Defining national identity is an ongoing and open-ended process, which is pursued constantly and competitively through every available medium. Identity can be defined by what we have to say about ourselves as a group, or about individuals who seem to embody characteristics considered either desirable or undesirable for the group as a whole. It is defined too by what we have to say about others, because at the same time we are thereby defining ourselves. It is also defined by what others have to say - or choose to leave unsaid - about us. Further definitions are also created when, as is often the case, a national group also finds itself a subgroup of a wider linguistic entity. English and Scots, Americans and Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, metropolitan and colonial French, Chileans and Argentinians - the modern list is almost endless, just as it was in ancient Greece with its plethora of rival city states, all speaking a common language yet all with their own distinct political traditions, systems of coinage, dialects, and social structures.