雙語(yǔ)+MP3|美國(guó)學(xué)生世界地理27 英格蘭人的鄰居

     HERE is the longest name I know. It has fifty-eight letters. It is LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH. It looks as if a child had been playing on a typewriter and had pounded out the letters at random. But it is a real name, the name of a town in Wales-a little country on the same island with England. It means "Church of St. Mary, in a hollow of white hazel, near a rapid whirlpool, and near St. Tysilios Church, which is near a red cave." People who live there or direct letters there usually call this place simply "Llanfairpwll," for short-and that's long enough. I'd rather call it "Gogogoch"! Wales is now a part of England, but once upon a time it was not. The people in Wales spoke a different language-a difficult language with many long names hard to pronounce, with many "ll's" and "w's" and "y's" all mixed together.
     An English king at last conquered Wales, and in order to make the people he had conquered satisfied and happy he told them he would give them a ruler who was born in Wales and couldn't even speak a word of English. The people in Wales were pleased at that, for they thought the king would give them one of their own countrymen to rule over them. But the king's own son was born in Wales-of course, he was a baby and he couldn't speak a word of English, nor of any other language either. So the king made him the ruler of Wales and the king called him the Prince of Wales. Ever since then the King of England's first-born son, the one who will be king when his father dies, has been called the Prince of Wales. Nowadays few people of Wales can speak their own "mother-tongue," for all the children learn English in the schools. Many people study other languages besides their own, but it isn't necessary to know Welsh in order to travel in Wales, for every one speaks English even if he speaks Welsh too.


     The game of golf first started in Scotland, the country north of England, on the same island, and some of the finest golf-courses i. t. w. W. are there. Scotland is the land of the Scots and it once had a separate king. The Scotch men used to wear-and some do to-day-shawls of bright-colored squares, and skirts instead of breeches, and stockings rolled down, leaving their knees bare even in the coldest weather-and they have a great deal of cold weather in Scotland. The Scotch families are called Clans and each Clan has a special design called a plaid in which its shawls and skirts are woven. A great many Scotch names and words are different from English, and yet similar. They call a baby a bairn, and boys and girls they call lads and lassies, and a pretty girl they call a bonnie lassie.
     The Scots have a peculiar musical instrument called a bagpipe. It's a bag made of a pig's skin and it has a pipe to blow it up as you would a balloon, and there are several horns attached to the bag. The player puts the bag under his arm, keeps blowing it up to keep air in it, and at the same time squeezes out the air with his arms so that it blows the horns, making a peculiar squeaky music like a "dying pig."
     Some of the greatest ships in the World such as those that cross the ocean are made in Scotland, at a place called Glasgow on the River Clyde, on the west side. Glasgow is the second largest city on the island, but the capital of Scotland is on the other side, the east coast. It is called Edinburgh. The Presbyterian Church started in Scotland and most of the people in Scotland are Presbyterians, just as those in England are Episcopalians.
     We call white potatoes "Irish" because they raise and eat so many potatoes in Ireland, the island to the west of Great Britain. In fact, Ireland is shaped something like an Irish potato. But they had no potatoes at all in Ireland and no one there had ever seen or heard of a potato before Columbus discovered America. Potatoes were born in South America and were brought over and raised in Ireland.
     The island of Ireland is divided into two parts. The small northern part is called Northern Ireland and is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That means the King of England is king of Northern Ireland as well as of England, Scotland, and Wales.
     The Irish are great story tellers and fairy-tale tellers, and they say that once upon a time long ago a giant in the north of Ireland built a magic bridge from Ireland all the way across to Scotland; and to prove the story true they show you thousands of stone posts from the shore out into the sea-all there is left of the bridge-that look as if they had been driven down into the sea by a pile driver. These stone posts running out into the sea are called the Giant's Causeway, which means the Giant's Bridge.


     Have you a handkerchief in your pocket? Is it made of linen or cotton? If it's a "party" handkerchief it is probably made of linen and came from Ireland. Linen is made from the fiber of a plant called flax. Flax is much stronger and more silky than cotton, but it costs more. Flax grows especially well in the country around Belfast, which is the capital and chief city of Northern Ireland. In Belfast, they make more linen, and especially fine linen, than anywhere else i. t. w. W.-handkerchiefs, napkins, and table-cloths.
     Most of the people of Northern Ireland are Presbyterians like the Scots or Episcopalians like the English, for their ancestors, many years ago, moved to Northern Ireland from Scotland.
     The other part of Ireland, the south part, used to belong to England too. But the Irish people there never liked being ruled by the English and so they started a country of their own, with a city named Dublin for its capital. It is often said that the people in Dublin speak better English than even the people in England do. There is another language used in southern Ireland besides English. It is called Irish and is the language spoken long ago by the ancient Irish people before they spoke English. Some of the Irish coins and postage stamps have Irish words on them.
     The country that the Irish formed is a republic with a president, and the King of England now is no longer their king, as kings of England used to be.
     Farther south than Dublin is another city with the strange name of Cork, and at some distance another place called Kilkenny. The Irish are famous for their quick wit. Once a man named Kenny was drinking a bottle of ginger-ale, when he swallowed a piece of the cork and nearly choked to death. Some one said to him, "That's not the way to Cork." "No," said Kenny, between coughs, "that's the way to Kilkenny."


     Near Cork is an old ruined castle called Blarney. There is a certain stone high up in the wall of this old castle, and the story goes that if you kiss this stone you will be able to say very pleasant and nice things to people. People go long distances to kiss this Blarney stone, although they can only do it by lying on their backs almost upside down. So when a person says something to us that is very flattering, we reply, "Oh, you must have kissed the Blarney stone."



     Almost all the people of the Republic of Ireland are Roman Catholics, for their families have lived there since before the time of Christ, and missionaries from Rome taught them Christianity over a thousand years ago.
     Ireland is often called the Emerald Isle because an emerald is a very beautiful green stone and Ireland has so much rain the country is very green. That's why green is the national color. Their flag is green, white, and orange, and a kind of clover, called the shamrock, which grows there, is their national leaf.
     You have all heard of St. Patrick, who was supposed to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. Well, the British flag has three crosses worked together like a monogram. One is the cross of St. George of England, the second is the cross of St. Andrew of Scotland, and the third is the cross of St. Patrick.