[Wallace T.]

When you refer to the Scots, there are two major groups with quite different origins: the Lowlanders and the Highlanders. The Lowlanders, who inhabit the southern parts of Scotland, speak the Scots language, or dialect, made famous in Robert Burns' poetry and the novels of Robert Louis Stevenson. Their language, though influenced by Scots Gaelic, is a Germanic tongue, closely akin to Anglo-Saxon, especially the English spoken in Northern England. Angles from northwest Germany began settling the Lowlands in the 7th Century AD. Most of the Lowlands were Celtic speaking, being inhabited by Britons (akin to those pushed into Wales, Cornwall and Brittany by the Angles and Saxons when they conquered what is now England). The Picts also inhabited the Lowlands. They spoke Celtic but were likely of pre-Celtic origin, sometimes referred to as the "auld black breed." However, Scots became dominant in the Lowlands by the 14th Century, as Englishmen, Flemings, and Normans established towns in the Lowlands. Additionally, Viking settlements were noteworthy. The Lowlanders are culturally more akin to the northern English than to the Highlanders and the Irish. Racially, they are a mixture of pre-Celtic, Celtic, and Germanic, not unlike the Highlanders and Irish.

The Lowlanders were the primary contributor to the Elizabethan and Cromwellian settlement of northern Ireland to establish an area of that island that was solidly Protestant and pro-English. While northern English and Highlanders, plus "old" Irish and French Huguenots, were among the invaders, the Lowland Scots were the core of this group. Forced to leave northern Ireland by persecution by the Anglican church or due to economic hardship, these settlers emigrated in large numbers to America in the 18th and early 19th Century. Here, they were known as the Scots-Irish and became the predominant population of the Upland South, from the Shenandoah Valley to the Texas High Plains.

The Highlanders are more closely akin to the Irish. Indeed, the term "Scots", first applied to the Highlanders and later to all the people north of the English border, was a term used in Roman and early medieval times to apply to the Irish. Scots Gaelic is closely akin to Irish Gaelic. The clan form of government and the warlike character of the Highlanders are other Irish legacies. There is a stronger Scandinavian influence among the Highlanders than with either the Lowlanders or the Irish. Northeastern Scotland was heavily settled by Vikings. The name of the county Sutherland, oddly in far northern Scotland, reflects the fact that it was the southernmost dominion of the kings of Norway. On the other hand, the Highlanders were less influenced by Anglo-Norman settlers than were the Irish.

The bottom line is that the Scots, both Lowlanders and Highlanders, like the Irish, and for that matter the English, are an amalgam of several western and northern European peoples.

[sigarms]

"The bottom line is that the Scots, both Lowlanders and Highlanders, like the Irish, and for that matter the English, are an amalgam of several western and northern European peoples."

Agreed.

Yet even though I am an "amalgam", I am perfectly proud of my northern and western European racial heritage.

[TheLionessRN]

thanks for the reply!

I guess the migration of the Scots-Irish to the south explains a lot, since I am also a southern girl.

[Alkhin]

I am amazed at your wealth of knowledge and hope you can help me out with a character I am working on. Whenever I think of English, I tend to see tall and blonde with blue or gray eyes and fair to olive skin. I realize this may have more to do with the Scandinavian origins, but was also curious to know what general traits the Flemish would exhibit? The character I am developing is from 18th century England, Wiltshire, and has the physical attributes I have just described. Would that be a fitting area for him to be from, or should I chose another part of the British isles where those characteristics would be more dominant?????

best regards,
Alkhin

[muawiyah]

Speaking of "Kings of Norway", we have McDonald, Lord of the Isles (or of Skye), King of Norway ~ and variations on the spellings and titles ~ all one guy.

People sometimes forget that "Norway" was more a state of mind than a single country located on the Western shore of the Scandinavian peninsula.

I ran into this fellow when I suddenly realized one day in working on a genealogical trail that both the Donnell and Hughes family in who I had an interest were more likely Norwegian than Welsh and Scots, and so they were!

[frithguild]

The Picts also inhabited the Lowlands. They spoke Celtic but were likely of pre-Celtic origin, sometimes referred to as the "auld black breed."

If the Picts spoke Celtic, why did St. Columba need a translator?