Scottish people


Scottish people or Scots are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century. In the following two centuries, Celtic-speaking Cumbrians of Strathclyde and Germanic-speaking Angles of Northumbria became part of Scotland. In the High Middle Ages, during the 12th-century Davidian Revolution, small numbers of Norman nobles migrated to the Lowlands. In the 13th century, the Norse-Gaels of the Western Isles became part of Scotland, followed by the Norse of the Northern Isles in the 15th century.
In modern usage, "Scottish people" or "Scots" refers to anyone whose linguistic, cultural, family ancestral or genetic origins are from Scotland. The Latin word Scoti originally referred to the Gaels, but came to describe all inhabitants of Scotland. Considered pejorative by some, the term Scotch has also been used for Scottish people, now primarily outwith Scotland.
People of Scottish descent live in many countries. Emigration, influenced by factors such as the Highland and Lowland Clearances, Scottish emigration to various locales throughout the British Empire, and latterly industrial decline and unemployment, have resulted in the spread of Scottish languages and culture. Large populations of Scottish people settled the 'New World' lands of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. The highest concentrations of people of Scottish descent in the world outside of Scotland are in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in Canada, Otago and Southland in New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, and Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Canada has the highest level of Scottish descendants per capita in the world and the second-largest population of Scottish descendants, after the United States.

Etymology

Originally the Romans used Scotia to refer to Ireland. The Venerable Bede uses the word Scottorum for the nation from Ireland who settled part of the Pictish lands: "Scottorum nationem in Pictorum parte recipit." This can be inferred to mean the arrival of the people, also known as the Gaels, in the Kingdom of Dál Riata, in the western edge of Scotland. Bede used the word natio for the Scots, where he often refers to other peoples, such as the Picts, with the word gens. In the 10th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the word Scot is mentioned as a reference to the "Land of the Gaels". The word Scottorum was again used by an Irish king in 1005: Imperator Scottorum was the title given to Brian Bóruma by his notary, Mael Suthain, in the Book of Armagh. This style was subsequently copied by the Scottish kings. Basileus Scottorum appears on the great seal of King Edgar. Alexander I used the words Rex Scottorum on his great seal, as did many of his successors up to and including James VI.
In modern times, the words Scot and Scottish are applied mainly to inhabitants of Scotland. The possible ancient Irish connotations are largely forgotten. The language known as Ulster Scots, spoken in parts of northeastern Ireland, is the result of 17th- and 18th-century immigration to Ireland from Scotland.
In the English language, the word Scotch is a term to describe a thing from Scotland, such as Scotch whisky. However, when referring to people, the preferred term is Scots. Many Scottish people find the term Scotch to be offensive when applied to people. The Oxford Dictionary describes Scotch as an old-fashioned term for "Scottish".

