I am actually finding the railing against replacing Anglo-Saxon with English even more bananas the more I think about it.
Okay, this may be true but I’m seeing this argument from white people, and tbqh “early medieval England” has been in use for some time as well as a descriptor of the period.
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Like English is the word that has evolved directly from the word that actual people used for themselves then.
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And I mean if we want to fight to “reclaim” words as it were then why not the one which is actually historical and is still in use by regular people who are just from England?
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The suggestion that we use “British” or “Germanic descent communities” or however it was phrased is really not good either for so many reasons.
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I mean early medieval Ireland is ahistorical too. But no one is jumping on me for using it.
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I think the North Atlantic one is a good way to encompass all these islands but if we are looking at communities speaking the language known as English then idk how to encompass that in a way completely devoid of problems.
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That is the question I suppose. But attacking me and then MOC for the idea and making shit up (that English is ahistorical) and then running off to Facebook to complain isn’t a good look.
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I always use the example that we stopped using “Celtic” to describe the peoples living in Ireland in the medieval period. And the world didn’t end.
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Our language (English) evolves regularly. The whole field is about the evolving way we study the past. If we stopped innovating then we’d just be repeating ourselves.
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But this is not even about the name change but the entire backwards attitude of scholars to move forward in the field and accommodate for BIPOC and other marginalized groups.
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And the constant whataboutism and centring of white feelings.
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End of conversation
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