Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 May 7

= May 7 =

Non-English Royal family members
Are any members of the British Royal family Welsh, Scottish, Irish or American? 86.130.77.121 (talk) 20:56, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * You mean by birth? Sure. Lots. Nanonic (talk) 21:20, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, although born in London, was from an ancient Scottish family, the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne, descendants of John Lyon, Lord of Glamis who was Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland in the 14th-century. Otherwise, the now abandoned custom that heirs to the throne should only marry into other royal families has tended to mean unions with continental European (often German) royals. In theory the British Royal Family claim somewhat tenuous descent from the Scottish House of Stewart, and even more tenuously, from Brian Boru, whose harp adorns the Royal Standard. Alansplodge (talk) 11:20, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Not forgetting the American Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Wallis, Duchess of Windsor who have had somewhat troubled relationships with the family that they married into. Alansplodge (talk) 11:32, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, and Henry VII of England was born in Wales to a Welsh family in 1457. The present Windsors are distantly related. Alansplodge (talk) 16:50, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Two more of the living people listed at British royal family are the Countess of Snowdon born in Ireland and Princess Lilibet, also born in the U.S.A.70.67.193.176 (talk) 14:44, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The Armstrong-Joneses are Welsh/German-Jewish. DuncanHill (talk) 18:50, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * All of Elizabeth II's descendants share Greek and Danish ancestry from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. -- Verbarson talkedits 18:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Defining ethnicity by one's ancestors is massively problematic even over the course of only a small number of generations. I'm not sure that Prince William or Prince Harry earnestly self-identify as Greek or interact with other people in Greek communities in a way to indicate that they are ethnically Greek in any meaningful sense.  Ethnicity is primarily as a social and cultural and (and often linguistic) community, and by one's own participation in that community.  Distant ancestors one never met who may have been part of said community do not magically pass that on to one's descendents (and that also raises issues as to how ethnicities evolve; at one point does a new ethnicity emerge, at one point does an ethnicity no longer resemble earlier ethnicities that one cannot say there is any meaningful continuity.  Italians aren't Etruscans, after all.)  -- Jayron 32 18:34, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed (and note that the Greek royal family were mostly Danish but of German extraction). Alansplodge (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Well yes, but the caveat about ancestral ethnicity still holds. George I of Greece was raised Danish, but Constantine I of Greece was absolutely raised as a Greek, and it would be hard to argue that the next generation was not also so raised.  -- Jayron 32 18:32, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Jayron32 -- An example which affects a large number of people (though not connected to royalty), is that the ancestors of a majority of U.S. Jews probably came from areas which are now part of Germany, Poland, and Ukraine, but (except for a few recent immigrants and special cases) they do not generally consider themselves to be German-American, Polish-American, or Ukrainian-American, nor are they generally considered to be such by self-identified German-Americans, Polish-Americans, or Ukrainian-Americans... AnonMoos (talk) 22:43, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Right, because residency does not equal ethnicity. Ethnicity involves interaction within and among a community, and Jewish people in central and eastern Europe were ostracized from the majority communities within the countries they lived in, so they established their own communities in those places.  It is similar among ostracized communities in lots of places (African Americans, Romani, etc.)  -- Jayron 32 11:20, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Ostracised or simply isolated? Sometimes it is the minority groups themselves which shun contact with the "outside" world for instance in dress, language or behaviour.  Were Jews in eastern Europe rejected by society or did they reject the society?  Likewise many itinerant groups, such as (but not limited to) Romani, in modern societies consciously reject intermingling and keep their own culture.  A close analysis of the situation often reveals mistrust and misunderstanding by both the minority and majority groups. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:38, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * No, they were deliberately isolated by the majority community. Anti-jewish laws and social practices were common throughout Europe (not just eastern Europe) for centuries.  Antisemitism is centuries old, and widespread.  Don't fall into the narrative of "they want to be oppressed".  Pogroms, ghettos, Jewish disabilities, and the like are enforced by the majority culture, not the choice of the oppressed.  -- Jayron 32 11:54, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but you've slightly missed the point. I'm not disputing that pogroms, disabilities and antisemitism did (and unfortunately still does) exist.  Nor do I think that any group would "want to be oppressed".  What I was pointing out was that the isolationism can come from both sides and build up the mistrust, misunderstanding and ultimately conflict.  A group that avoids contact and adopts ways of dress, language, behaviour and religion that are at odds with the majority community will ultimately be seen as "other" and outside. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:10, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Only if the members of the majority community treat them as deserving of lesser treatment for those differences. The marginalized are not ever to blame for their marginalization.  Bigotry has no excuse, especially not "but they dress differently" or "but they speak a different language" or "but they worship differently".  The majority community can allow them to their own means of dress, language, worship, etc. and does not have to force them to assimilate and lose these differences and they can also treat them with the same level of respect and dignity, and grant them equal access, that they accord members of their own community.-- Jayron 32 16:23, 12 May 2023 (UTC)