The poet was trying to preserve Scottish language and culture after Scotland and England formed the United Kingdom, according to Scotland's national tourist board. Today's song comes from a publication by Scottish poet Robert Burns. 'As such it is more evocative, nostalgic and communally unifying than any simple English equivalent.' What are the song's origins?
''Auld Lang Syne' can be literally translated as 'Old Long Since,' but the literal English does not give a sense of what it means to a user of Scots, where it refers to a shared past underpinning the current relationships of a family, community or professional/social association,' Professor Murray Pittock, a literary historian with the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow, told CBS News.
