Scottish society

Scottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity and common culture of the Scottish people.

Although the various dialects of Gaelic, the Scots language and Scottish English are distinctive, people associate them all together as Scottish with a shared identity, as well as a regional or local identity. Parts of Scotland, like Glasgow, the Outer Hebrides, the north east of Scotland (including Aberdeen), and the Scottish Borders retain a strong sense of regional identity, alongside the idea of a Scottish national identity.

In the early Middle Ages, what is now Scotland was divided between four major ethnic groups and kingdoms. In the east were the Picts, who fell under the leadership of the kings of Fortriu. In the west were the Gaelic (Goidelic)-speaking people of Dál Riata with close links with the island of Ireland, from which they brought with them the name Scots. In the south-west was the British (Brythonic) Kingdom of Strathclyde, often named Alt Clut. Finally there were the 'English', the Angles, a Germanic people who had established a number of kingdoms in Great Britain, including the Kingdom of Bernicia, part of which was in the south-east of modern Scotland. In the late eighth century this situation was transformed by the beginning of ferocious attacks by the Vikings, who eventually settled in Galloway, Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. These threats may have speeded a long term process of gaelicisation of the Pictish kingdoms, which adopted Gaelic language and customs. There was also a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish crowns. When he died as king of the combined kingdom in 900, Domnall II (Donald II) was the first man to be called rí Alban (i.e. King of Alba).

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