Lecture 5 Population
People who now live in the UK are descended from various people who inhabited the country many centuries ago. The first people settled on the BI in prehistoric times during the Stone Age when the islands were joined with the continent by the landbridge. Very little is known about them. Historians refer to them as the Iberians, who came from the Iberian peninsula between 3000 BC and 2000 BC which now belongs to Spain. The Iberians are supposed to have built stone structures called cromlech (the most famous – The Stonehenge in southern England). But then the Iberians were attacked, killed or driven the westward by Celtic tribes (the Picts, the Scots, the Britons). They came in the 6th - 3rd centuries BC. We know about the Celts because of the Greek historians. The Celts were pagans with priests knows as Druids.
From the middle of the 1 century BC the Celts were conquered by the Romans. In 55 BC Julius Cesar crossed the English Channel …. the Romans stayed in Britain for 4 centuries. They lived in military camps, built roads, bridges and so on. One of the monuments of Roman Britain is a long stone wall called Hadrian's Wall. Roman emperor Hadrian ordered to build it to protect country from Scotland. The remnants of the wall can be seen – they are of tourists' attraction.
The Roman left Britain at the beginning of 5 century AD - they had to protect Empire from barbarians. After that Britain was attacked from all the sides: The Germanic tribes attacked Britain from the … and east. The Danes – from Scandinavia (950 AD). Each of the invaders drove the native population to the north and west. Anglo-Saxons gave the name to the country. Beowulf – give inside to the character of Anglo-Saxons. They valued personal liberty and were perfect warriors. Due to this qualities they were able to defend themselves from invasions for 200 years. But in 850 – The Danes came. Anglo-Saxon formed the basis of Old English.
The last were the Normans. They were the northmen who had assimilated in France. (They were led by William the Conqueror). 1066 – they subdued the Anglo-Saxons. After that conquest for almost 2 centuries there were 2 languages, cultures and nations in the country.
Norman-French was the language of the ruling class and the official language of the country while Anglo-Saxon was spoken by the majority of the native population oppressed by the conquerors. Normans broke the ties with France and by the 13th century had mingled in blood and language with AS. New language was born – Middle English (the official language of the country and educated classes by the late 13th century.)
Chausser wrote in New middle English.
The British are descendents of many peoples which reflected in many nationalities, langs and characters.
The English – Anglo-Saxons; the Scots – Celts; The Welsh – Celts; the Irish – Celts
Migration
Traditionally Britain gave a lot of emigrants to the rest of the world. 1836-1936 – 11 million emigrants.
This mass emigrations was formed from ruined peasants, the unemployed. To find new opportunities ….
Mass emigration from the UK stopped , when many countries limited its emigration.
Many emigrants moved to the UK in the 1960s: India, South Africa, Jamaica, South Asia.
They made an important contribution to the economic development of the country.
Today they’re also many Americans, Chinese live in the UK.
The UK has become more multiracial, because people from all parts of the world made the UK their permanent home.
Total population is over 60,000,000 (the 14th in the world)
They take a census of the Br people regularly.
Ethnic composition
Th English – 82%; The Scots – 95%; The Welsh – 2%; The Irish – 2.5%
The Gaels – гаэлы; Jews; Poles; Germans; Frenchmen; Italians; India + Pakistan – over 2%
The coloureds’ – цветные
Languages
English
standard literary Eng
Regional dialects
Social dialects (cockney)
Wales – bilingual as a result of a long struggle of English and Welsh languages.
Welsh was banned from the use be Henry VIII in 1535.
The Welsh language Act was passed (1967)
550,000 people use Welsh as the 1st lang
Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic / Irish Gaelic (Erse) but Scotch whiskey
Lowlanders speak Scottish
French is still the official lang of Jersey and the island of man