I’ve been thinking about this question for a while, Scotland votes in a referendum tomorrow (September 18) to decide if they want to secede from the United Kingdom and become an independent country, and there’s been talk about in the case Scotland leaves the UK, would Great Britain change their flag or be renamed. But Scotland was historically Gaelic speaking, which IIRC was derived from the Celtic peoples that inhabited Britain (then Britannia) before the Anglo-Saxons invaded in the fifth century that drove the Celts out of what’s now England. If the Scots are technically descended from the original inhabitants of Britain, shouldn’t they have claim over the name “Britain” if Scotland becomes independent? I’m not sure when the name “Britain” originated, but it is borrowed from the Roman name for the island “Brittania”. What did the Celts call the island before the Romans arrived? Sorry if I offended anyone with such a non-PC question, or any ignorance on the history of the region.
I can’t speak to the history question you’re asking, but the policy of the nationalist SNP in Scotland is that the name of an independent Scotland will be…“Scotland”.
While there is a great deal of push in Scotland for promotion of Scottish Gaelic, very few Scots can actually speak it and the number of Scots who claim it as a first language would not fill a high school assembly. Changing Scotland’s name to something Gaelic would make less practical sense than changing Canada’s name to “Jianada” to accommodate its Mandarin speakers.
One could actually make the case that Scotland is the most thoroughly English-speaking country in the entire world.
“Britain” comes ultimately from the name that the pre-Saxon, pre-Roman people who inhabited the country had for themselves, although we don’t know exactly what that name was. They were Celts. Because the name attached to the people and not the land, and the people migrated from time to time, it has been associated with various places. When the Romans referred to Britannia they meant an area corresponding roughly to present-day England and Wales, but much later on “Great Britain” emerged as a name for the entire Ireland, in contrast to “Little Britain” or “Lesser Britain” or sometimes just “Britain”, which could refer either to Brittany (in north-west France, named for the same people) or Wales. Nowadays “Britain” is used semi-formally by the UK government to refer to the UK, and “British” is the adjective that refers to the UK.
I don’t think “Britain” ever referred to just Scotland. The Scots Gaelic (and Irish Gaelic) name for Scotland is Alba. The name “Scotland” comes from Scotia, which in turn comes from Scoti, the name applied by the Romans to those who spoke Gaelic. Initially Scotia predominantly referred to Ireland, but later it came to be applied exclusively to the Gaelic-speaking parts of Scotland.
As PaulParkhead points out, the Scottish Government’s proposal is the formal name of the independent sovereign Scottish state will be “Scotland” in English, and “Alba” in Gaelic.
The Scots are comparatively late arrivals in Britain, having invaded from Ireland in the 5th century and taking over what is now Scotland from the Celts, Picts and Angles who were living there already. I can’t see how they’d have any special claim to the name Britain.
We have a pretty good idea. It was probably something like “Pretani,” still used in Welsh as Prydain, and having gone from Brythonic > Greek > Latin > English, as “Britain.” Edit: Also in Irish as Cruithni, which despite appearances is cognate.
The people of Scotland, however, may be descendants of the original inhabitants in a genetic sense, but not in a linguistic sense, and in a cultural sense about as much as the English. The English and Irish both came to Scotland in the early medieval period (maybe Late Roman, depends on what data you’re using). The original Picts (north) or Britons (South) were either killed, assimilated, or exiled. The Norse were also around for about a thousand years.
So, as said above, in English, “Scotland,” in Gaelic, “Alba.”
And just for the misinformation in the thread:
The Gaels of Scotland are Celts. So were the Picts and the Britons their ancestors supplanted. In the pre-modern history of the island of Britain, only the Norse / Normans, English, and Romans* were not Celtic.
*Well, some of them: a lot of Romans in Britain would have been from Gaul.
Edit: “Celts” is not an ethnic group. It’s a linguistic grouping, and presumably all the Celtic-speaking groups in ancient Britain and Ireland were culturally similar.
Not even close. It’s a Latinization of the territory of the Caledones, which is based on the root caled- “hard” (so probably in the sense of “hardy”). Edit: the word “Celt” was never used for the people of the British Isles in ancient times.
Are they really going for just “Scotland”/“Alba”, or would it be “Kingdom of Scotland”/“Rìoghachd na h-Alba”, given that they’re apparently proposing to keep the monarchy?
It’s to be just “Scotland”. The draft Scottish Independence Bill which the Scottish Government has published provides in cl.5(1) that . . .
“The name of the State, by which it is to be known formally, is Scotland.”
The explanatory notes provided by the Scottish Government make it clear that they considered a more descriptive formal name which would incorporate some reference to the form of government, but that they elected to follow the Irish precedent and simply adopt the name by which the country is already widely known. (The name of the Irish state is “Ireland”.)
Technically, just Ire in Irish (Éire). The -land is for the benefit of English speakers. And in Gaelic, Scotland would be the nice three-syllable Alba (the third one is the invisible vowel between the /l/ and the /p/, which latter is spelled <b>. I really hope Gaelic becomes manditory!).
Er… depends on how you define “historically”. For quite a few centuries the lowlands spoke a variation of English known as “Scots” or “Old Scots” which is still around and it was the highlands/islands that spoke Gaelic. Sure, a lot of lowlanders are “English” in ancestry but they’re Scottish, just as a lot of people in English are “Norse” or “German” in ancestry but they’re actually English. It’s not just about genes, it’s also language and culture.
The Celts, which includes Celtic Scots, were not the original inhabitants of Britain, they displaced earlier people such as the Picts. (Perhaps more accurately, invaded and intermarried/assimilated those that weren’t killed)
The Scots that came over from Ireland were also Celts. I’m not sure where people get this notion that they weren’t.
The Picts were also Celts. I’m not sure where people get this notion that they weren’t. And don’t forget the British (Brythons), who inhabited southern Scotland before the Gaelic invasion from Ireland and were there until the 11th century, speaking a language akin to Welsh and Cornish.
Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply they weren’t. I was trying to distinguish between the invading Scottish Celts, and the already-resident Brythonic Celts and Pictish Celts, and making a mess of it.