My (white, Scottish) wife would say that comments about the folk "north of the Border" made by certain (white, English) people are racist - or tending towards it, at least
North of the Border the term Sassenach was once common ... arguably racist?
Oxford Languages says that *Sassenach* is derogatory, but other sources say that this not so much the case these days.
I suppose it could be used in a pejorative fashion, and probably still is, but I'm not so sure about *north of the border*.
Yes, that could be said in a derogatory way, but it could also be a way of simply describing where someone comes from when you don't know the actual area or town - though you could just say *Scotland*, of course.
I’d agree with that. And I’m not sure that Sassenach is inevitably derogatory.
It might easily be, and often is, an example of othering* - not one of us/not from here. But northerner/ southerner/ yellow belly etc. can all be used similarly.
I like to apply the word *Southron* to myself, being a born-and-bred denizen (aka in my case *silly old man*) of the south-eastern corner of England.
J R R Tolkien used the word in LOTR to describe the Haradrim, from lands way south of Gondor, and AIUI it is sometimes used in Scotland to describe the English.
I don't find it at all derogatory, but I realise that others might, and therefore I keep it to myself, as it were.
Sassenach is the correct Gaelic word for an Englishman but it's also an English word with different connotations.
The English word is, as the Oxford English dictionary says 'Frequently somewhat derogatory' but has several senses
Meaning A adjective
1. Chiefly Scottish and Irish English. Of or relating to England or its inhabitants; English.
2. Scottish. Of or relating to the Lowlands of Scotland or its inhabitants.
Meaning B noun
1. Scottish. In the usage of Scottish Highlanders: a person from either the Lowlands of Scotland or England.
2. In Scottish and Irish English. An English person.
It basically comes from the Gaelic term for an English or Scots speaker.
Given the way Lowland Scots have historically treated Gaels - a Gael calling me, a Lowland Scot, a sassenach in the sense of the English word would be extremely mild and might be merited, especially if I was claiming linguistic superiority and doing something anti-Gaelic like writing some of the letters you see about Gaelic road signs in the papers. Though it's such an old fashioned word I doubt it would happen and if applied in the correct Gaelic sense it's not derogatory.
There is indeed anti-English prejudice that surfaces in some places and contexts in Scotland but sassenach is really old fashioned stuff like you'd read in a deliberately set-in-the-past comic strip like 'The Broons'. If meeting somebody prejudiced, you'd be more likely to encounter ordinary sweary/abusive terms coupled with the term English and mixed up with stuff about class and politics (assumptions of being posh or Tory).
"Sassenach" I believe - but may be wrong - was originally used by Highland Scots to describe Lowlanders. Whether it was derogatory or not, I don't know. Here in Wales "Saesneg" is the normal word for "English".
When my wife was talking about potentially racist comments being made by the English about the Scots, she wasn't thinking of specific words but xenophobic attitudes.
Race is a social construct. What prevents Scots from being a socially constructed race?
Oddly we generally weren't constructed that way by historic racists. 19th/early 20th century racism tended to split us into two races - Celtic (Highlanders ) and Germanic/Saxon (Lowlanders) and you got quarrels as to which 'race' was superior. Some of this stuff was absolutely wild with phrenologists trying to decide genius by looking at the hat sizes in Edinburgh and Glasgow ( well all of it was wild but that took the biscuit!)
In terms of UK national identities, the one where I would guess the old fashioned racism still hangs on most tends to be the anti-Irish stuff which was historically tied up with the worst sort of scientific racism - seeing people as an inferior race and with sectarianism too. So I think racism is often still the right word there, but I'd tend to go with xenophobia where anti-Scots stuff is concerned.
"Sassenach" is basically the same word as "Saxon". It would be an interesting study to see why that became the Gàidhlig for English given that the kingdoms closest to Scotland (including the Northumbrian kingdom that extended into Lothian) were Angles. More generally in Gàidhlig it's someone who doesn't speak Gàidhlig (ie: any foreigner), but given that in Scotland that's almost entirely people who speak English or Scots the more specific meaning of someone who isn't a Highlander is usually understood.
If you're talking inter-Scots descriptors, then there's Teuchter for Highlander. Or in Ireland, there's Culchie, which equates to something like bumpkin.
Derisive terms for someone from the north/south, city/country, that religion/this religion - in fact every cultural, social, geographical division you can think of - abound. So what? I don't think it's even in the same postcode as those based on skin colour.
"Sassenach" I believe - but may be wrong - was originally used by Highland Scots to describe Lowlanders. Whether it was derogatory or not, I don't know. Here in Wales "Saesneg" is the normal word for "English".
When my wife was talking about potentially racist comments being made by the English about the Scots, she wasn't thinking of specific words but xenophobic attitudes.
Yes. I didn't for one moment assume that Mrs BT was thinking *racism*.
If you're talking inter-Scots descriptors, then there's Teuchter for Highlander. Or in Ireland, there's Culchie, which equates to something like bumpkin.
Derisive terms for someone from the north/south, city/country, that religion/this religion - in fact every cultural, social, geographical division you can think of - abound. So what? I don't think it's even in the same postcode as those based on skin colour.
Very true, although if I'm talking to someone who hasn't a received or estuary English accent (like wot I 'ave), I would be careful, and simply ask *which part of the country do you come from?* if I judge that they won't be offended by the question.
I think it would definitely be meaningful to discuss prejudice in UK identities. I don't see how it's racism since Scots are not a race.
Do you think being prejudiced against someone for being Scottish is somehow fundamentally different from being prejudiced against someone for having a particular skin tone?
Scotland experienced colonial violence, and there are remaining issues of land holding I believe - but the systemic effects of anti-Scottish prejudice are less pervasive than anti-black racism and nowadays less extreme. That might well not have been the case a couple of centuries ago though.
