The languages of UK

Minority languages of UK

Scotland
By examination in 2001, there are 58,652 Scottish Gaelic speakers in Scotland. It’s nearly 1 percent of the population of Scotland. People who aged three and over in Scotland (total 92,400 people) had some Gaelic language abilities in 2001. By examination of the General Register Office for Scotland, People who can speak Scots are 30 percents of Scottish population. It’s about 1.5 million speakers. Scots is a kind of Germanic language. It’s traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and a part of Ulster. It’s also called Lowland Scots. It’s divided Scottish Gaelic, a kind of Celtic language that is spoken in the Highland and Hebrides. Scots sometimes is regarded as a direct Germanic Language.

Northern Ireland
By examination in 2001, about 7 percents of the population of Northern Ireland can speak Irish. It’s about 110,000 speakers. Irish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language category. Irish is now only spoken by a small part of the Irish population but also regarded an important symbolic part in the life of the Irish state. It’s used across the country in a variety of media, personal and social situations.　In other hand, according to the 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, 2 percents (about 30,000 speakers) of the population can speak Ulster Scots.

Cornwall
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language. It’s recognized a minority language of Britain. The language continued to be used as a community language in parts of Cornwall until the late 18th century and an act was started to revive the language in the early 20th century. Now, Cornish is spoken by about 3,500 people in Cornwall. The result was generated by a revival started Henry Jenner in 1903. He published the book, Handbook of Cornish that was based on Cornish spoken in the 18th century. Cornish were officially admitted as a native national minority of the UK by the United Kingdom Census 2001.

Promoting Welsh language

In 2001, Welsh is spoken by 20.5 percents of Welsh people. The main reason is the annexation of Walsh by England. By it, English became the main language in Wales and speaking Welsh was banned at also school. Speaking Welsh also decreased by prejudice and discrimination. However, promotions to preserve Welsh increase in Wales. For example, Welsh education is carried out in an elementary and junior high school, TV programs as Welsh (BBC Wales and ITV Wales) are broadcasted. Welsh speaker increase by it now.

Language and Ethnicity

There are many languages in England. Those were dialects like England English, Wales English, Scottish English, Irish and other languages. Now, the language which is regarded standard in Britain is called Standard English. It’s used 12-15 percents people among British people.

Received Pronunciation(RP)

Recieved Pronunciation also called the Queen English or BBC English. It’s the language which is used by upper class people and it’s traditionally standard of BBC program. Now, RP decreases among yang people in upper class so RP’s speaker is about 2 percent in Britain.

Cockney English

Cockney English is almost used working class people in London. Cockney speakers have a different accent and dialect, and frequently use rhyming slang. Rhyming slang is a form of slang which a word is by the second word of a two words phrase (rhyming word).

Estuary English

Estuary English is the new English born in 1980s. It’s the English mixed between RP and Cockney English. Estuary English is a name which is given to the dialect of English. It’s widely spoken in South East England, especially along the River Thames and its estuary. Phonetician John C. Wells defines Estuary English as a standard which is spoken with the accent of the southeast of England. The name comes from the area around the Thames Estuary, particularly London, Kent and Essex.

Other dialects

In England, there are various dialects.
Scouse (Liverpool)
Geordie(Newcastle)
Manc(Manchester)
Brummie(Birmingham)
Tyke(Yorkshire)

Cheltenham Ladies' College

Introduction

Cheltenham Ladies' College is the independent school for girls in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. It has boarding and day school styles. There are from 11 to 18 aged girls of boarding school or day school. It was the traditional school which was established in 1853 and there are about 900 students in the school now. The Cheltenham Ladies’ school is constantly marked high rank in various fields.

The great founder

The school’s founder is Doroshea Beale. She transformed the traditional women’s studying style, music, sewing and drawing into the academic style like a boy’s school style, including mathematics and English. She was the pioneer of women’s education. By the Miss Beale’s success, The Cheltenham Ladies’ school becomes one of main schools in England.

Life style

A boarding school’s girl can select one of ten houses. There are four senior houses for 17-18 year olds girls and six junior houses for 11-16 year olds girls. The school uniform is a white blouse, green skirt, and green jumper with a badge of the house colors. Sixth form girls are given the option of trousers or pencil skirt. The school crest which is depicted two doves taken from the Cheltenham town shield is f the most important school symbol. The school motto is "Cœlesti Luce Crescat" (May she grow in Heavenly light). GCSE and A-Levels are offered to all students. In September 2008, the International Baccalaureate was offered to sixth form students in combination with A levels. In 2006, 26 pupils went to places at Oxbridge. In addition, many pupils get accepted by the American Ivy League universities.

Cheltenham

Cheltenham is the city in Gloucestershire, England. A population is 110,013 at the 2001 census. Cheltenham is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing. In Cheltenham, the Gold Cup held every March. It’s the main event of the festival. There are many cultural festivals.

Cultural festivals are music, jazz, literature and science festivals in the town. Event spots are the Town Hall, the Everyman Theatre, the Playhouse Theater and the Pittville Pump Room. A more local event, the Cheltenham Festival of the Performing Arts is a collection of more than 300 performance competitions. It has been started in 1926. It’s the oldest of Cheltenham’s arts festivals. Cheltenham has many attractive festivals.

