The+english+speaking+world


 * Scotland **

Scotland is an English speaking country that is famous for its beautiful highlands, bagpipes, haggis and last but not least golf. Scottish people are often recognized by their special accent, or their cross-ruled designer kilts. Here is a short review of Scotland’s country, history and things that makes Scotland to the country we all know.

The history of Scotland goes all the way back to about 10 000 years ago. Scotland had its Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age but there is not many written records remaining from it. Luckily there are a lot of artefacts. Actually Scotland’s written records didn’t begin before the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43. For nearly 300 years the Romans ruled Scotland, before they got their first king Kenneth MacAlpin (reign 843–858). Later came the medieval period, which was known for its many battles. The country was starting to increase, and it soon became the size of today’s Scotland. But while Scotland was pleased with what they had, England wanted more. They threatened Scotland, and said they were going to close all shipment and movement over the border. At last Scotland gave in to the demands and became a part of Great Britain, which they still are.
 * History**

Scotland is a country that occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a land border to the south with England and is actually a part of the United Kingdom. Scotland’s only land border is with England and runs for 96km between the basin of the River Tweed on the east coast and the Solway Firth in the west. It is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. Actually Norway is only 305 km east from Scotland. The country consists of almost 800 islands and the capital is Edinburgh, which is Scotland’s second biggest city. The total size is about 78 km² making Scotland the 117th biggest country in the world.
 * Geography**

**Climate** The climate is oceanic and temperate and tends to be very changeable. It’s actually the opposite from the weather most of us are used to. It has warmer winters because of the Gulf Stream, but has colder and wetter summers. The west of Scotland is generally warmer than the east, because of the influence by the Atlantic Ocean currents and the cold surface temperature of the North Sea. Scotland’s rainfall varies widely across the country, but the wettest place is the western highlands.

In the year 500 large groups from Ireland, which called themselves scotes immigrated to Scotland and these are the people that named the country. From the regions around Argyll they spread their language and cultures, and soon they assorted with the natives or as they were called the picts. People are still unsure if the picts (natives) spoke Celtic or an unknown language. Because of influences from English and Irish the native language was almost lost. In later years the Norwegians came to the North of Scotland and settled. The Norwegians had a great influence on the native population and their language, and the result became a combination of northern and English, which formed the Scottish Gaelic language. This was Scotland’s main language for many years before the regular English took over as language for the nobility and court. The Gaelic language had to back down more and more for the English. Today the Gaelic language has almost extinct, only to be found at the Isle of skye and the Hebrides. The Diagram shows the development of the Indo-European languages of Scotland: ** Proto - Celtic Northumbrian Old Norse Pritenic Brythonic Goidelic Early Northern Middle English Pictish British Old Irish Early Scots Southern middle Eng. Cumbric Middle I Middle Scots Early modern Eng. Norn Gaelic Modern Scots Scottish English
 * Why do they speak English?**


 * Differences between Scotland and England**

Scottish people strongly dislike being referred to as an annex of England. It’s like confusing the Norwegian with the Swedish, or maybe even worse. Scotland has its own traditional educational system that differs from England. School pupils study from age 5, up to about 18 if they wish while English pupils start attending school at the age of 3 to 4 years old till they are 18. The major Scottish school qualification is the “Higher”. University degrees usually take four years (a Bachelor's) though that may change to three years in near future. Another different in the school systems is that traditionally the English system emphasizes a deeper understanding of a relatively smaller number of subjects. The Scottish system promotes the teaching of more subjects at the expense of depth.
 * Education:**

Scotland’s Government is in charge of all issues that are not reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster by the Scotland Act, including NHS Scotland (National health service), education, rural affairs, transport and justice. Between 2005 and 2006 Scotland’s Government earned over 27 billion pounds, which is do to rice to over 30 billion pounds in 2007 – 2008. There are not really any big differences between the two countries because they are both members of the United Kingdom, but they do have different parliaments. Parliament of Scotland and Parliament of England, Ireland, which also is a part of the United Kingdom, has its own Parliament. But they all have the same monarch, at the moment Queen Elisabeth II.
 * Form of Government:**

England’s customs and traditions are famous all over the world. When I think of Britain what comes to my mind is tea drinking, fish and chips, and stuck up Englishmen. But there is a lot more to England than that, take Christmas for instance. Christmas is the number 1 feast in England and they take it really seriously. Roasted chicken, Christmas pudding and presents are only some of the usual treats. They also celebrate with music, going door-to-door singing the holiday in. Another important day for England is St. George’s day, which is England’s national day. Scotland’s traditions are also world famous but is pretty different from England’s. Some of the things that make Scotland special are the Kilts, haggis, and the bagpipes. Even thought the Scots wear kilts they are known for being a lot tougher than the Englishmen, they have sports like the caber toss, shinty and rugby. The Scots on the other hand is more relaxed on Christmas, they save everything for Scotland’s greatest celebration New year’s eve. Then they celebrate with haggis, which is made by sheep intestines and drink Scotch whiskey. Scotland’s National day is named St Andrew's Day after St Andrew the patron saint of Scotland. Fredrik Aartun Sources: www.wikipedia.org and www.cs.stir.ac.uk
 * Traditions:**

A little movie I made about Scotland.. Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLQi0s5g-R4 media type="youtube" key="MLQi0s5g-R4" width="425" height="350"

Fredrik Aartun