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history of scotland

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  Posted by highlandglenpiper (U14914277) on Sunday, 19th June 2011

  As a Canadian of Scottish decent after watching your series on The History of Scotland I just can't help wondering why some small attention has not been given to the millions of people around the world who's roots are from Scotland who were forced to go to the U.K.'s colonies . Most of these people lost there cultural identity, language and all connection to the land of their origin I just wish we had the same home sense as our Jewish brothers .Great series keep up the good work.I do hope one day Scotland will be truly independent and reach out to her scattered children.
  

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  Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Sunday, 19th June 2011

  There is a lot of Scottish culture and identity celebrated throughout the World and we had the Â鶹ԼÅÄcoming celebrations in 2009 with the largest clan march for about 200 years. There is a very good series on the highlands with John Michie and a number of people on 'Who Do You Think You Are?'. There has been migration for economic reasons, but nothing really on the size of the 'Highland Clearances' which involved some Scottish landlords, and the financial problems of the crofters in the mid-19th century.

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  Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Sunday, 19th June 2011

  It seems to me that there's no shortage of attention paid to those descended from Scottish expats, just a general tendency to exaggerate the proportional significance of the Highland Clearances, at the expense of voluntary migration and migration from the lowlands. Burns suppers worldwide, Tartan Day in the US, clan societies etc. all suggest that an appreciation of Scottish roots is alive and well. One group that is increasingly sidelined, though, it seems to me, are the 'Scotch Irish' (ie people descended from Scots Protestants settled in Ulster), who are often lumped in with those of Gaelic Irish descent these days.
  
  

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  Seems to me a jolly good job Scottish descendants are not as strong about their identity as Jewish people. But I agree with Catigern - there is plenty of Scottish celebration around the world, at least in pockets of it. I suppose the language was generally lost (though NZers at least all have 'wee' as a part of their vocabulary and understand individual words), but I don't think you can expect to live in a new country and keep your full identity past the first generation. Not without becoming a little enclave. People with Scottish ancestry haven't lost all connection with the land of their origin anyway - dozens, well thousands if not millions a year, of us visit Scotland especially the parts of it our families came from.
  
  I do wish that some Scottish history had been taught alongside English history though in our schools.
  
  Cheers, Caro. (This very week I am reading a little thing called The Auld Scots Tongue by Cleishbotham the Younger (abridged) which is basically a small dictionary of Scottish words.)
  

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  Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  ...plenty of Scottish celebration around the world, at least in pockets of it...NZers at least...People with Scottish ancestry haven't lost all connection with the land of their origin...Ìý
  ......
  
  
  
  
  

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  Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  What a wonderful name Caro, Cleishbotham. Do you know that 'cleish' is Gaelic for trench or furrow, there's a village called Cleish in Kinross. 'Botham' is an A S name meaning living in a dell or hollow so Mr Cleishbotham can't have come from a long line of folks who lived on the hill, if his name is anything to go by.Either that or he had a very pronounced workman's bum.
  
  If you're interested, the Dictionary of the Scots Language is on line now.

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  Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  Caro, at least the Scots had the 'Whats', or Whatever it took to settle in parts of the world where others, 'Feared to Tread', Western Canada and extreme tip of South Island NZ, come to mind. Seems the Scots were, are, pleased to live where for some, 'Extreme Conditions'. The Scots tamed the hard parts so that the timid could prosper. (just wish they'd learn to play those darned Bagpipes in a more civilized manner, its not all that, 'Marching into Battle', you know)

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  Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  In the '80s we went to Blair Atholl several times for a BMW Motorcycle Owners' Club rally at Whitsun.
  One year, there was a gathering of the Murray clan (Duke of Atholl is head of the clan Murray) and people from all over the world were there. In my experience, it is the descendants in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA who are the keenest on preserving ties with their Scottish ancestors.
  
  BTW the Duke of Atholl is the only person in Britain allowed to keep a private army. When I saw them it was a very small army, and most of them looked distinctly unwarlike. I think they all had a 'day job', the 'army' is more for high days, holidays, and Highland Games.

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  I didn't know that about the Duke of Atholl, raundsgirl. Why is he allowed to keep an army?
  
  I come from the extreme tip of the South Island, rhmnney! Well, nearly on a parallel to Invercargill, which is the southernmost city in the world. It doesn't feel all that extreme to me, but must have been a really difficult place to come and live in in the 1860s; even Maori didn't live here much, tended to travel through. But people came and farmed and milled and walked many many miles just to get groceries, or go to earn extra money. Not shrinking Victorian violets, these ones.
  
  But as someone earlier said, lots came from the lowlands, including my family later on. We have been trying to work out why a mother would send her four sons, who had four sons in Scotland between them and obviously weren't badly off, across the seas to NZ to live, as my great-grandmother did. She came out to see them too, probably at least twice. "Always flitting across the seas," someone said about her. Her husband had an illigitimate child with the maid, which may have significance. Descendants of this relationship are now in NZ too. It's not always that difficult to find out what people did, but it's often really hard to understand WHY they did it.
  
  Thanks for the site of the Scots dictionary, ferval. Haven't checked it out yet.
  
  Cheers, Caro.

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 22nd June 2011

  If you're interested, the Dictionary of the Scots Language is on line now. Ìý
  
  I can see this could be a little addictive, ferval! I went through my small dictionary to check on words that New Zealand and Scots share in common, but generally if they used the same words, they seemed to me ones I would expect to be in common English use. Words like ‘balderdash’, ‘bambouzled’, ‘buck-tooth’, ‘cowlick’, ‘elbow grease’, ‘dour’, ‘girdle’, ‘harum-scarum’, ‘mittens’, ‘aunty’, ‘now-a-days’, ‘neer-do-weel’, ‘outspoken’, ‘rummage’, ‘spurtill’, ‘spunk’ ‘whittle’, ‘blubber’ [cry] and ‘daft’ all seem to be English words to me. Other words are close to English ones and used by us – ‘breeks’ for trousers, ‘ on-goings’ for conduct or behaviour, ‘obfusque’ for darken, ‘owting’ for what Cleishbotham calls ‘expidition’.
  
  I wondered about swither which wasn’t there, but it is in in the online dictionary. And I use ‘younker’ for a small bird, one still without feathers. No one else I know seems to use this word, so I wondered if it was Scottish, and in the online dic there is No 2 meaning ‘a young bird, nestling’. But why does no one else use this word? We use ‘tig’ in New Zealand for that game kids play sometimes called ‘tag’. And it had ‘ug’ as a word meaning to feel extreme loathing for.
  
  And I was interested in the word ‘supersault’ which is defined as ‘somerset’. Are these words we would change a bit to make ‘somersault’ or do they have a different meaning?
  
  I do feel some of these old words could do to be resurrected. A ‘pink-thank’ is a flatterer or seeker of approbation, or an informer. And ‘piper’s news’ is a story which is no secret. ‘backspang’ is a retort on a person after a contested affair has had the appearance of being settled – much shorter than the definition, ‘pirriehouden’ means ‘fond or doating’, and to be ‘thrawn-mugget’ means ‘having a perverse disposition’. I think a few people here could be thus described. And a ‘glib-gabbit’ means having readiness of speech, I suppose similar to ‘having the gift of the gab’.
  
  Cheers, Caro.
  

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  Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Wednesday, 22nd June 2011

  Here you are, Caro, good old Wiki tells you all about the Atholl Highlanders (which is the proper name of the Duke's little army)
  
  

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