Cheltenham also has some shopping centers. The Cavendish House is the oldest department store. It’s from 1823. In other shopping centers, there are the Regent Arcade and the Beechwood Shopping Center.

The Boat Race

The Boat Race is a regatta race of each club Oxford University and Cambridge University on April every year in Thames. Regatta is the race of plural people for using a non-engine boat. The boat is eight rowing crews and one more crew is supervision. The supervision controls crews.

The first Boat Race was held in 1829 and won the Oxford University. In 1877, both boats crossed the finish line at the same time. The result of competition is 79 wins of Cambridge and 75 wins of Oxford until 2009.

The Boat Race was watched by many British people as the spring thing.

British Classes

British make up different classes. The classes are Upper, Upper-Middle, Middle, Lower-Middle, Working (skilled), Working (unskilled) and Under. It’s separated variety tings, life style, job, clothes more other things.

Upper class
It’s very high class for example, Royal family, aristocrats, politician and captains. They are very wealthy. They have big house or castle and use different language, Queen's English and Received Pronunciation. The top1 per cent of wealth holders own one-third of the nation's wealth.

Upper-Middle class
It’s also high class. They work doctor, pilot, lawyer and top businessman. This class is came under the persons belonged to profession.

Middle class
It’s the majority of the population of Britain. They include industrialists, professionals, business people and shop owners. This class often see working class as uneducated and lacking in culture.

Lower-Middle class
They work small shopkeeper, office worker. These people are less educated than the upper middle class.

Working (skilled)
They work craftsman, carpenters, engineers, plumbers, train drivers and other jobs. They pride own job. They want to stay working class. There are many people can get big money by own job.

Working (unskilled)
This position is no ability and no technique. They belong waiter, dishwasher and so on.

Under class
They are unemployment, for example, homeless and beggar.

Comparison and The underground in UK

UK and Japan are the island countries and near to total land area 244,110 sq km (UK) and 377,837 sq km (Japan). Population is 59,054,800(UK) in 2002 and 123,333,002(Japan) in 2004. Each countries forest percentages are 11%(UK) and 67%(Japan). By these daters, Japan is the country to live people crowdedly and UK is the country which had the vast land.
UK is located the point between 50 degrees north and 60 degrees north. Japan is located the point between 40 degrees north and 20 degrees north. Therefore, Annual mean temperature in both countries is 9.7 temperature(UK) and 15.6 temperature(Japan).

London has the oldest railway system in the world. It says the underground and the tube. There are the 268 stations and the entire rail distance is 400km(250miles). The annual entire users are 976,000,000 people. It’ means to use it 2,670,000 people a day.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshir, about 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) west of Amesbury and 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones and sits at the centre of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds. Some stones still stand straight up. But other lie on the ground where they fell hundred of years ago and some of the stone pillars still stand, just as they did 4,000 years ago. Stonehenge began as a large, circular ditch, built about 1900 B.C. This ditch is about 300 feet in diameter. Two hundred years later, the ring of bluestones was built. It was near the center of the ditch and mound. A hundred years or more went by before the large stone pillars were added. Thus, at least 300 years were required to complete the mystery of Stonehenge.

Some Interesting Blogs

I have some interesting blogs.

First, that blog is Miki. She introduced the birds of endangered species in New Zealand. Kiwi is known very famous bird but I knew many birds of endangered species in New Zealand at her blog. I'm surprised Moa. Moa died out now. This bird is so big!!

Our plasentation in New Zealand

I'll introduce to you about 2 main natural disasters, cyclone and the accident in disastar.




First, I'll talk about Cyclone. It rarely come to New Zealand. Recent reserch shows that northern New Zealand is hit by an average of a little over one storm each year.Every year between December and April, storms move south toward New Zealand. You can understand that storms is rare in New Zealand to compare Japanese typhoons with New Zealand storms. In Japan, about thirty typhoons form each year over the Northwest Pacific Ocean, of which typically about seven to eight pass over Okinawa Prefecture, and about three hit the Japanese main islands,especially Kyushu and Shikoku. Most typhoons hit Japan between May and October with August and September being the peak season tend to be stronger than typhoons earlier in the season. But New Zealand peaple had suffered big damege in the past by Cyclone more denger than storm. This cyclone says the worst storm recorded in New Zealand's history. This Cyclone's name is Giselle. The storm appeared in the Coral Sea near the Solomon Islands on 5 Aplil, 1968. Next day, the storm warnings were issued throughout New Zealand. Then, the cyclone was 3,000 kilometres away. Early in the moring of 9 Aplil, Cyclone Giselle hit Cape Reinga. The wind of 160 kilometres an hour caused damege to houses and other buildings. The heavy rain made flood. The farmlands of Northland were dameged by flooding and hundreds of farm animals drowned. The cyclone moved south, repeating the pattern of damege as it went across the North Island and down the East Coast. By the time Cyclone Giselle hit Wellington on the moring of 10 Aplil, another storm had driven up the West Coast of the South Island from Antarctica. The two storms met over the capital city. The two storms caused huge amouts of damege and wrecking the inter-island ferry, the Wahine, with the loss of 51 lives. The winds in Wellington were the strongest ever recorded by the New Zealand Meteorogical Servise. At one point they reached a speed of 275 kilometres an hour. As the storm moved on to the South Island, in Christchurch hundreds of houses lost their roofs and both the Avon and the Heathcote rivers flooded. Throughout Canterbury over 500 hectares of forest were deatroyed. In Southland the flooding was the worst since 1913. The Cyclone Giselle finally blew out some where in the Southern Ocean. This cyclone affected New Zealand-wide. A cyclone haven't been happened more dengerous than the Giselle.








