The culture of the United Kingdom is rich and varied, and has been influential on culture on a worldwide scale. It is a European state, and has many cultural links with its former colonies, particularly those that use the English language (the Anglosphere). Considerable contributions to British culture have been made over the last half-century by immigrants from the Indian Subcontinent and the West Indies. The origins of the UK as a political union of formerly independent states has resulted in the preservation of distinctive cultures in each of the home nations. Language Main article: Languages in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom has no official language. English is the main language and the de facto official language, spoken monolingually by an estimated 95% of the UK population. However, some nations and regions of the UK have frameworks for the promotion of their autochthonous languages. In Wales, English and Welsh are both widely used by officialdom, and Irish and Ulster Scots enjoy limited use alongside English in Northern Ireland, mainly in publicly commissioned translations. Additionally, the Western Isles council area of Scotland has a policy to promote Scottish Gaelic. Under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which is not legally enforceable, the UK Government has committed itself to the promotion of certain linguistic traditions. Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Cornish are to be developed in Wales, Scotland and Cornwall respectively. Other native languages afforded such protection include Irish in Northern Ireland, Scots in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where it is known in official parlance as "Ulster Scots" or "Ullans" but in the speech of users simply as "Scotch", and British Sign Language. The Arts Literature Sherlock Holmes, played here by Jeremy Brett, was created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle.Main article: British literature The earliest native literature of the territory of the modern United Kingdom was written in the Celtic languages of the isles. The Welsh literary tradition stretches from the 6th century. Irish poetry also represents a more or less unbroken tradition from the 6th century to the present day, with the Ulster Cycle being of particular relevance to Northern Ireland. Anglo-Saxon literature includes Beowulf, a national epic, but literature in Latin predominated among educated elites. After the Norman Conquest Anglo-Norman literature brought continental influences to the isles. English literature emerged as a recognisable entity in the late 14th century, with the rise and spread of the London dialect of Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer is the first great identifiable individual in English literature: his Canterbury Tales remains a popular 14th-century work which readers still enjoy today. Following the introduction of the printing press into England by William Caxton in 1476, the Elizabethan era saw a great flourishing of literature, especially in the fields of poetry and drama. From this period, poet and playwright William Shakespeare stands out as arguably the most famous writer in the world. The English novel became a popular form in the 18th century, with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) and Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1745). After a period of decline, the poetry of Robert Burns revived interest in vernacular literature, the rhyming weavers of Ulster being especially influenced by literature in Scots from Scotland. The following two centuries continued a huge outpouring of literary production. In the early 19th century, the Romantic period showed a flowering of poetry comparable with the Renaissance two hundred years earlier, with such poets as William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Lord Byron. The Victorian period was the golden age of the realistic English novel, represented by Jane Austen, the Bront? sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. World War One gave rise to British war poets and writers such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Rupert Brooke who wrote (often paradoxically), of their expectations of war, and/or their experiences in the trench. The Celtic Revival stimulated new appreciation of traditional Irish literature, however, with the independence of the Irish Free State, Irish literature came to be seen as more clearly separate from the strains of British literature. The Scottish Renaissance of the early 20th century brought modernism to Scottish literature as well as an interest in new forms in the literatures of Scottish Gaelic and Scots. The English novel developed in the 20th century into much greater variety and was greatly enriched by immigrant writers. It remains today the dominant English literary form. Other well-known novelists include Arthur Conan Doyle, D. H. Lawrence, George Orwell, Salman Rushdie, Mary Shelley, Zadie Smith, J. R. R. Tolkien, Virginia Woolf and J.K. Rowling. Important poets include Elizabeth Barrett Browning, T. S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, Alexander Pope, and Dylan Thomas. Religion Main article: Religion in the United Kingdom Although today one of the most 'secularised' states in the world, the United Kingdom is traditionally a Christian country, with two of the Home nations having official faiths: Anglicanism, in the form of the Church of England, is the Established Church in England. The Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Presbyterianism (Church of Scotland) is the official faith in Scotland. The Anglican Church in Wales was disestablished in 1920. The Anglican Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871. Other religions followed in the UK include Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism. While 2001 census information [2] suggests that over 75 percent of UK citizens consider themselves to belong to a religion, Gallup International reports that only 10 percent of UK citizens regularly attend religious services, compared to 15 percent of French citizens and 57 percent of American citizens. A 2004 YouGov poll found that 44 percent of UK citizens believe in God, while 35 percent do not [3]. The disparity between the census data and the YouGov data has been put down to a phenomenon described as "cultural Christianity", whereby many who do not believe in God still identify with the religion they were bought up as, or the religion of their parents. [edit] Food Main article: British cuisine Although there is ample evidence of a rich and varied approach to cuisine during earlier historical periods (particularly so amongst wealthy citizens), during much of the 19th and 20th century Britain had a reputation for somewhat conservative cuisine. The stereotype of the native cuisine was of a diet progressing little beyond stodgy meals consisting of "meat and two veg". Even today, in more conservative areas of the country, "meat and two veg" cuisine is still the favoured choice at the dinner table. Traditional British fare usually includes dishes such as fish and chips, roast dishes of beef, lamb, chicken and pork, as well as regional dishes such as the Cornish pasty and Lancashire Hotpot. On 8 January 1940, four months after the outbreak of World War II, a system of food Rationing was introduced to conserve stocks and feed the nation during the critical war years. Rationing persisted until July 4, 1954 [4] when a fourteen year period of relative privation (which profoundly affected a generation of people attitude to 'a culture of food') finally came to an end. With the end of