WHO ARE THE SCOTS?
WHO ARE THE SCOTS? By Lynda and Alf Baird In adequately ‘confronting our history’, which is always distorted by the invader, whoever that happens to be, we perhaps need to probe a little deeper into the archaeological record to get a more accurate picture of ‘wha we are’. That record first tells us that theContinue reading "WHO ARE THE SCOTS?"
WHO ARE THE SCOTS?
By Lynda and Alf Baird
In adequately ‘confronting our history’, which is always distorted by the invader, whoever that happens to be, we perhaps need to probe a little deeper into the archaeological record to get a more accurate picture of ‘wha we are’. That record first tells us that the Picts were the descendants of the Neolithic peoples, who inhabited much of what is today known as ‘Scotland”, and this included the Western and Northern Isles.
Written records reveal the invading Romans (c. 100AD) describing the Picts and their ‘customary foe’, the ‘Brittoni’. The Dalriada Scots of Argyll make a later appearance from around 500AD following migrations from Ireland, then known as ‘Scotia’, or ‘Hibernia’. During all of this period Pictish tribes still populated most of the territory we know today as ‘Scotland’ (or Pictland?).
So, around 2,000 years ago the Roman invaders battle with the Picts, notably at Mons Graupius in AD83, following which the record states they undertook a round-Britain cruise, ‘devastating the Orcades’ enroute. However, by around 200AD, the Romans, unable to dominate the Picts or Pictland, exit the scene.
A ‘merger’, of sorts, occurs between the Picts and Gaels during the 800s creating a ‘Scottish’ Kingdom; one suspects this might easily have instead been called ‘Pictland’ given the larger indigenous group and its wider geographic spread, perhaps only lacking a written language at that time.
During the later 800s the Vikings invade, taking territory mainly in the north and west of ‘Scotland’. Battles ensue, also from the 1100s onwards with ‘the customary foe’, by now called ‘England’. The Norse invaders are eventually pushed out and the emphasis shifts towards the near neighbour to the south, and to repel its frequent attempts at dominating Scot-Pict Land.
Here it is worth remembering that Gaelic was not the language of the Picts; Gaelic was brought into Scotland via migration from Ireland. A quite different and distinct ‘Scots’ language was developed over much of the early ‘national’ period, and spoken by most of the population during and since medieval times. By the early 1400s the Scots language had replaced Latin as the official language recording statutes of the Scottish Parliament. In England, French was the language of the law until the 1600s.
As the great Billy Kay put it in his book ‘Scots: The Mither Tongue’: “All ways of speech should be valued, but there is no equivalent of Scots (language) anywhere else. For the Scots it is one of their distinguishing badges of identity (and) if we lose Scots, we lose the key to how people have lived, loved, thought and played in our part of the world for centuries”.
We would go further and say that, based on what we now know from the history of invasion, of Imperialism, and also from extensive postcolonial theory, if we lose the Scots language, we will lose our identity and much of our national consciousness along with it. So we really need to teach oor ain langage – tae lairn Scots bairns thair ain mither tongue Scots langage.
Langage is a human richt, efter aw, as well as being the foonds o oor identity; oor Scots langage tells us wha we are!
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