Next, let's move on to the accident in disaster. This disaster was the cause of Volcanic ash from the crater of the Volcano. It drew the accident to get many the dead. The accident says Tangiwai Railway Disaster. It happened with the express train number 949 that was travelling from Wellington to Auckland. It was Christmas eve, 24 of December 1953. The train carried the 285 people. Many families were travelling to meet the relatives for the festive season. As the train was reaching the town of Waiouru, an avalanche of mud mixed with rocks and Volcanic ash coming from the crater of the Volcano Ruapehu. A giant wave of water, mud and rocks 6 meters high hit and swept away one concrete support of the rail dridge at Tangiwai, almost 10 kilometres from Waiouru. Without knowing of the collapse of the bridge, At 10:21 pm the express, consisting of one engine, nine carriages and two vans, and travelling at about 60 kilometres per hour, nose-dived deep into the river. Of the 285 people on the train that nignt, 134 surrived and 151 died most drowned in the floodwaters. Becouse no newspapers were produced on Christmas Day, the first detailed news of what had happened was given in a radio broadcast by the Prime Minister, Sidney Holland, from Waiouru Camp. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were visiting New Zealand when the disaster at Tangiwai happened. Queen Elizabeth made her Chistmas broadcast from Auckland, finishing with a message of sympathy to the people of the New Zealand. Prince Philip attended a state funeral for many of the victims. At the time, Tangiwai was the eighth biggest railway disaster the world had seen. It is still the fifth worst disaster in New Zealand's recorded history. On Christmas Eve each year the express train slows as it crosses the new bridge across the whangaehu River, and the driver throws a bunch of flowers into the water.

Finally, I also mention that we talked to you about natural disasters. Each disaster is very dengerous happning but it rarely happens in New Zealand. therefore, you don't think not go to New Zealand. This country has various attractions, nature, culture and so on. We can recommend the New Zealand as a good sightseeing.

The Treaty of Waitangi

I think this Treaty was signed by Maoris. On 5 February 1840 a large group of people met together at Waitangi in the Bay of Island.

Naval officer Captain William Hobson gave Maori chiefs instructions. He was to call together the Maori chifes and persuade them that Grate Britain shoud take over the job of governing the northern part of New Zealand. In return Maori would get to keep their lands and property, and they would have the rights and privileges of British sbjects. Then Hobson claim the South Island as British because Captain Cook from Britain, had been the first to land there. Hobson had prepared a document listing what the chiefs would get to keep and what they would have to give up. One of the missionaris Henry Williams had quickly translated the document into Maori the night before. He was keen to persuade the chiefs to sign.

The next day, 6 February 1840, they all met again. Most of the chiefs signed, even those who had spoken against the Treaty the day before. They got the presents of tobacco and two blankets.

The Treaty was not equality. However, I think Maori chifes didn't oppse it.

Early Settlers

It was hard and the rich were far above them for pioneer settlers from England, Wales and Ireland to immigrate New Zealand.

First, the voyage to New Zealand was uncomfortable. It took four months, or more if the weather was bad. The ships were crowded. Fresh food and water were scarce. If there was illness it would spread rapitly through the ships. Lot of small children died. With no fresh water for washing it was uncomfortable going through the tropics. But, they were going to a new land, a new life with great hopes for the future.

Second, the first job in New Zealand was build a shelter from raupo, or a more permanent house from wood. There was plenty of wood for building. In the south, house were often made from cob. They build houses facing north to make the most of sunhine, rather than south as in the northern hemisphere.

finally, their living had each part. Men cleared the land and looked after the livestock. Women fed the family, clothed and healthy was the women's full time job. Sometimes women made butter to sell in nearby settlements.

Life in new island was difficult to be comfortable by early settlers.

All Blacks

I examined about All Blacks. I knew this rugby team is very strong. This team has been earned more wins than losses in the representative of all world countries team. On the other hand, this team is very famous haka dancing after winning of match.
It was down its ability in 1990’s. But, All Blacks took back when Graham Henry assumed head coach in 2004. Since it, this team had been got 33 wins and 4 feats in test much from 2004 to 2006. In 2005, November, they had a complete victory to all team, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Then, All blacks achieved a second grand slam in twenty- seven years.
All Blacks was the favorite to win the World Cup in 2007, but this team lost a quarterfinal to France. It became sad New Zealand people.
Rugby is national game in New Zealand. It says All Blacks is pride for New Zealand people.