Invasion

What makes the Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Irish different from each other?

About 2,000 years ago the British Isles were inhabited by the Celts who originally came from continental Europe. During the next 1,000 years there were many invasions. The Romans came from Italy in AD* 43 and, in calling the country 'Britannia', gave Britain its name. The Angles and Saxons came from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands in the 5th century, and England gets its name from this invasion (Angle-land). The Vikings arrived from Denmark and Norway throughout the 9th century, and in 1066 (the one date in history which every British school-child knows) the Normans invaded from France.

These invasions drove the Celts into what is now Wales and Scotland, and they remained, of course, in Ireland. The English, on the other hand, are the descendants of all the invaders, but are more Anglo-Saxon than anything else. These various origins explain many of the differences to be found between England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland - differences in education, religion and the legal systems, but most obviously, in language.

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*AD – [ei´di:] сокр. от Anno Domini (лат.) н.э., нашей эры; Р.Х., от Рождества Христова