• vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      Anglo-Saxon is not just Germanic it is very specific to medieval England since the Anglo-Saxons were just the proto-English. The Angles were never particularly relevant until their migration into Britain and their mainland counterparts were almost entirely absorbed by the ancestors to the Danes by the 700s. The term you are looking for is WASP, which stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant which does have more of a pan white meaning here in the US and does cross over into the assimilated Germans, Celts, and Latins since it’s a term for a specific cultural grouping rather than an ethnic one.

      If it seems like I’m getting weirdly annoyed about this that’s cause I am. I like anthropology and history, clumping together people descended from every damned Germanic nation and calling them fucking Anglo-Saxons is absurd. By that logic Romanians, French, and Italians are all Castilian. Words have meaning and while that meaning may shift let’s not misuse specific anthropologic and historical terms.

      • Meron35@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I respect the pedantry, but I was trying say that I was using the “Anglo” - which in casual speech is short for the casual “Anglo-Saxon”, itself short for White Anglo Saxon Protestant.

        I remember I had this exact same conversation IRL, and we determined that the confusion and somewhat jargony nature of the latter two terms (especially since WASP isn’t well understood outside the US) was why people in casual speech just use the ambiguous “Anglo”.

        Semantics 🤷‍♂️

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          2 hours ago

          Fair enough. Don’t have much if any experience with folks from outside of North America (getting taught new slurs by Slavs on CSGO aside) but I feel like the term Saxon would ironically be more applicable since the Saxons were instrumental in the formation of damned near every modern Germanic nation. Mostly because they were trader but they were spread out everywhere from Britain to Wallachia to at least one enclave in Uppsala in Sweden. Doesn’t quite work well for the Nordic nations but it’s probably the best term.

          Like I said the term Anglo is just kinda weird since the continental Angles were more or less wiped out of assimilated before even Charlemagne was born. The Saxons on the other hand still arguably exist in both Germany, Britain, and in their expat cultures such as the Volga Germans or the Amero-Deutsch populations.