Originally posted by tasuki
So basically, I think that for most people when one says western person or country one refers to people or countries of (as I said before) Latin, Angle, and Saxon ancestry.
So, are you saying that Irish, Welsh, Scotish, Scandinavians, dutch and some Germans aren't Westerners because they are neither Latin nor Anglo-Saxons ? FYI, Angles and Saxons were both north Germanic tribes that, along with the Jutes of Denmark, were invited to Britain by a Celtic tribe to sort the problems between the various Celtic groups that inhabited the island. They settled and pushed all the Celts to the West (Wales, Corwall) and North (Scotland) and created their own kingdoms (Mercia, West Saxony, East Saxony, etc.). Later on, Danish and Norwegian vikings (who were not Anglo-Saxons, but other Germanic tribes) raided Britain and the rest of Europe. A group of Danish viking settled in France (Normandy), mixed with French locals, and later invaded England (William the conquerer, 1066).

You could only describe English people as Germanic (Anglo-saxon + Scandinavian ) with a bit of Latin and Celt blood.

In short, I would rather identify Westerners as being ethnically Celto-Latino-Germanic, so as to include the whole of Western and Northern Europe, but I would also add Greeks, and I can't see why Eastern Europeans (be they Slavic, Finno-Hungaric, or Baltic) wouldn't be Westerns, especially that they have mixed quite a lot with Germanic (Swedish and German) people during history.

Once again, if Westerness is only based on ethny, why not just say Caucassian instead ? Would you argue that Collin Powell or Michael Jordan aren't Westerner because they have African origins ?