@lucas said:
There are 4 distinct countries, they are on maps they have been there for a long time now. Watch the video that was linked it explains everything.
Not really. There is one country, known in full as The Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In 1536 or so, by legislative fiat, "England and Wales" became a euphemism for "England and part of England", although you'd be hard put to find a Welshman these days who'd agree. In 1701, England, part of England, and Scotland (inhabited by descendants of the Irish(1)) became the Kingdom of Great Britain, again by legislative fiat. Finally, in the 1920s, the KoGB and the region often called Northern Ireland, and sometimes called, inaccurately, Ulster(2), became the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
(1) Yes, indeed. Somewhere prior to 1000AD, the area now known as Scotland was the home of the Picts. The people known at the time as Scots (in Latin manuscripts, Soandso Scoti) lived in Ireland, and were ruled at some times by the Vikings in Dublin.
(2) The island known as Ireland was traditionally divided into 26 counties, but also four larger divisions, of which Ulster was one. The region now known as Ulster is just six of the nine counties that made up the traditional Ulster.
@lucas said:
Scottish people are called Scottish because they live in Scotland, Welsh people are called Welsh because they live in Wales, Northern Irish people are called Northern Irish because they live in Northern Ireland and English people are called English because they live in England.
No, the Welsh people are called Welsh because they are foreign, i.e. not Angles and Saxons (the name derives from Waelsc, the Anglo-Saxon word for "foreigner"). In the Welsh language, the word for a Welshman is "Cymro", which by a tortured derivation(3) could be rendered in English as "compatriot." Wales is then so-named because the Waelsc live there.
(3) "Cymro" is a compound of "Cym", a prefix suggesting meanings involving "same", and "bro", something like "region", and therefore indicates someone from the same bro (region), that is, a compatriot. Adding "cym" + "bro" as a single word will, by a uniquely Celtic linguistic process, morph the "b" into an "m", which then merges with the "m" of "cym", giving the modern "Cymro". The Welsh-language name of Wales itself, "Cymru", is back-formed from "Cymro".