To wonder if differences between Scotland and rUK are generally known?

[weescotlass]

I see lots of posts about UK and British issues, that seem to refer to England only.

Is it generally understood that Scotland was a separate country pre 1707 and already had its own legal and education system in place, which were retained on the creation of the United Kingdom?

Therefore house buying, school exams, wills, divorce, university degrees, criminal law, policing etc have real distinct differences.

Are people who use the term UK not aware of the differences when refering/advising on something that affects England only?

Genuinely interested and not meaning to cause an argument. I find the differences really interesting, things like inheritance law when people ask about wills, or issues when a buyer pulls out of buying a house. I don't want to comment on new/current controversial legislation!

Not many but there are Also GME (Gaelic medium education) provisions in mainstream primary and secondary

Only very small numbers. None in my town.

There are 60 GME units. mainly in the Highlands & Islands.

I have a Welsh friend so I knew about Welsh as a first language

yes there is Gaelic medium classes on the mainland and I think its spoken more in schools as a first language on the islands.

edited to say Gaelic not garlic 😁

There are 61 Gaelic medium primary schools and 33 secondaries with Gaelic medium provision in Scotland.

Thanks for the replies guys! I think this is fascinating.

I have lived in both and am aware of the different legal system, general day to day living is no different ime.

I also grew up on the border with Wales and happily aware if the Welsh language, again day to day living no different really. Wales and Scotland are 2 of my favourite places - I would live in Edinburgh or Glagow in a heartbeat.

My old primary school, slap bang in the middle of the fairly urban Central belt, in an area where Gaelic was never ever spoken by the native population at any point in history, now offers the opportunity for local children to be educated entirely in Gaelic for the whole 7 years. So each year group offers two English medium and one Gaelic medium class. No prior knowledge of Gaelic required for entry. It’s fascinating.

Surely the assumption of place is only relevant if seeking legal advice or other similarly impacted (health service/education system etc) though ?

I know the difference, having lived in Scotland previously and now in Wales though am very much English. I think part of the problem is the West Lothian question - devolution for Wales, NI, and Scotland, but not England. It means that English people see the Westminster government as theirs whilst also knowing it legislates quite a bit for the rest of the UK. it makes English people feel like we all have one government and are all the same. Your attention is drawn more to the differences if you have to vote for your devolved government as well I think. My family keep saying isn't it great that I will now get free nursery hours for my baby -ignoring, despite being told, that the Welsh government isn't introducing that here. Very minor but still annoying. The worst though was the differing covid lock down rules between Wales and England when we live smack on the border, so annoying.

I think that generally (based of discussion with work colleagues):

people in England feel like there are massively more people in England that Scotland. That if they had to guess they would say there were 50 times as many people in England as Scotland. I think people are surprised to find out that it is only a factor of 10.

people generally think that Scotland was conquered by England … and that was probably about 800 years ago. Maybe more. Something to do with Mel Gibson and the avatar movie blue face paint.

as a result of these two points, they feel that the people of Scotland are just being stubborn and silly, hanging on to different ways of doing things just to prove a point.

Gaelic was spoken throughout the Central Belt in the period from 900 to 1150 AD. This is demonstrated by the place names.
I.e. Gartnavel - Farm of the apple orchard
Stirling - a deep river pool

Basically place-names with elements like Cambus (a bend in a river), Dal (a meadow) and many more tell us that Gaelic speakers lived there enough to name the landscape and for those names to be remembered.

OK , I stand corrected. I was taught local history back to Wallace and Bruce but did not know Gaelic had been spoken in my area before them.

Outwith! I really can’t stand that word!

My best friend is Scottish, so I’m used to when she is spelling a word and says j like jye, used to ‘stay’/‘live’ used differently and ‘the back of 6’ as a time reference but outwith just sounds so odd.
Love some of the other peculiarly Scottish words.

I’m not English but I do think it’s a fair assumption on Mumsnet that posters are based in England BUT people need to stop
with the disbelief when the poster says it is half-term or a bank holiday or whatever and posters pile on to disagree. (Remember the poster from NI who said schools were off for the Halloween break?)

Remember the poster from NI who said schools were off for the Halloween break?
Yes I do, the poor misfortune.
Because nobody calls it the Halloween break!
Except...whole countries do.

Wait till ye hear that Gaelic schools aren't even unique to Scotland! 😱

28 of them are Gaelic primaries and just two are secondaries. See attachment from the Northern Ireland Department of Education.

Ah, but that would be Gaelic, rather than Gaelic 😜

The English don’t have to hang around the supermarket at 9.59am like a mad alcoholic waiting for the clock to strike 10am so that you can buy alcohol.

I don't think so.

I live in Canada where there was a ton of Scottish settlement, and lots of people are very interested in Scotland generally, and I would say that they don't know many of those details.

They have a good sense of the cultural things, some sense of the history and generally political arrangements of the UK, but that is about as far as it goes.

For people without much personal interest, they will know a bit about general Scottish cultural things, but not much history and have at best a fuzzy sense of the political relation of Scotland to the UK. Many will think of it as being a bit like a state, or they may think it's a geographical region rather than having any political/institutional form.

I think of it this way - what do I know about the different political and cultural aspects of the states of India? Not much. I know a few things about some very general cultural differences, I know a very little bit about some general history of how India came to look like it does now, from the middle ages on. I don't know anything about the political role of states or how their laws or governance differ. And I'm generally very interested in history and politics.

I don't think most people know this sort of thing about other countries or nations.

No they're not. I live in Scotland but my mum and siblings are all in England. If I have to explain that yes, ds will start Uni at 17 (and actually could've started at 16) one more time I will not be responsible for my actions.

My brother once drove up for a visit and the only time he had free to see us was Monday daytime. It was Easter Monday. It would've taken us 2 hours to drive to him at his location near my sister and my entire family downright REFUSED to accept that we were at school and work on Easter Monday.

Lots of reasons - a lot of Australians are originally from the UK and still have family there so things that happen in the UK are still relevant to their lives.

The other main reason is that the largest equivalent Australian based mums forum closed down rather abruptly a few years ago leaving us all with no alternative source of peer-based parenting advice and chat. Parenting isn't that different between the UK and Australia, there's no good reason we can't use the same parenting forum.

Posters really shouldn't assume that everyone you talk to here is in England, its quite a narrow view of the world.

nah the English mad alcoholics just stroll in at 8 am 😂

Easter Monday Is a school holiday where I live I think it is a rare school that would be at school on Easter Monday.

So in Scotland, I can buy a pint at 9am in the pub to drink then... but can't buy a bottle of wine at 9.30am to drink that night at dinner with the rest of my shop?

DH will be working in Scotland from Easter, while we remain living in England. Its going to be interesting!

Always thought the Scottish school cut off was a lot more sensible incidentally.