To be honest and blunt, the opinions of English ethnicity is all over the place. I've met a few Germans who considered us Islander Saxons. I've met people who like to claim us descendants of mighty Celtic warriors, and people who still follow Oppenheimer's genetic research hold onto to the minority Saxon rule, and then there's people who claim English are 50/50, but then there's a loophole in the education system, most Old English history just isn't taught, well it wasn't for me. It went from the Brythonic tribes, Boudicca to Romans, to vikings, Normans and then the British Empire.
I've met Danish people and a few of them joked to me about Danelaw, and that we're distantly related although not the same.
The entire topic is just generally all over the place, probably due to lack of education. Most people think England = British Empire, that itself as a Nation only existed with Normans due to the famous date 1066. When most people say British, they think england, and most the actual "British" nations are excluded separately.
That's just my experience.
This is true. Everybody knows about the Celts and Vikings, but not the making of the core of who we are, in the early medieval period. I think it's at least in part due to an emphasis on things being 'British' rather than English. When i'm in a good mood i just think our cultural leaders are being ignorant or something, but sometimes it feels like they are deliberately trying to minimize the English ethno-cultural group in favour of British multiculturalism. To be honest from a political perspective it's not surprising. All we ever hear about is that the English are a mongrel nation, and everybody loves the Welsh and the Irish. I think many are partly afraid of England becoming more detached from the rest of the UK. Although this would be good for any conservatives in an English parliament, as England is so thoroughly conservative dominated that labour types would probably never get in government positions, only at a local level. I remember someone on another forum saying that Stephen Pollington had told them that the BBC have a line on this (minimizing the English identity and the impact of the Anglo-Saxons), which is why most of their programs follow this narrative, and they pull in people like Oppenheimer and other minimalists and give them more air time. It's to be expected given that this is our current 'cultural policy' and the BBC is primarily a tool of cultural propaganda, rather than just a tool for bringing news to people. It is pretty impartial in many other areas not related to cultural politics and current events, but in those two it's bias is clear, although not as bad as some American channels like Fox and CNN for example.
Might sound like a cynical view, but I've found if you don't take a cynical view you cannot understand what happens and why in the political world.
And of course people are getting less intelligent, and the propaganda systems more effective. It creates our norms of what is and what isn't accepted as an allowed viewpoint. While those with 'negative' viewpoints are only rarely chucked away somewhere, the social ostracisation in the media is probably more effective. It's pure genius to take a Machiavellian view of things. I'd say the propaganda of 50 years ago and earlier looks laughably amateurish compared to today, it's much more subtle and effective.
Anyway to answer the question in the OP - I've met people from other Germanic countries and it's pretty much a mix of opinions as English Lad says. Although in the academic world, academics here (now at least, since the 60s and 70s) prefer us to be non-Germanic while many in other Germanic countries prefer us to be akin to them. It varies by person, but it's shameful how many English people are surprised when you tell them the reality, and people seem to think that (we?) went from worshipping Celtic gods to Christianity in the Roman period, and then for some reason needed to be Christianised again (which is wrong on multiple levels of history), and fail to recognise the all-famous Vikings (yawn) as being not dissimilar to the English of two or three centuries earlier. They sort of have a 'blank spot' in their history, where it's CELTS, ROMANS, some blokes called anglosaxons who didn't do much, then VIKINGS, NORMANS, then the BLACK DEATH, then HENRY VIII, ELIZABETH I, and CIVIL WAR. I understand the emphasis on the later English history, as there are a lot more records of events (almost by the day in many cases, and it's very interesting don't get me wrong!
) but from my own experience the part of the history of Britain between the Romans and the Vikings is usually taught in very basic detail in Keystage 2 or 3 and then tucked away in a cupboard somewhere. That's partly where my interest of it comes from, since it's like somebody robbed me of my history or portrayed it incorrectly, and as a historically minded person - that is only second worse to somebody killing a family member or something similar.
If i ever find myself teaching history i'll probably lose my job because i'd do my own thing. I'd much rather it if they just gave everyone the facts, overview, dates, different viewpoints and let them put it together. That is only the case some of the time. Even on some occasions you are conned into thinking more than one opinion is represented, but when you learn more about it you realise that history textbooks usually take a very particular opinion, that is the popular one not necessarily the most accurate one.
So we have increasingly stupid, propaganda fuelled and imperfectly educated people growing up in this country. Feels like we're Rome Circa 350 onwards, batton down the hatches because we haven't got the balls to keep ourselves strong anymore.
Anyway rant over...Basically from my own experiences they have a range of viewpoints, some know more about parts of our history than many here do, which is shameful on our part.
