Do you / would you ever use the term 'Anglo-Saxon' to describe English-speaking Brits?

[Chocchops72]

I've lived in France for 15 years, and I'm still flummoxed by the widespread use of 'Anglo-Saxon' to describe what - as far as I can tell - are English-speaking British (or maybe just English) people.

I have colleagues from the US who find the term offensive, due to the connection with WASP / white supremacy / racism. I myself am Scottish, and don't feel any connection with the term whatsoever - it makes me think of horned helmets and the pillaging of villages. it's not a term I ever heard used in the UK

Yet when I try to explain this to my French colleagues they are genuinely unconvinced that either irrelevant or inappropriate. Unfortunately my boss (very English, expat, married into a French family and lived here for a long time) and the British Ambassador to France both use it 🙄.

English speaking English people like, oooh I don't know, Rishi Sunak?

@Fenella123 Yeah, exactly! I can't picture what group they are thinking of when they use it.

When I was due to have my second baby here I went to the obligatory rdv with the anaesthetist. He assumed that I'd want an epidural, like the majority of French women. When I said not unless I need it, I'd had a natural birth with my first, he said 'Oh you Anlgo-Saxon women, you think you're so tough!'. 😂

Are the French using it in a slightly pejorative way to frame themselves as the superior Gallic cousins of the Anglo-Saxons? Is it used in a 'stick-up-the-arse' sense?

As in, are the French othering the British by using this term?

Anyone using 'Anglo-Saxon' to describe English-speaking Brits is obviously doesn't know what the term actually means.

Anglo-Saxon is used (I thought) in this context to mean the anglosphere (US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ)

How dare they. The bigoted cheese eating surrender monkeys!

Horned helmets and the pillaging of villages make me think of Vikings TBH. Though I dare say the earlier Anglo Saxon invaders did much the same, only there are no written records of it.

AFAIK some of the native Celts fled Britain for what was later known as Brittany, to escape the Anglo-Saxon invaders, which is why the Breton language is fairly closely related to Welsh, and presumably Cornish.

It's just a different phrase OP. I remember being shocked at hearing a French friend refer to a black person living in Europe as an African - to my mind, that's racist (unless you know they come from Africa). But she was similarly shocked by the word black and felt that was a racist term to use.

The above example may be out of date (this was ages ago), but you get my point. Different countries have different ways of referring to other ethnicities. It's just what you're used to.

I’ve heard it used in other non-English-speaking countries- Brazil springs to mind - to describe the Anglophone world and culture. So the US, Australia, Britain, etc. Not dissimilar to ‘Latin’ or Hispanic’ in that sense in so much as it’s about language and culture, and not the race of an individual. I gave a presentation in Brazil once and someone made an observation about how ‘Anglo Saxons’ speak. They meant manner and tone and they weren’t talking about my race, but making a distinction between the broad English-speaking culture I come from as compared to theirs and the cultures of neighbouring countries.

Anglos-Saxon is a terrible term to describe English-speaking Brits- just completely inaccurate for one thing as well as implicitly racist.

More generally, it's a term that historians in the US and UK argue about and seems to be used in different ways by each. Here is Tom Holland defending it very well as a historical term

twitter.com/holland_tom/status/1192703551090417664

But yes, a racist and inaccurate term to describe Brits or English-speakers today. I can't imagine anyone except an "England for the English"-style racist using it like that though.

Though I dare say the earlier Anglo Saxon invaders did much the same, only there are no written records of it.

There are records left by monks (especially Gildas and Bede) that are useful.

The anglo-saxons don't exist anymore. They haven't done for nigh on a thousand years!

If people mean 'English speaking world' then why don't they just say that?

If they mean 'predominantly white English speaking country' then they should 'own' that too.

'Anglo-Saxon' is a predominantly Victorian invention for a misunderstood piece of the past (a bit like the way 'the Celts' were reconstructed in Victorian historical narratives) and should be used with care, probably under the supervision of a historian or archaeologist

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER Brittany's fascinating, isn't it? I know that Bretons have long attended 'Celtic Fringe' festivals and encouraged the revival of Cornish.

If people mean 'English speaking world' then why don't they just say that?

Because Anglo-Saxon is a readily understood shorthand in those countries? We’re heavily reading race into it because of the way it’s used in the US today and because in the UK we associate it with a historic ethnic group who don’t represent us, but it’s not necessarily how it’s being used in other cultures.

There is something a bit ironic being non-racist while insisting that words have the same connotations in other cultures.

If any mention of Anglo Saxons being anything more than that group is irredeemably racist, presumably ‘English’ is also problematic since AS is baked into the term!

@SpinCityBlues , yes, but Bede was an Anglo-Saxon, born late 600s. I was referring more to any contemporary records of the early A/S invaders, well before Bede. I dare say there were plenty of oral stories handed down over the generations, though.

I can't imagine anyone except an "England for the English"-style racist using it like that though. Like I said, the most recent usage I know of, other than my colleagues and neighbours, was the British Ambassador to France a couple of nights ago, addressing a mixed audience of British / French people.

Mind you, my childrens' friends have been referring to the death of the 'Queen of England', la reine d'Angleterre, all week so I'm on a hiding to nothing trying to convince my colleagues.

In any context I’ve heard it, it also connotes a sort of cultural similarity among the English speaking nations, in particular in relation to liberalism and free markets, which is sometimes at odds with French “statism”

No, I would say 'British' (or 'Scottish' 'English' etc. as appropriate). If I needed to explain what language(s) the person spoke for some reason, I'd add that on e.g. 'she's British and speaks English and Bengali' or 'he's Welsh and speaks Welsh and English'.

Surely it's because many froggies werenrought up reading Asterix

@MajorCarolDanvers
"Anyone using 'Anglo-Saxon' to describe English-speaking Brits is obviously doesn't know what the term actually means."

True.

The Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians were tribes of Germanic people who originally came from the area of current northern Germany and Denmark. These tribes invaded Britain during the Roman occupation and again once it had ended. They settled in areas of the south and east of the country.

@MimosaSunrise that makes so much sense. We/i do lump large areas of similar cultures together but for some reason Anglo-Saxon seems to be just us as an area as opposed to a culture.

Hmm - pretty much the only time I see Anglo Saxon used here in the UK is in relation to some choice swear words and their origins.

aeon.co/essays/the-anglo-saxon-is-not-american-or-british-but-a-french-alter-ego