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In standard English usage, the toponym "the British Isles" refers to a European archipelago consisting of Great Britain, Ireland and adjacent islands. However, the word "British" is also an adjective and demonym referring to the United Kingdom. For this reason, the name British Isles is avoided in Irish English as such usage could be construed to imply continued territorial claims or political overlordship of the Republic of Ireland by the United Kingdom.〔Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology by Judith Jesch 2003〕〔Kevin Myers,("An Irishman's Diary" ) ''The Irish Times'', (subscription needed) 9 March 2000: "millions of people from these islands – oh how angry we get when people call them the British Isles"〕〔"Geographical terms also cause problems and we know that some will find certain of our terms offensive. Many Irish object to the term the 'British Isles';..." The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, Conflict and emancipation. Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd. Cambridge University Press. 1996 Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700. (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2003): "the collection of islands which embraces England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales has commonly been known as the British Isles. This title no longer pleases all the inhabitants of the islands, and a more neutral description is 'the Atlantic Isles'" (p. xxvi). On 18 July 2004, (''The Sunday Business Post'' ) questioned the use of ''British Isles'' as a purely geographic expression, noting: () "Last Post has redoubled its efforts to re-educate those labouring under the misconception that Ireland is really just British. When British Retail Week magazine last week reported that a retailer was to make its British Isles debut in Dublin, we were puzzled. Is not Dublin the capital of the Republic of Ireland?. When Last Post suggested the magazine might see its way clear to correcting the error, an educative e-mail to the publication...:Retrieved 17 July 2006 "...(which) I have called the Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously." Pocock, J.G.A. () (2005). "British History: A plea for a new subject". ''The Discovery of Islands''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 29. . "...what used to be called the "British Isles," although that is now a politically incorrect term." Finnegan, Richard B.; Edward T. McCarron (2000). Ireland: Historical Echoes, Contemporary Politics. Boulder: Westview Press, p. 358. "In an attempt to coin a term that avoided the 'British Isles' – a term often offensive to Irish sensibilities – Pocock suggested a neutral geographical term for the collection of islands located off the northwest coast of continental Europe which included Britain and Ireland: the Atlantic archipelago..." Lambert, Peter; Phillipp Schofield (2004). Making History: An Introduction to the History and Practices of a Discipline. New York: Routledge, p. 217. "..the term is increasingly unacceptable to Irish historians in particular, for whom the Irish Sea is or ought to be a separating rather than a linking element. Sensitive to such susceptibilities, proponents of the idea of a genuine British history, a theme which has come to the fore during the last couple of decades, are plumping for a more neutral term to label the scattered islands peripheral to the two major ones of Great Britain and Ireland." Roots, Ivan (1997). "Union or Devolution in Cromwell's Britain". History Review. The British Isles, A History of Four Nations, Second edition, Cambridge University Press, July 2006, Preface, Hugh Kearney. "The title of this book is ‘The British Isles’, not ‘Britain’, in order to emphasise the multi-ethnic character of our intertwined histories. Almost inevitably many within the Irish Republic find it objectionable, much as Basques or Catalans resent the use of the term 'Spain'. As Seamus Heaney put it when he objected to being included in an anthology of British Poetry: 'Don’t be surprised If I demur, for, be advised My passport’s green. No glass of ours was ever raised To toast the Queen. (Open Letter, Field day Pamphlet no.2 1983)" (Note: sections bolded for emphasis do not appear bold in original publications)〕〔The A to Z of Britain and Ireland by Trevor Montague "...although it is traditional to refer to the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as the British Isles, when considered as a single archipelago, this nomenclature implies a proprietary title which has long since ceased to exist, if indeed it ever really did exist. Despite the very close affinity between the British and Irish people I have no doubt that my title is both expedient and correct"〕 Proposed alternatives to renaming the British Isles to something more neutral include "Britain and Ireland",〔 "Atlantic Archipelago",〔 "Anglo-Celtic Isles", the "British-Irish Isles"〔John Oakland, 2003, (British Civilization: A Student's Dictionary ), Routledge: London British-Irish Isles, the (geography) see BRITISH ISLES British Isles, the (geography) A geographical (not political or CONSTITUTIONAL) term for ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES, and IRELAND (including the REPUBLIC OF IRELAND), together with all offshore islands. A more accurate (and politically acceptable) term today is the British-Irish Isles.〕 and the Islands of the North Atlantic. In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands". To some, the dispute is partly semantic and the term is a value-free geographic one while, to others, it is a value-laden political one. The Crown dependencies of the Channel Islands, are considered part of the British Islands and may also be for geo-political reasons be included in the British Isles, despite not being geographically part of the archipelago.〔Oxford English Dictionary: "British Isles: a geographical term for the islands comprising Great Britain and Ireland with all their offshore islands including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands."〕 Early variants of the term date back to Ancient Greek times; it fell into disuse for over a millennium, and was introduced into English in the late 16th or early 17th centuries by English and Welsh writers whose writings have been described as propaganda and politicised.