetic drift and endogamy).
 * Purity spiralling however, is as old as time itself when it comes to modern (and ancient) ethnic groups. And no matter how much you intellectually browbeat these people and prove to them definitively that their ethnic group does not, and never did, share a common genetic ancestry they will simply refuse to believe it and continue claiming that theirs is an identity of 'shared blood' and that nobody can simply 'become [insert ethnic group]' through assimilation.
 * My advice to you is to stop worrying about it and simply go by whatever language (or languages) you speak.
 * At the end of the day we're all just humans with a fairly recent shared common ancestral origin (definitively proven by archaeogenetics which these knuckldruggers love to conveniently cherrypick from when it suits them and ignore when it shatters their worldview). Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.4081.170.32.206 (talk) 13:54, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Practically all Welsh speakers are bilingual. There are very many monoglot English speakers who consider themselves Welsh. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:16, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Well that's just a blatant lie, isn't it. By bilingual are you including people who know a phrase or two in Welsh? Because I know a phrase or two in Welsh, I'm not a Welsh-speaker. I couldn't carry a 10 second conversation in Welsh. I don't know the first thing about the language.

Only around 20% of the population of Wales considers themselves fluent in Welsh, and that's probably itself a fairly significant overestimate as it's self-reported. Actual Welsh-speaking ability in the modern "Welsh" population is like lower than 10%. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.170.32.206 (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The point I was making is the Welsh identity doesn't exist without the Welsh language, which most of the people claiming to be Welsh today don't, and can't, speak. Their claim to 'Welshness' in lieu of their ability to converse in Welsh is that they 'descend from the Celtic Britons', which as we can see from numerous genetic studies, a huge percentage of them don't.
 * Today, that percentage is considerably smaller due to the huge numbers of people who have migrated into Wales from outside it in recent decades.
 * Now, you see the problem. For these newcomers neither speak Welsh, nor descend from the Celtic Britons (along with the already considerable chunk of the 'Welsh' population who already were descended from other ethnic groups). So in what way are they Welsh? The answer is they're not Welsh, in any way. And in reality, neither are ANY of the English-speaking people in modern Wales who cannot speak Welsh.
 * It's merely a case that some of the English-speaking population of Wales can claim to be (at least partly) descended from the Celtic Britons. SOME of them. But funnily enough most Americans claim to be descended from various European ethnic groups and are routinely laughed at for doing so and mocked by the 'true Europeans' for claiming they are such.
 * You can imagine of course the surrealness of an average white American travelling to his 'ancestral homeland' of Bavaria and attempting to fit in there. For a start he wouldn't even be able to tell them he was of 'German blood' unless the locals could converse with him in his foreign language. That would only stand the chance of working with the percentage of Bavaria that was actually fluent in and could understand English, and not that many people in Bavaria are fluent in English, believe it or not.
 * And even once he had, he would be so culturally and mentally different to the average Bavarian it's laughable. Nobody would ever really truly consider him a Bavarian and his claim to German ancestry would be just that, a claim. Some might buy it, most likely won't, he'll never truly fit in without perfecting the German language (in a Bavarian way), and good luck to him with that.
 * That's basically your situation in Wales today. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.4081.170.32.206 (talk) 14:18, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * If you think there is no Welsh identity without Welsh language you are very much mistaken. "Descended from Celtic Britons" is also barking up the wrong socio-cultural tree. Sorry. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:27, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Well what is it then? What is the Welsh identity. If it's not language, if it's not shared descent. What is it? Because I know it's not shared religion, so that's 3 out of 4 of the traditional criteria for an ethnic group you're missing. Shared customs is the last one which of course is the most vague and elusive of categories and could be applied to any arbitrary group of peoples really. What's your identity? That's the point I've been driving home here, you're not an ethnic group, you do not share the distinctive things ethnic groups require to be traditionally considered as such. So how are you anymore of an ethnic group than Star Trek fans? I'm all ears here, how are you an ethnic group? What is Welshness? Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.170.32.206 (talk) 18:47, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a page for discussing the Wikipedia article - not for wider discussions. Thanks.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:03, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a nice cope, and it might just fly if this wasn't an article ABOUT the concept of a 'Welsh people' and just what exactly that entails. If you're going to file this article under 'ethnic groups' and discuss the modern Welsh as if they are an ethnic group then you need to ascertain what exactly it is about the Welsh that qualifies them as an ethnic group and not just a 'group of people who identify with one another', you know like a football team's fans do and so on. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.170.32.206 (talk) 19:28, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Please read the definition of Ethnic group - "a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area" - and also read WP:POINT. Thanks.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:53, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, so you are acknowledging that Star Trek fans, if they so choose to start doing so, could be deemed an ethnic group one day. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 81.170.32.206 (talk) 22:13, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area"
 * Uhuh, and can you tell me which of these attributes the so-called Welsh of today share with one another, that they do NOT share with their English neighbors?
 * What about all the people in Wales actually descended from English people, in addition to only speaking English. How exactly is Tom Jones Welsh, 3/4 of his grandaparents are English, for example. Does Tom Jones speak Welsh, is he remotely fluent in it? The Christian Bale article is in a complete mess and we can't even label Christian Bale English because a bunch of warring editors are trying to claim him as Welsh even though he's stated several times, clearly, he is English and not Welsh.
 * Who's Welsh and who isn't, and why? Because the Welsh editors over at the Christian Bale article don't seem to care what he identifies as, they seem to want to tell him what he is, what they would like him to be. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.4081.170.32.206 (talk) 22:24, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * In this edit today (which you did not sign) you said, "Well that's just a blatant lie, isn't it." Would you care to retract that baseless accusation? Or else provide some kind of evidence for the existence of Welsh speakers who cannot speak any English. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:09, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Collapsing again. If anyone wants to suggest a change to the wording of the article, make a proposal and discuss it here. If you just want to have a discussion about your interpretation of the term "ethnic group", take it elsewhere. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:35, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Yeah you keep collapsing and hiding and running off when you can't answer difficult questions. It's not my own interpretation of the term ethnic group, it's the original Greek concept of an ethnic group, you know the people we took the word and concept from (ethnos). They had a separate term for race and genetics too (genos).
 * It's also the term most sovereign states have used for legally recognizing ethnic groups and ethnic minorities (such as Finland and the USSR), as I mentioned earlier in the discussion, if you'd bothered to read it.
 * Your own ridiculous Wikipedia definition, as I said, is so impossibly vapid and broad that it could literally be applied to anyone, for example Star Trek fans, or a football team's followers or an individual family who decided they wanted to be recognized as a distinct ethnic minority within Wales and be afforded the legal protections, privileges and rights of being recognized as such a thing. Sock of indef blocked User:92.14.216.40 81.170.32.206 (talk) 23:14, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Like the OP I am also heavily Welsh by descent. Like the OP, my kids are also mixed race. I find it interesting how irredentist claims such as the "lost Welsh lands" are more prominent than say, encouraging or acknowledging people like myself as Welsh, despite no culture being passed down. Wales isn't Eastern Europe, or the German diaspora prior to WWII. This is an interesting convo but is largely limited to personal experiences and not really of any academic merit, imho. I am not in the slightest bit Welsh as I wasn't raised in the culture. OP, don't let your blood define you. --Trans-Neptunian object (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

