Scottish Origin

[Ánleifr]

Are the Scotts Celtic? I had always that they were, except for the few Norse who settled in Scotland but I ran across something about the Scotts being Scythian.


In the "The Declaration of Arbroath" it states this pertaining to the Scots:

"Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever."

which is located here:
http://www.giveshare.org/israel/arbr...claration.html

[Beorn]

The tribe called Scotti who settled Scotland are Celts, but Scotland and Scots today are not Celtic.

[Benacer]

The Irish have a similar tale. Many people once claimed to originally come from some far away place, or to be related to important historical people. It's just to seem more prestigious.

[Pyramidologist]

Are the Scotts Celtic? I had always that they were, except for the few Norse who settled in Scotland but I ran across something about the Scotts being Scythian.

The Scottish are predominantly Pictish. The Norse genetic impact was minimal. The Goidelic and Brythonic Celtic languages were imposed onto the Picts from later arriving Celtic speakers from the south (Hen Ogledd) and west (Ireland), however these Celtic speakers were in fact not IE Celtic, but Iberian (who had Celtic imposed onto them) and dark haired, of the swarthy Mediterranoid type, just like the Picts. This is why today, Scotland is mostly dark haired and blondism is the minority.

About the Scythians, there are many legends about Scythians all across Europe. There is evidence of a Scythian/Sarmatian mercenary (horseman) settlement in Scotland, only very small though. Most likely these legends derived from the Sarmatians.

''In 175 AD the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius concluded a treaty with the Sarmatian tribe of the Iazyges (gsl. name from ‘iazik’: language, people, people speaking the same or his own language) by virtue of which 5500 Iazyges cavalrymen were sent to the northern border of Great Britain in groups of 500, because of the difficulties in that region.''

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbor...v_newton07.pdf

Some scholars propose the Newton Stone script is Scythic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Stone

[Graham]

The Declaration of Arbroath was an attempt to stop the claims of overlordship. It was an appeal to the pope. The Pope had earlier, recognised England's claim to overlordship. So there's a load of bullshitting involved. Wouldn't take it literally.

[Graham]

The Scottish are predominantly Pictish.

The Kingdom of Scotland was an extension of the Kingdom of Pictland. Kenneth MacAlpin was the last King of Pictland. The House of Alpin ruled Pictland and then, the kingdom of Scotland.

[Pyramidologist]

You also have the foundation myth that Scotland was named after Scota, an ancient Egyptian princess who supposedly traveled to Scotland.

[Libertas]

The tribe called Scotti who settled Scotland are Celts, but Scotland and Scots today are not Celtic.

They are not Germanic either save in speech.

Scotland was born from the union of:

Gaelic-speaking Celtic Dalriada Scots from Ulster who settled in Argyll, the Western Isles and in Galloway. Gaelic brcame the main Scottish language almost everywhere except in English-speaking Lothian around Edinburgh and SE Scotland.

Partly Celtic, partly pre-Celtic Picts in much of the rest of Caledonia above the Central Belt

The Welsh-speaking Celtic Britons of Strathclyde who ruled from Dumbarton to Cumbria but were absorbed in the 11th century by Alba (Pict/Scot union)

The Angles of Lothian, the only Germanic group and the weakest, being easily absorbed by the united kingdom of Picts and Scots.

Gaelic only collapsed in the Highlands after the failure of the Jacobite rebellions, the anti-Gaelic measures that followed, the Highland Clearances that replaced people with sheep and the flood of migration out of the Highlands to industrial growth centres like Glasgow.

In the Lowlands, Gaelic only disappeared from Galloway and Ayrshire in the 17th century.

[Osweo]

Scotland is a Kingdom, uniting several subgroups of people with rather different origins and identities.

At the present, it seems almost a finished process, with Scots from all parts quite happy with being considered as one people.

This wasn't the case not too many generations ago, when the Lowlands/Highlands dichotomy was still more felt. Even when Gaelic gave way to English, the differences in way of life were still appreciable until we entered the Age of Consumerism. Additionally, there was the Northern Isles identity too, which was a bit of a separate appendix to the above duo. People are playing down the Norse influence here, for some reason, but that seems wrong to me.

Digging a little deeper under the Gaelic Highlands and ENglish Lowlands layer, we find divisions in each of these halves that were more prominent centuries ago:
The Highlands ethnogenesis is a fusion of Pict and Gael. The former spoke some sort of para-Welsh, while the latter are themselves a fusion of Norseman and ancient Irish incomers (on a yet deeper Pict-type base).

The Lowlanders have a bit of Gael in them in the very far southwestern Galloway part, and a bit of Pict in the north where we encroach on Fife and Perthshire, but the two chief ingredients here are Angle and Cumbrian. The Cumbrians are the natives of the Strathclyde region (the Clyde basin), and form a substrate in the east too. The Angles called themselves Engle and spoke English. They were the inhabitants of Bernicia, one half of the old English Kingdom of Northumbria, and were absorbed into the Scottish Kingdom after the Danes had smashed Northumbria in two and the Normans hadn't bothered to fight the Scots to unite an England that they weren't too fussed about apart from as a nice cash cow.

Gaelic Scots assimilated Picts. Angles swallowed up and assimilated some Cumbrians,while other Cumbrians were dominated by the Gaelo-Pictish Scots. The Scots then absorbed part of the Anglian area. In time, however, the English element assimilated the ruling house of the Gaels, and Northumbrian English became the language of state. Norsemen in the previously Pictish Northern Isles spread around the western seaboard, but were themselves then assimilated into the Gaelic culture and language. Normans then swarmed into the south, invited by the Anglicised Scottish elite, and the Normans ended up even sat on the throne. And things bumbled along for a few centuries with Gaelic language holding its own in the NW, Norn in the far NE, and English dialects in the SE. Cumbrian Welsh faded out of existence. Norn was edged aside by Scotch English speech. Gaelic slowly retreated, and sometimes more rapidly due to disasters like the Jacobite defeats and genocidal Highland Clearances. And then you have modern Scotland, with a tiny percentage of Gaelic speakers in the Western Isles, and a homogenising Anglo society elsewhere.

Did I miss anything out?

[Óttar]

In the "The Declaration of Arbroath" it states this pertaining to the Scots:

"Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today.
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You know this is a load of bollocks because it uses biblical chronology. It's a myth similar to that of the Milesians in Ireland, dreamed up by monks.