Floccmōtung:Bryttisce Scīre

Ireland isn't part of Britain...--MacRusgail (talk) 16:09, 14 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

Gea, ac Norðern Īrland is giet Bryttisc land. In geardagum setledon in þāra scīrum manigfeald Brettas of Scottum and of Englum, ðe būtan landrīce wolde hie Bryttisc bēon. Norðern Īrland is Brettarīces dǣl swa swa Bretene īege scīra. Hogweard (talk) 21:04, 14 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

Oððæt þe ic wit gearwe þe MacRusgail writeþ in godum wille, noþylæs her sceallan we healdan þe Scottum standaþ efenleof mid Englum and man ne mot hidan hiere stedas; þa byrig and scira nearon sæmra ac sind fægru and leof stowas.

- or to put it in Modern English, I recognise that MacRusgail's edits were made in all goodwill, but here we must strive to accord equality to Scotland. Scotland suffers because English editors shuffle Scottish places away to separate categorisations so they do not intrude on the Englishness of their work. If there is one list, you see all the English counties listed from Bedfordshire to Yorkshire, and then Scotland as an afterthought; Aberdeen listed after York in an alphabetical list. That is wrong.

We must be particularly careful not to do that here because we are working in a language which suggests Englishness, but which is just as much a thing of Scotland (the name "Englaland" was first used of Abercorn in West Lothian, and the Chroniclers used "England" to mean everywhere English-speaking right into the Norman period). Scotland deserves equality. These places are part of us and must be included in the main work not shunned and hidden away (which is the effect of apartheid categories), and so that is how this Wiki has been organised. Hogweard (talk) 23:29, 14 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

Hope you haven't been infiltrated by this lot of niðings

"Gea, ac Norðern Īrland is giet Bryttisc land." - Northern Ireland is not part of Britain. Look at your passport - "Great Britain AND Northern Ireland". Even you Britishers admit that.

The fact that you moved all of the Scottish county articles back into the Greater English British category suggests an agenda. Britishness is a political, not a geographical identity anyway.-MacRusgail (talk) 12:10, 17 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC) p.s. Just because I can't write it doesn't mean that I am clueless about what you're saying.

I believe that Hogweard's referring to parts of "Northern Ireland" as "Bryttisc" is supposed to reflect that "British" in MnE is often used as the adjectival form of "United Kingdom"; and, as much as some may hate it, Northern Ireland is still associated with the UK... However, the divisions of the UK are widely recognized to be politically and culturally significant. As such, I would think it fair enough to put them into their own categories, as is done on the MnE Wikipedia, and the German, and the Gaelic ones, and the Spanish, and the Dutch... etc.   Ƿes hāl!    13:04, 17 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

That was indeed the point about Northern Ireland as British. I also referred to its having been populated by settlers from Great Britain, from both sides of the mediaeval border, and the settlers' descendants are still the majority.

The idea of British identity being a political construct is disproven by history: every chronicle from the Dark Ages, through the Middle Ages to the modern time emphasises the essential unity of Great Britain. Separateness has come only from the understandable desire to uphold distinctiveness in the face of the bland levelling down of modernity. Removing Scotland and Ulster from the main arena encourages that sort of English nationalism. I do take a political stand: against English nationalism and in support of inclusiveness, and sidelining narrow Anglocentricity is one of my themes.

MacRusgail appear to be of Irish family (which is a fine thing to be; the Irish taught the English civilisation afer all, and we're looking to put versions of these pages in Irish-derived uncial writing for that reason). You stand at one remove though and your words suggest an agenda of your own. An agenda can be fine is it is a healing agenda, but one that seeks to break must be seen with suspicion. Hogweard (talk) 13:16, 17 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

Please demonstrate that every chronicle from the Dark Ages emphasizes the essential unity of Great Britain. I highly doubt that it is true - some might mention Great Britain (that large Island on which are Wales, England, and Scotland); and some might mention the British Isles (which include Ireland); but that is not emphasizing it. It also does not even necessarily imply political or national identity unity (just as mentioning "the Americas" does not imply political and national identity unity). But the political Britain (UK) is obviously a political construct. And I do hope you weren't going to suggest that Northern Ireland is British in any sense other than: It belongs to a British Isles (so does Ireland - do we call it British?), and it is politically associated with the UK (all fine and good, but see the following). But even if it were true that every chronicle since the Dark Ages emphasized the "essential (what essence is being talked about, btw) unity of Great Britain", it is not relevant - the current overwhelmingly recognized situation is that the divisions of the United Kingdom are politically and culturally important - important enough to be recognized on many other Wikipedias. This is common sense. Of course, we could also create a larger category like: "Scīra þæs Geāndan Cynerīces" and dump the categories "Scyttisca scīra" and "Norþīrisca scīra" and "Englisca scīra" and "Wilisca scīra" in it, because that would also recognize the political unity of the UK.   Ƿes hāl!    21:17, 17 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

Edward, Alexander and Llywelyn

When once politics has got into this, anything I say will be taken as a political statement, but then so can opposing voices. Many articles on en: were originally written as one for the whole of the UK but then split up by those who want to promote differences, and the recent correspondence has suggested just such an agenda.