What?
"Native to Wales" - also "includes people of Welsh descent". Pick one - I have a large amount of Welsh descent, but I am absolutely not Welsh. Nobody counts me as Welsh - certainly not census data. I was born and raised in England, so I am English. Nobody in Wales is "claiming" me (not that I care), so where is the lead claims coming from? SinoDevonian (talk) 22:10, 2 December 2022 (UTC)


 * This article is about ethnicity, not national identity 2A02:C7C:4C89:3C00:D905:5E65:B307:B93B (talk) 13:52, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Birth or conception of Wales
I have removed some quite longstanding text from the lead allegedly citing John Davies as saying Wales as a nation can be traced back to the 4th or 5th centuries. It is not altogether wrong per Davies, but it is a poor summary of his argument. It is a nuanced opinion, and I suggest that anyone wishing to restore this should first create a section in the main that discusses the nuances before creating a lead summary. What Davies says is (inter alia):

And he goes on to discuss the old north, the surviving literature etc. as being important to the idea of Wales, but he has already spoken of the above as being the mythology of the foundation of Wales. His point is that we find the ideas of a people here, the conception of an idea of Wales that has its birth later on. Our text {{tq|The historian John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the end of Roman rule in Britain)) is therefore, as I say, not wholly wrong, but certainly not a fair summation of his argument. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:02, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

"Welsh nation" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Welsh_nation&redirect=no Welsh nation] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 15:33, 13 May 2023 (UTC)