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Scotland Cultural Profiles ProjectCultural Profile
 
                                                                               
 
 
Introduction to Scotland:
Early Scottish peoples
Although it seems clear that by the first century AD, Celtic languages were spoken throughout the whole of Britain, the population mix within Scotland, following the Romans’ departure around 400 AD, was a complex one. Part of the confusion arises from those languages’ two original strands: p-Celtic or Brythonic, which evolved into Welsh, Cornish and Breton; and q-Celtic or Goidelic, the forerunner of Scottish and Irish Gaelic. The Brythonic Celts, who occupied eastern Scotland from the Forth to the northern isles, saw their name transmuted into Britons, while their Goidelic cousins colonised the west of the country from Ireland, forming the joint kingdom of Dalriada, and later became known as Gaels, although the Romans called them “Scoti” (hence Scotland) or “Picti” – “painted people”, after their colourful body art.
The Picts, however, are generally regarded as another distinct set of tribes, who occupied much of northern and eastern Scotland during this time. While there is evidence of much interaction and cultural overlap with Brythonic Celts, the Picts’ unique carved symbol stones are thought to be remnants of a culture and language pre-dating Indo-European. The Angles, meanwhile, were Germanic speakers from across the North Sea, who settled along Scotland’s south-east coast from the 5th century AD, and whose language was the ancestor of modern-day English and lowland Scots. At its zenith, their kingdom encompassed the entire territory that is now the Lothians, the Borders and Northumbria. The arrival of the Vikings in 793, and subsequent major incursions into the western isles, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, complicated the picture yet further, as is clearly indicated by abundant place-name evidence in these areas.
 
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Date updated: 1 November 2005
 
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