〔〔R.J. Mayhew, 2000, "Geography is Twinned with Divinity: The Laudian Geography of Peter Heylyn" in Geographical Review, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Jan. 2000), pp. 18–34 "In the period between 1600 and 1800, politics meant what we might now term 'high politics', excluding the cultural and social elements that modern analyses of ideology seek to uncover. Politics referred to discussions of dynastic legitimacy, of representation, and of the Constitution. ... "Geography books spanning the period from the Reformation to the Reform Act ... demonstrated their authors' specific political identities by the languages and arguments they deployed. This cannot be seen as any deviation from the classical geographical tradition, or as a tainting of geography by politics, because geography was not to be conceived separately from politics."〕〔Robert Mayhew, 2005, "" in the British Journal of the History of Science, 38(1): 73–92, March 2005〕 The term became more resisted after the breakup of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1922. The names of the archipelago's two sovereign states were themselves the subject of a long dispute between the Irish and British governments. ==Perspectives in Britain== In general, the use of the term British Isles to refer to the archipelago is common and uncontroversial within Great Britain,〔For example, its use can be seen at (A Reading University Meteorological Study ), and regularly in ''The Guardian'' newspaper (9 November 2006 ), (16 November 2006 ), (23 November 2006 )〕 at least since the concept of "Britishness" was gradually accepted in Britain after the 1707 Act of Union. In Britain it is commonly understood as being a politically neutral geographical term, although it is sometimes used incorrectly to refer to the UK or Great Britain alone.〔(Website on Megalithic Monuments in the British Isles and Ireland ). Ireland in this site includes County Fermanagh, which is politically in Northern Ireland.〕〔"(GENUKI — The UK and Ireland Genealogical Information Service on the Internet ): The website uses the term "British Isles" in various ways, including ways that use Ireland as all of Ireland, while simultaneously using the term "The British Isles and Ireland", e.g. "Anyone using GENUKI should remember that its name is somewhat misleading – the website actually covers the British Isles and Ireland, rather than just the United Kingdom, and therefore includes information about the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland."〕〔(Guide to Narrow Gauge rail in the British Isles and Ireland which includes Belfast lines under the section on Ireland. )〕〔. This BBC article referred to "a small country such as the British Isles" between at least April 2004 and January 2007. It was changed in February 2007 and now reads "a small area such as the British Isles".〕〔For example, see Google searches of (the BBC website ).〕 In 2003, Irish newspapers reported a British Government internal briefing that advised against the use of "British Isles".〔() Herr ambassador Pauls, with these comments, you are really spoiling us..., ''Sunday Tribune'', 23 September 2007〕〔(Revealed: What the British really think of us ), ''Irish Examiner'', 13 December 2003〕 There is evidence that its use has been increasingly avoided in recent years in fields like cartography and in some academic work, such as Norman Daviess history of Britain and Ireland ''The Isles: A History''. As a purely geographical term in technical contexts (such as geology and natural history), there is less evidence of alternative terms being chosen. Recent histories of Great Britain and Ireland (published by major British academic publishers such as the Oxford and Cambridge University presses) have discussed the acceptability of the term "British Isles" in Ireland, although one study continues to use the term "for convenience".〔Dawson, Jane E.A. (2002). ''The Politics of Religion in the Age of Mary, Queen of Scots: The Earl of Argyll and the Struggle for Britain and Ireland''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p2: "Whilst accurate, the term 'Atlantic archipelago' is rather cumbersome so, for convenience, I have used the following as virtual synonyms: the islands of Britain; these islands; the British Isles, and the adjective, British. Without intending to imply any hidden imperial or other agenda, they describe the kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland, and England and Wales as they existed in the sixteenth century, following the definition of the British Isles in the Oxford English Dictionary: 'a geographical term for the islands comprising Great Britain and Ireland with all their offshore islands including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands'."〕 Recognition of issues with the term (as well as problems over definitions and terminology) was also discussed by the columnist Marcel Berlins, writing in ''The Guardian'' in 2006. Beginning with "At last, someone has had the sense to abolish the British Isles", he opines that "although purely a geographical definition, it is frequently mixed up with the political entities Great Britain, or the United Kingdom. Even when used geographically, its exact scope is widely misunderstood". He also acknowledges that some view the term as representing Britain's imperial past, when it ruled the whole of Ireland.〔(Is it really so morally objectionable for the father of a murder victim to accept £450,000 'blood money'? ), ''The Guardian'', 4 October 2006.〕 Another historian of British and Irish history has described the term as "politically loaded".〔"When I refer to the composite Monarchy ruled over by James VI and I and by King Charles I, it is always described as Britain and Ireland, and I deliberately avoid the politically loaded phrase 'the British Isles' not least because this was not a normal usage in the political discourse of the time". Canny, Nicholas (2001). ''Making Ireland British 1580–1650''. New York: Oxford University Press, p. viii. ISBN 978-0-19-925905-2〕 The British Monarchy website FAQ states that: "Including the British Isles, The Queen is Head of State in 16 Commonwealth countries." However, Queen Elizabeth II is not head of state of the Republic of Ireland. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「British Isles naming dispute」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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