Britain
The word
Britain is an informal term used (for brevity or convenience) when referring to;
* the island of
Great Britain which consists of the
constituent countries of
England,
Scotland and
Wales.
* the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the "United Kingdom" or the "UK"), a
sovereign state.
* sometimes the
Roman province called "Britain" or "
Britannia".
Current usage
The word
British generally means belonging to or associated with Britain in one of the first two senses above (i.e. the United Kingdom or the island of Great Britain). However, the term has a range of related usages, as described in this article. Historians and political commentators normally use "Britain" as the short form of the legal term "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", not "United Kingdom." Thus "the British government", "British cinema" or "
British literature" (but "English literature" where the reference is to the English language or literature of England). The term "United Kingdom" is usually used to indicate geography, as "a road map of the UK" or "the coal mines of the UK."
*
Prettaniké –
325 BC (
Pytheas)
*
Britannia –
55 BC (
Julius Caesar,
Commentarii de Bello Gallico [
1])
*
Breoton – 855 (
OED: cites
Old English Chronicle, introduction)
*
Brittisc – 855 (
OED)
*
Grate Briteigne – 1548 (
OED)
*
British isles – 1550 (in
Latin; map of
Sebastian Munster cited in
British Isles article)
Britain
The etymology of the name
Britain is thought to derive from a
Celtic word,
Pritani, "painted people/men", a reference to the inhabitants of the islands' use of body paint and tattoos. If this is true, there is an interesting parallel with the name
Pict, connected with a Latin word of the same meaning. The modern
Welsh name for Britain is
Prydain. The
Q-Celtic form was Cruithin, showing that the Common Celtic singular form was
*qr[ui]tanos. The root is presumably that of the modern Gaelic/Irish word cruth 'shape, form'.
It has also been postulated that
Britain may derive from the Celtic goddess Brigid, but this is less likely for philological reasons.
In
325 BC the
Greek explorer
Pytheas of Massalia visited a group of islands which he called
Prettaniké, the principal ones being Albionon (
Albion) and Ierne (
Erin). The records of this visit date from much more recent times, so there is room for these details to be disputed, but it does seem to attest pre-Roman use of the name by Celtic-speaking inhabitants of the islands.
In keeping with the mediaeval penchant for etymologising country names in terms of
eponymous heroes, English historians of the late mediaeval and early modern periods charted the history of the nation from
Brutus of Troy, supposedly a hero of the Trojan war who founded Britain just as
Aeneas' descendant Romulus founded Rome, Frankus France, and so forth. The life of Brutus, anglicised as Brute, was recorded in the literary tradition of the
Prose Brute. This was accepted as the etymology of
Britain well into modern times.
Great Britain
The earliest reference to a collocation with a word meaning 'large' is in the writings of the Greek geographer Ptolemy, who called the larger island
Megale Brettania (Great Britain), and the smaller island
Micra Bretannia (Little Britain).
The original reference seems to have been to the territory in which the
Brythonic languages were spoken, which more or less coincided with the Roman province of Britannia, an area equivalent to modern England, Wales and southern Scotland. In the Early Middle Ages speakers of a Brythonic language which later evolved into
Breton migrated from Cornwall to
Armorica, Western France, possibly because of pressure from Saxon invasions. This is why different forms of the same name apply to insular Britain and continental Brittany. In
French the similarity is even more obvious:
Bretagne and
Grande Bretagne Geoffrey of Monmouth used the names
Britannia minor to refer to the Armorican region and
Britannia major for the island. The element
great in the term
Great Britain thus simply means large, to make the distinction from Brittany.
During the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I of England, the queen's astrologer and alchemist,
John Dee, wrote mystical volumes predicting a British Empire and using the terms
Great Britain and
Britannia. After Elizabeth's death in 1603 the kingdoms shared one King,
James VI of Scotland and I of England. On
20 October 1604 he proclaimed himself "King of Great Brittaine" (thus including
Wales and also avoiding the cumbersome title "King of England and Scotland"). This title was eventually adopted formally in 1707 when the
Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.
Politically, then,
British has been used to described someone or something from the United Kingdom, in its various forms, since 1707. Briton or Brit are also used colloquially in this form, though the use of Briton here is incorrect.
Since its formation, the kingdom was enlarged in 1801 by the addition of the island of
Ireland — already ruled by the British monarchy — to become the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and was then reduced in 1922 by the independence of the
Irish Free State, now the
Republic of Ireland. The name of the kingdom changed accordingly, in 1927 becoming
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
British was also used to describe members of nations that formed part of the
British Empire. This use now, however, could be seen as justifying the
colonial era, even if only applied historically.
'Britain' then, is now commonly used to refer to the modern United Kingdom. It is considered inaccurate by some due to the United Kingdom only making up part of the
British Isles (this term can be seen as justifying the colonial era and is negated by standard usage of the English language) and being split across islands other than Great Britain. For example, this page [
2] on the
10 Downing Street website refers to 'Britain's' 51
Prime Ministers; this
BBC news article [
3] refers to 'Britain's' chances in the
2012 Olympics.
The modern use of the term 'British' is as an adjective to describe someone or something from the United Kingdom. It is officially used as the term to describe the citizenship of the United Kingdom.
Nationalists across the island(s) may reject the term in favour of their national description.
It is also frequently used to describe residents of the United Kingdom's
current colonies. By the
British Overseas Territories Act 2002 all residents of the United Kingdom's remaining colonies have been eligible for British citizenship, making the term particularly apt.
British occurs in the legal term
British Islands . This was coined to describe all of the islands of the
British Isles, excluding those that form part of the
Republic of Ireland, when they act together as a political whole.
Geographically, the term can be used in various ways:
* To describe someone from the island of
Great Britain.
* In the term
British Isles (see supra), the traditional term for the entire
archipelago of islands that lie off the north west coast of
France, of which Great Britain and Ireland are the two biggest.
* The term has historically been used to describe someone or something from the British Isles. Due to the above mentioned potential for offence, this rarely happens today. For example the
British Lions a rugby team which draws players from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland has been renamed the
British and Irish Lions.
* Sometimes
British applies to an area or territory currently or formerly governed by or a dependent territory of the
United Kingdom, for example the
British Virgin Islands, the
British Indian Ocean Territory, or
British Columbia which is now a province of
Canada.
*
List of country name etymologies*
List of United Kingdom topics *
British Isles*
United Kingdom*
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland*
Great Britain*
Kingdom of Great Britain*
Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542 merging the Kingdom of England and the
Principality of Wales
*
Act of Union 1707 merging Scotland and England to form Great Britain
*
History of Britain*
History of Wales*
History of Scotland*
History of England*
British Invasion*
A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World, 3000 BC - 1603 AD by
Simon Schama, BBC/Miramax, 2000 ISBN 0786866756
*
A History of Britain, Volume 2: The Wars of the British 1603-1776 by
Simon Schama, BBC/Miramax, 2001 ISBN 0786866756
*
A History of Britain - The Complete Collection on DVD by
Simon Schama, BBC 2002
*
The Isles, A History by
Norman Davies, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0195134427
*
Shortened History of England by
G. M. Trevelyan Penguin Books ISBN 0140233237
*
Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Eric Partridge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1966
*
Great Tales from English History: Cheddar Man to the Peasants' Revolt by
Robert Lacey,
2003 ISBN 0316726745 [
4]
*
British History Online*
Visit Britain
