Midori Yoshino Watercolour Paintings: Enlgish rose

わたしはいまだに、
イギリス諸島、British Islesの分類ができない。
何度聞いても、わからないので、そのままになっていて、何年の月日がすぎただろう。

いったい、地理的にも、政治的にも、スコットランドといったときどこまでをいうのか、
Englandというとき、Great Britainというときのどこにどう、属するのか、
何度聞いても、どうしても、理解できない。
しかし、ここに及んで、ついに
学ぶときがきた。
とき遅しという感があるがしかたがない。
これは、リスニングの試験問題。
ほとんど、私にはフランス語みたいなもので、
5つの質問の中で、一つしか答えられなかった。
悲しい限り。

なんでこんなことをいいだしたかというと、
スコットランド人は、スコットランドでの大学の費用はただ。
でも、イギリスは、イギリスの大学にいくなら年間、9,000パウンドも支払わなければならない。
イギリス人がスコットランドの大学に行きたいとなったとき、
インターナショナルの学生とみなされて
大學の莫大な学費をはらわされる。
このスコットランドと、イギリスがどういうふうに、
政治的に存在するのかを
ついに真剣に理解しなければならなくなった。

British Isles that area of the eastern Atlantic that we Japanese find so confusing.I'm afraid just looking at a map or a page in the atlas doesn't necessarily explain the geographic terminology.In referring to the British Isles a word of apology for those of you Irish descent that is those whose ancestors come from Eyre the Republic of Ireland no matter how geographically accurate the place names that I use today are some of you will be understandably upset to be included in anything termed British. I have a very useful image that might help you differentiate between the various labels that distinguish the political and geographic reality of the so-called British Isles. I want to show you a Venn diagram which is a mathematical illustration that shows all the possible relationships between sets. Look this Venn diagram and you will see that geographical terminology is in bold while the political terms are in italics see here the British Isles in bold and the British Islands in italic. The aim of this lecture is to explain the meaning of and
relationships among those terms in geographical terms you will
see that British Isles is an archipelago of the two large islands of Great Britanin and Ireland and including many smaller surrounding islands. Of course you can't tell from the Venn diagram the true comparative size of these islands.
you'll need to look at the map for that but take my word for it.
Great Britain is the largest island of the archipelago followed by Ireland which in reality geographically lies to the west and there are over a thousand smaller islands. Now in political terms the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is constitutional monarchy which include the island of Great Britain.Some small nearby islands although not the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands and the north eastern part of the island of Ireland.Thank goodness. It is generally shortened to United Kingdom the UK Great Britain or Britain or even the abbreviation GB although none of these are strictly correct of course. You'd better listen carefully to the next part because I warn you it is very confusing.

Ireland is the name of the sovereign Republic occupying the larger part of the island of Ireland but to distinguish it from the name of the island itself and most importantly from the other part which belongs to the UK. It is called Republic of Ireland or it's Irish language name Eyre that 's e ir e even though eyre directly translates as Ireland the smaller portion of the island is called Northern Ireland the partition of Ireland took place in 1922 after a great history of struggle that we won't go into here. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are legal jurisdictions within the United Kingdom but Great Britain refers to the countries of England,Wales and Scotland as a unit. The British islands contain the Unite Kingdom, the channel islands made up of Guernsey and Jersey and Isle of Man which all have the British monarch as head of state. Interestingly the Isle of Man although governed as a British Crown dependency has its own Parliament but relies on the UK for defense and in matter of external relations. So you've learned something about the geographical and political confusion surrounding the British Isles lets have a look at some of the linguistic confusion to start with there isn't an adjective to refer to the United Kingdom so the term British is generally used however that means that citizens of Northern Ireland although not on the island of great Britain still describe themselves as British because this reflects their political and cultural identity. Irish in a political sense refers to the Republican only so sometimes citizens of Northern Ireland would call themselves Northern Irish as a point of difference. Of course the northern in Northern Irish is not completely accurate either as the most northerly peninsular on the island is in the county of Doregal which is part of the Republic .
We might get in a muddle over the term of Irish but at least Scottish Welsh in England should be self-explanatory apparently not to us Japanese and European are often guilty of this, too.
We often use the term English incorrectly to mean British.
I'd have to be the first to admit to calling my Welsh colleague English which really his heckles up. He is Welsh tells he me and he may also be British but he is definitely not English just one more thing what is the British Commonwealth. It's a voluntary Association of independently state many of which were former British colonies. In fact what was primarily the old British Empire however its no longer known as the British Commonwealth but is now called the Commonwealth of Nations instead presumably because current members do not want to remember the old colonial ties.

教訓。日本語でさえ理解できていないことは
英語でいわれてもわからない。