An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) by Robert S. Rait
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page 8 of 240 (03%)
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no fellow to colonize Scotland. We find, therefore, only the results and
not the process of this racial displacement. These results were the adoption of English manners and the English tongue, and the growth of English names, and we wish to suggest that they may find an historical explanation which does not involve the total disappearance of the Scottish farmer from Fife, or of the Scottish artisan from Aberdeen. Before proceeding to a statement of the explanation to which we desire to direct the reader's attention, it may be useful to deal briefly with the questions relating to the spoken language of Lowland Scotland and to its place-names. The fact that the language of the Angles and Saxons completely superseded, in England, the tongue of the conquered Britons, is admitted to be a powerful argument for the view that the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England resulted in a racial displacement. But the argument cannot be transferred to the case of the Scottish Lowlands, where, also, the English language has completely superseded a Celtic tongue. For, in the first case, the victory is that of the language of a savage people, known to be in a state of actual warfare, and it is a victory which follows as an immediate result of conquest. In Scotland, the victory of the English tongue (outside the Lothians) dates from a relatively advanced period of civilization, and it is a victory won, not by conquest or bloodshed, but by peaceful means. Even in a case of conquest, change of speech is not conclusive evidence of change of race (_e.g._ the adoption of a Romance tongue by the Gauls); much less is it decisive in such an instance as the adoption of English by the Lowlanders of Scotland. In striking contrast to the case of England, the victory of the Anglo-Saxon speech in Scotland did not include the adoption of English place-names. The reader will find the subject fully discussed in the valuable work by the Reverend J.B. Johnston, entitled _Place-Names of Scotland_. "It is impossible", says Mr. Johnston, "to |
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