rationing, Britain's diet began to change, slowly at first during the 1950s and 1960s, but immeasurably by the closing decades of the 20th century. During the transitional period of the 1970s, a number of influential figures such as Delia Smith (perhaps Britain's most famous homegrown exponent of good food), began the drive to encourage greater experimentation with the new ingredients (e.g. pasta) increasingly being offered by the supermarkets. The evolution of the British diet was further accelerated with the increasing tendency of the British to travel to continental Europe (and sometimes beyond) for their annual holidays, experiencing new and unfamiliar dishes as they travelled to countries such as France, Italy, and Spain. Towards the mid to late 1990s and onwards an explosion of talented new 'TV chefs' began to come to prominence, (with figures as diverse as Jamie Oliver, Ainsley Harriott, Ken Hom, Nigella Lawson, Madhur Jaffrey, Nigel Slater, and Keith Floyd) this brought about a noticeable acceleration in the diversity of cuisine the general public were prepared to try and their general confidence in preparing food that had would once have been considered pure staples of foreign cultures, particularly the Mediterranean European, South and East Asian diets. As a result, a new style of cooking called Modern British emerged. This process of increased variety and experimentation in food inevitably dovetailed with the very profound impact that the post-war influx of immigrants to the UK (many from Britain's former colonies in the Caribbean and Indian sub-continent) had on the national cuisine. The new communities propelled new and exciting dishes and ingredients onto restaurant tables and into the national consciousness. In many instances, British tastes fused with the new dishes to produce entirely new dishes such as the Balti, an English invention based on Indian cuisine that has since gained popularity across the world. Many of these new dishes have since become deeply embedded in the native culture, culminating in a speech in 2001 by Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, in which he described Chicken Tikka Masala as 'a true British national dish' [5]. With the rich diversity of its peoples and its (arguably) relatively successful attempts at creating a true multicultural society, married to a reputation as an experimental and forward thinking nation, the future of British cuisine looks positive. [edit] Education University College, Oxford was founded in the 13th centuryMain article: Education in the United Kingdom The education system in the United Kingdom varies in important respects between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Education is devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland. Education is compulsory for all children between the ages of five and sixteen. Most children in the UK are educated in state funded schools financed through the tax system and so parents do not pay directly for the cost of education. Less than ten percent of the UK school age population attend independent fee-paying schools. Many prominent independent schools, often founded hundreds of years ago, are known as public schools of which Eton, Harrow and Rugby are three of the better known. Most primary and secondary schools in both the private and state sectors have compulsory school uniforms. This is a contentious point with generations of school children who would like to see them abolished, only to support their retention once they become parents, this is due to people wanting to have a 'uniform' appearance in schools and it reduces the brand logo culture from coming out in educational establishments. Due to the multicultural nature of England, some allowances have had to be made in the uniform regulations to accommodate the needs of some children's religious beliefs. [edit] England Main article Education in England Most schools came under state control in the Victorian era, a formal state school system was instituted after the Second World War. Initially schools were separated into infant schools (normally up to age 4 or 5), primary schools and secondary schools (split into more academic grammar schools and more vocational secondary modern schools). Under the Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s most secondary modern and grammar schools were combined to become comprehensive schools. Although the Minister of Education is responsible to Parliament for education, the day to day administration and funding of state schools is the responsibility of Local Education Authorities. [edit] Northern Ireland Main article Education in Northern Ireland [edit] Scotland Main article Education in Scotland [edit] Wales Main article Education in Wales [edit] Higher education The United Kingdom includes many historic universities. These include the so-called Oxbridge universities (Oxford University and Cambridge University) which are amongst the world's oldest universities and are generally ranked at or near the top of all British universities. Other universities include the University of St Andrews, the oldest university in Scotland. Academic degrees are usually split into classes: first class (I), upper second class (II:1), lower second class (II:2) and third (III), and unclassified (below third class). [Sport Main article: Sport in the United Kingdom The national sport of the UK is football, and the UK has the oldest football clubs in the world. The home nations all have separate national teams and domestic competitions, most notably the Scottish Premier League, the FA Cup and the FA Premier League. The first ever international football match was between Scotland and England in 1872. The match ended goalless. Other famous British sporting events include the Wimbledon tennis championships, the Grand National, the London Marathon, the ashes series of cricket matches and the boat race between Oxford and Cambridge universities. A great number of major sports originated in the United Kingdom, including: Football (soccer), squash, golf, boxing, rugby (rugby union and rugby league), cricket, snooker, billiards, badminton and curling. [edit] National costume The kilt is a traditional Scottish garmentThere is no specifically British national costume. Even individually, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have only vestiges of a national costume; Scotland has the kilt and Tam o'shanter. In England certain military uniforms such as the Beefeater or the Queen's Guard are considered by tourists to be symbolic of Englishness, however they are not official national costumes. Morris dancers or the costumes for the traditional English may dance are cited by some as examples of traditional English costume. [edit] Naming convention The naming convention in most of the United Kingdom is for everyone to have a given name, usually (but not always) indicating the child's sex, followed by a parent's family name. This naming convention has remained much the same since the 15th century in England although patronymic naming remained in some of the further reaches of the other home nations until much later. Since the 19th century middle names have become very common and are often taken from the family name of an ancestor. Traditionally given names were largely taken from the Bible however in the Gothic Revival of the Victorian era Anglo Saxon and mythical names became commonplace. Since the middle of the 20th century however given names have been influenced by a much wider cultural base.参考资料：http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/20982363.html
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