Scottish ethnic and cultural groups

History of ethnogeneses

In the Early Middle Ages, Scotland saw several ethnic or cultural groups mentioned in contemporary sources, namely the Picts, the Gaels, the Britons, and the Angles, with the last of these settling in the southeast of the country. Culturally, these peoples are grouped according to language. Most of Scotland until the 13th century spoke Celtic languages, and these included, at least initially, the Britons, as well as the Gaels and the Picts. Germanic peoples included the Angles of Northumbria, who settled in south-eastern Scotland in the region between the Firth of Forth to the north and the River Tweed to the south. They also occupied the southwest of Scotland up to and including the Plain of Kyle. Their language, Old English, was the earliest form of the language which eventually became known as Scots.
Use of the Gaelic language spread through nearly the whole of Scotland by the 9th century, reaching a peak in the 11th to 13th centuries, but was never the language of the south-east of the country. King Edgar divided the Kingdom of Northumbria between Scotland and England; at least, most medieval historians now accept the 'gift' by Edgar. In any case, after the later Battle of Carham the Scottish kingdom encompassed many English people, with even more quite possibly arriving after the Norman invasion of England in 1066. South-east of the Firth of Forth, then in Lothian and the Borders, a northern variety of Old English, also known as Early Scots, was spoken.
As a result of David I, King of Scots' return from exile in England in 1113, ultimately to assume the throne in 1124 with the help of Anglo-Norman military force, David invited Anglo-Norman families from France and England to settle in lands he granted them to spread a ruling class loyal to him. This Davidian Revolution, as many historians call it, brought a European style of feudalism to Scotland along with an influx of people of French descent – by invitation, unlike England where it was by conquest. To this day, many of the common family names of Scotland can trace ancestry to Normans from this period, such as the Stewarts, the Bruces, the Hamiltons, the Wallaces and the Melvilles.
The Northern Isles and some parts of Caithness were Norn-speaking. From 1200 to 1500, the Early Scots language spread across the lowland parts of Scotland between Galloway and the Highland line, being used by Barbour in his historical epic The Brus in the late 14th century in Aberdeen.
From 1500 on, Scotland was commonly divided by language into two groups of people, Gaelic-speaking "Highlanders" and the Inglis-speaking "Lowlanders". However, movement between the two regions increased over the last few centuries. Highlanders moved to major cities and regions bordering the southern Highlands. This is evidenced by people with traditional Gaelic surnames currently living in these areas. Lowlanders also settled in Highland regions such as Moray, which was traditionally Gaelic-speaking but replaced with Doric in the 19th century. The Scottish Travellers use of Scottish Cant among themselves declined sharply in the 20th century, even if some terms found their way into youth and everyday language and the Gaelic-based Beurla Reagaird is all but extinct. Today, immigrants have brought other languages, such as Polish, Punjabi and Urdu, but almost every adult throughout Scotland is fluent in the English language.

Constructs of a unitary ethnicity

Historian Susan Reynolds has put forward how, since the Middle Ages, there have been attempts to obfuscate the ethnic plurality of Scottish people due to the political practicalities of nation building. Academics have explored how 15th and 16th-century Scottish poets and orators, such as Blind Harry, constructed terms such as 'trew Scottis' in an effort to diminish differences between the ethnic groups living within Scotland in the popular consciousness.
A 1974 International Political Science Association report defined this ethnic plurality in Scotland as the following: "The basic ethnic and cultural division in the British Isles has been that between the Anglo-Saxon peoples of England and the Scottish Lowlands and the Celtic peoples of Wales, Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.
In 2014, historian Steven L. Danver, who specialises in indigenous ethnic research, wrote regarding Lowlands Scots and Gaelic Scots' unique ancestries: "The people of Scotland are divided into two groups - Lowland Scots in the southern part of the country and Highland Scots in the north - that differ from one another ethnically, culturally, and linguistically... Lowlanders differ from Highlanders in their ethnic origin. While Highland Scots are of Celtic descent, Lowland Scots are descended from people of Germanic stock. During the seventh century C.E., settlers of Germanic tribes of Angles moved from Northumbria in present-day northern England and southeastern Scotland to the area around Edinburgh. Their descendants gradually occupied all of the Lowlands."
Knox College's Stuart Macdonald, who specialises in early modern Scottish history, writes that during the 18th and 19th centuries, the people of Scotland remained grouped into multiple ethnicities:
To speak of Scots as a single ethnic group is also somewhat problematic. It would be more accurate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to talk of two distinct Scottish ethnic communities divided by language and culture, and, at times, mutual antagonisms – Highlanders and Lowlanders.

With regard to the period spanning the 16th century to the 18th century, sociologist Ian Carter's research into marriage patterns found little intermarrying between the groups.

Scottish diaspora

YearCountryPopulation% of local
population
2016Canada4,799,00515.1
2016Australia2,023,4749.3
2010United States ACS5,460,6791.5
2011England708,8721.34
2010United States3,257,161
1.1

Today, Scotland has a population of just over five million people, the majority of whom consider themselves Scottish. It is estimated around 40 million people worldwide claim Scottish ancestry, particularly in Australia, New Zealand, continental Europe, the United States and Canada, along with elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
Scots have travelled internationally for centuries, helping to build Scotland's international reputation and the promotion of Scottish culture, music, literature and art. The Scottish Government uses the term "Scottish connections" when described Scottish diaspora, and recognises Scottish connections as people of Scottish heritage, lived diaspora, educational diaspora and affinity.