It is true that I have not read every Chronicle; only the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bede, Nennius, Gildas, Henry of Huntingdon, Simeon of Durham, Florence of Worcester, Giraldus Cambrensis, the Mabinogion and others in that vein. Mediaeval kings argued about precedence and who was descended from which son of Brutus the Trojan but they accepted that common mythological origin of their kingdoms notwithstanding the obvious outside origin of the English. They reached common allegiance more often than not and fought in each others' armies and made several attempts at unity, until an over-hasty French alliance cursed two hundred years of the latter Middle Ages, and the project of unity was put off, to be achieved only in 1603 and politically in 1707. Edgar had shown no qualms assigning much of the English lands to his Scottish counterpart nor should he have if he did not see the Scottish king as foreign.

Even Bede, who was explicitly writing about the English, begins not with "The English are –", but "The island of Britain is –", and after describing the whole island he lists the English as just one people on the island, and his work ranges over much of Great Britain. The English were culturally and linguistically separate, though even that has worn away in the modern age. As to the border on the Tweed and Cheviot which some hold as eternal and immutable, it was established 800 years ago and became irrelevant 400 years ago. Which 400 years is more important?

If the United Kingdom is a political construct, so is Scotland and so is England - how much unity will it take to be convincing? Is 300 years not enough? Here though political argument tends to cloud sound judgment and we have to go back to recording reality not aspiration, which is how I have attempted to record things in the first place. Hogweard (talk) 10:38, 18 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with promoting (or discouraging) differences, and everything to do with recognizing them. There is political and cultural significance in the divisions of the UK - we distinguish. One can see that two people fight, and say "They are fighting" without that being either for or against their fighting. Similarly, one can recognize actual, de facto, legal, and cultural distinction within a political entity, without ever saying that they should or should not exist.

But it is not just the English Wikipedia, it is also many others. And it is not just the UK - also recognized are the distinctions between the Australian States, distinction between the Sates of the United States, the distinction between the provinces and territories of Canada, and the same for Russia, and Germany, and I imagine to very many more nations were such depth of administratives division is practiced.

And yes, acutally, so are England and Scotland, and the USA, and Australia, and Germany, and Pakistan, and China, and every single nation on the face of this planet. That many of them reflect some sort of nationalistic ideal, or ethnic homogenity, or cultural homogenity, or religous homogenity, or linguistic homogenity, is simply a motivating factor for the political contruct.

So, I think it suitable to record the reality that Scotland, and England, and Wales, and Northern Ireland, are all very significant divisions within the UK - just as we would do for the USA and many other nations.   Ƿes hāl!    21:40, 18 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

There is certainly a great deal of tradition behind this division, so I set it up so that each shire goes to the appropriate category; "Scotland", "Englaland", "Wēalas" etc, but all are classified as British shires because they are! The big county "fotbox" ensures that Scotland is not sidelined both for its own sake and because the Lowland shires are as much a part of the Englisc story as their southern siblings).

The four-way division is not a very efficient classification (39 counties in one part, 6 in another etc, and dividing only by four is hardly division at all) so it can't work quite the way the 50 American states do, but it is there and there is no denying it is a traditional division and most of the articles begin "Seleciricescīre is scīr on Scottum" or whatever. That way we can be inclusive without hiding the traditional division. Hogweard (talk) 09:52, 19 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

Hypothetical situation: I want to find out about Scottish counties, so, because I happen to speak OE well, I come here. Where do I go for a list of Scottish counties? I search for "category:Scyttisca scīra" or somesuch thing; but I find it is empty! It is a sub-category of "Bryttisce Scīre". So I go there, and I find a massive list of all of the counties in the enitre UK. But I"m not interested in all the counties in the UK, atm. Just Scotland. So I search, manually, though the entire list, to see which ones belong to Scotland... Waste of my time.

The other side of the coin (and what is the established practice on other Wikipedias, and what makes sense to me): I want to find out about counties in the UK, in general. So, I search "category:Bryttisce scīre". I find four sub-categories: Englisca scīra, Ƿilisca scīra, Norþīrisca scīra, and Scyttisca scīra. It is easy enough for me to click on each of the four sub-categories - only a little slower than if they'd all been in one massive list. In fact, though, I can (usefully) quickly and easily also see which counties belong together - without even having to click into each article.

And what are categories for? They are a way to organize information in useful ways - to make searching for distinct groups of information easier. But categories are only as good and useful as they are made to be. For the purpose of this Wikipedia, recognizing the four way-division is overall much more efficient and useful (in terms of work for the reader) than your current practice - because it reflects useful information that most people who know of the matter hold to be significant. It is not just a "traditional" division - it is an actual division, and one this Wikipedia would do best to take into proper consideration, rather than idealize about.   Ƿes hāl!    23:19, 19 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

That's certainly a way of looking at it, though my solution has been to classify Scottish counties in the category Flocc:Scotland, which gives both methods without sidelining Scottish places. It is a matter of honest differences of opinion.Hogweard (talk) 16:50, 22 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

But that category also contains many other articles - it is an extremely general category. In the long run, assuming that this Wikipedia will grow (and it is - slowly), it will also be annoying anf inconvenient to search through. Again, though, it is also (totally unnecessarily) out of line with that good and sensible practice which is established on many other Wikipedias.   Ƿes hāl!    22:04, 22 Ēastermōnaþ 2013 (UTC)

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