Most diverse or divided nation in Europe?

[Queequeg]

I don't see the problem. 

[Admiral Yi]

1 million, so 16 times more than speak Scottish Gaelic and maybe 300,000 more than speak Welsh.  And that's one regional language.

First of all, it's not completely wrong that Italians speak Italian.

Second of all, the Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English derive from totally different ethnic stocks and language families, and have retained a strong sense of national identity and are even now in the process of voting for independence.  Italians on the other hand are derived from one ethnic stock (with a sprinkling of Germanic in the north and, I wager, even less Arab, Norman, and Greek in the south) and one language family.

[Ed Anger]

Yoo Kay

You catch that scotland white paper stuff? Hilarious.

WE WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT, BUT WE'LL KEEP THE QUEEN AND THE POUND.

[Barrister]

Second of all, the Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English derive from totally different ethnic stocks and language families, and have retained a strong sense of national identity and are even now in the process of voting for independence.  Italians on the other hand are derived from one ethnic stock (with a sprinkling of Germanic in the north and, I wager, even less Arab, Norman, and Greek in the south) and one language family.

I would disagree that Scots / Welsh / Irish / English derive from different ethnic stocks.  The languages have different origins, but my understanding is that genetically the people of the British Isles are practically identical.  The same basic stock of people has been on the isles for millenia, each speaking different celtic variants, but that England, being conquered in turn by the Romans, Danes and Normans, adopted the language of their conquerors and turned it into english.

[Barrister]

Yoo Kay

You catch that scotland white paper stuff? Hilarious.

WE WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT, BUT WE'LL KEEP THE QUEEN AND THE POUND.

AND YOU'LL STILL BE ABLE TO WATCH CORONATION STREET

[Ed Anger]

Yoo Kay

You catch that scotland white paper stuff? Hilarious.

WE WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT, BUT WE'LL KEEP THE QUEEN AND THE POUND.

AND YOU'LL STILL BE ABLE TO WATCH CORONATION STREET

I'll watch Kate Middleton's bum.

[Admiral Yi]

I would disagree that Scots / Welsh / Irish / English derive from different ethnic stocks.  The languages have different origins, but my understanding is that genetically the people of the British Isles are practically identical.  The same basic stock of people has been on the isles for millenia, each speaking different celtic variants, but that England, being conquered in turn by the Romans, Danes and Normans, adopted the language of their conquerors and turned it into english.

What I've read suggests that the infusion of Angle, Saxon, and Jutish blood was pretty significant.

[Queequeg]

1 million, so 16 times more than speak Scottish Gaelic and maybe 300,000 more than speak Welsh.  And that's one regional language.

First of all, it's not completely wrong that Italians speak Italian.

Second of all, the Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English derive from totally different ethnic stocks and language families, and have retained a strong sense of national identity and are even now in the process of voting for independence.  Italians on the other hand are derived from one ethnic stock (with a sprinkling of Germanic in the north and, I wager, even less Arab, Norman, and Greek in the south) and one language family.

Totally wrong. 

Italians are in the middle of the Mediterranean and have, either as Romans or as the head of the Catholic Church, been at the center of European civilization for the vast majority of the last 2,000 years. You'd get massive importations of slaves during the Roman period, and after that the Church, as well as trade and other cultural centers, would draw in people from across Europe. Italians are extremely diverse.  In the South, most people are going to have Greek, Arab, Balkan, Sicilian, native Siculi, Catalan, German and Norman ancestry.  In the north, you're going to have a ton of Celtic influence, some Greek influence,  and a lot more German and Slavic influence.  Whole parts of Italy were speaking Greek or Arabic long after the British Isles was a settled mix of two different Celtic groups and the English. 

I think Italy is at least as heterogeneous as Britain.  There really isn't some kind of magical Celtic-Germanic racial divide.  The origin of the Celtic peoples is in modern Bavaria and the Czech Republic, meaning they're not really that distant from the origin of the Germanic peoples in Denmark and old Saxony.  There was always German-Celtic intermingling, both on the continent and in Britain.  A lot of basic terms in Germanic and Slavic languages have Celtic roots. The Saxon migration had a huge impact on southern Scotland, which went from a Welsh-related Celtic language to English with no intervening period of Gaelic.   Also, the Norse invasion of the British isles pretty much hit the "Celtic" and "Germanic" parts pretty evenly, except maybe for Wales and Cornwall. 

[Queequeg]

I would disagree that Scots / Welsh / Irish / English derive from different ethnic stocks.  The languages have different origins, but my understanding is that genetically the people of the British Isles are practically identical.  The same basic stock of people has been on the isles for millenia, each speaking different celtic variants, but that England, being conquered in turn by the Romans, Danes and Normans, adopted the language of their conquerors and turned it into english.

What I've read suggests that the infusion of Angle, Saxon, and Jutish blood was pretty significant.

It's spread out where you'd guess it would be spread out-concentrated in York and across the eastern seaboard.  However, the Saxon settlement of southern Scotland and the Norse invasion of everything would even things out a bit. 

[Admiral Yi]

You know Squeelus, I think "totally wrong" means something different to you than it does to most people.

[Queequeg]

 
Fair enough.  You got some of the basics right, but I'm still pretty confidant that Italy is a lot more culturally and genetically diverse than Great Britain. 

[Queequeg]

How would Spain rank?  I don't really know how well established non-Catalan/Valencian ethnic identities are.  I'd actually be interested in anecdotes on the subject.  Galician linguistically is far closer to Portuguese, and I would be interested to know how "Spanish" certain non-Castilian types view themselves.

One should not confuse Spain with Castille, even if most of us speak Castillian now.

That was kind of the entire point of the question in my post.  I was wondering if a man from Grenada, Extremadura or Leon thought of himself primarily by region or thought of himself as vaguely "Spanish". Also curious how these regional identities co-exist with separatist identities like the Catalans or Basques. 

[derspiess]

I would disagree that Scots / Welsh / Irish / English derive from different ethnic stocks.  The languages have different origins, but my understanding is that genetically the people of the British Isles are practically identical.  The same basic stock of people has been on the isles for millenia, each speaking different celtic variants, but that England, being conquered in turn by the Romans, Danes and Normans, adopted the language of their conquerors and turned it into english.

What I've read suggests that the infusion of Angle, Saxon, and Jutish blood was pretty significant.

Ditto.  And I figured someone serving Her Majesty the Queen would know better.

[crazy canuck]

Reading The Prague Cemetery

it's kind of amazing how completely divided 19th Century Italy was.  I knew what it was like linguistically, but Simonini, the hilariously bigoted narrator...

This is a wonderful literary device as you will come to appreciate as you go further in the book and which we can discuss later so as not to ruin it for you.

[crazy canuck]

I would disagree that Scots / Welsh / Irish / English derive from different ethnic stocks.  The languages have different origins, but my understanding is that genetically the people of the British Isles are practically identical.  The same basic stock of people has been on the isles for millenia, each speaking different celtic variants, but that England, being conquered in turn by the Romans, Danes and Normans, adopted the language of their conquerors and turned it into english.

What I've read suggests that the infusion of Angle, Saxon, and Jutish blood was pretty significant.

Ditto.  And I figured someone serving Her Majesty the Queen would know better.

You and Yi are thinking of the old theories of migration that have been significantly altered by the more recent studies BB is thinking of.