It used to be the case that prejudice against the Irish and common stereotypes resulted in more frequent detention under the mental health act. Also a must-be-a-terrorist assumption. But I don't think that was a risk for Scots in the last hundred years or so.
Scots can be of any race or colour - we're a civic nation. However white Scots were traditionally part of the power elite of the British empire and could rise right to the top in any field - so folk like me were quite often the folk doing the oppressing of people marginalised over race. So I think white Scots crying racism over xenophobia is a bit like us trying to make out we're the folk who've been oppressed when historically we've so often been the powerful ones and the oppressors.
There's a lot of white nationalist 'grievance' populist history built on that kind of thing which also very much ignores the role of Scots oppressing each other over language, religion and class, so I'm wary of it - it can be a way of doing down Black and Asian Scots by white Scots falsely doing a 'we' ve been oppressed just like you! ' narrative when the white Scottish experience is nothing like that - and especially nothing like what chattel enslavement was in the history of many Black Scots who are working to get that history properly told and recognised.
I have volumes of Punch for the 1890s with drawings of Irish with ape-like physiognomies and some such caption as 'Me ancestors was all educated in the higher branches'. Ho ho.
I have volumes of Punch for the 1890s with drawings of Irish with ape-like physiognomies and some such caption as 'Me ancestors was all educated in the higher branches'. Ho ho.
So, yes, pretty damn racist at that point.
Good gods. I hope we've moved on since then, but sometimes I wonder...
It's not so long ago that I rebuked a visiting server at Our Place for making an *Irish* joke by telling him that I am, in fact, entitled to Irish citizenship. He was duly mortified and silenced.
I have volumes of Punch for the 1890s with drawings of Irish with ape-like physiognomies and some such caption as 'Me ancestors was all educated in the higher branches'. Ho ho.
So, yes, pretty damn racist at that point.
And part of the process of extending English cultural hegemony in Scotland was to portray Gaelic Scotland as Irish.
I can see that there might be a crossover, though - my late Ma's family moved at some point from SW Scotland to what is now the Republic of Ireland (we have cousins in County Meath, and my maternal grandfather was a Dubliner).
I regard myself as having mixed Scottish/Irish ancestry on the maternal side - my father OTOH was of Norman descent (his forebears came over with William the Conqueror, no less).
Come to think of it, I'm not really English at all - sort of Scottish/Irish/French, with an English accent...I wonder where Ms Braverman would like to deport me to?
Scotland experienced colonial violence, and there are remaining issues of land holding I believe - but the systemic effects of anti-Scottish prejudice are less pervasive than anti-black racism and nowadays less extreme.
AIUI most of the violence since the accession of James VI was directed at the Highlands on behalf of the ruling classes of the Lowlands, who had thrown their lot in with the English. The case in Scotland is not much like Ireland or even Wales AIUI. But my Scottish history is open to correction.
Language was a big part of it - "Inglis" morphed into "Scotis" and the language of the Scots (lingua scotica was labelled by speakers of "Inglis" as "Irish", but the root of the language shift comes from the intermarriage of Scottish and English nobility. It got to the point where English speaking Scots were so convinced by their own propaganda that Episcopalians didn't realise the need to translate the prayer book into Gaelic because they thought the Irish BCP would serve.
There's also, in the later period, sectarianism to consider, with the Highlands and Islands lumped together with Ireland as poor, backward and, worst of all, Catholic.
I dont think they were lumped as Catholic though in the later period and that was one of the reasons the Potato famine wasn't quite so deadly in Scotland, there were quite big poor relief efforts by the new Free Kirk who definitely knew their Highland congregations weren't Catholic. I'm surprised to hear that about Episcopalians - there was a large working class Gaelic speaking Episcopalian contingent who worshipped in the language and who were very strong around Glencoe and Ballachulish where the slate quarries kept people employed and church goers numerous down to the 20th century.
I think you're right though about the early modern sleight of hand that transformed Gaelic into Irish/Erse
People think of me as quintessentially English - but racially I'm in fact 100% German Jewish, my parents having arrived in Britain on the last day of 1938.
By "later period" I was meaning "post reformation" rather than 19th century. Should have been clearer - I was thinking of things like the Statutes of Iona.
By "later period" I was meaning "post reformation" rather than 19th century. Should have been clearer - I was thinking of things like the Statutes of Iona.
Language was a big part of it - "Inglis" morphed into "Scotis" and the language of the Scots (lingua scotica was labelled by speakers of "Inglis" as "Irish", but the root of the language shift comes from the intermarriage of Scottish and English nobility. It got to the point where English speaking Scots were so convinced by their own propaganda that Episcopalians didn't realise the need to translate the prayer book into Gaelic because they thought the Irish BCP would serve.
There's also, in the later period, sectarianism to consider, with the Highlands and Islands lumped together with Ireland as poor, backward and, worst of all, Catholic.
ISTM that the English have upset just about everybody else in the world at some point historically, and that everyone else has a longer generational memory than the English - probably because there would be too many battles to remember!
I am told by someone who lives there how much animosity there is toward us (the English) by many Irish people, and I have myself been reminded of Bannockburn on a visit to Scotland (I had no recall of it, unsurprisingly).
In the end though it’s surely only racism if it is acted upon in a discriminatory way?
I think it would definitely be meaningful to discuss prejudice in UK identities. I don't see how it's racism since Scots are not a race.
Do you think being prejudiced against someone for being Scottish is somehow fundamentally different from being prejudiced against someone for having a particular skin tone?
Basically I would decline to answer as I am not British. That said, I think I would consider it a question of perception and privilege. If one particular jerk view Scots as lower than, less capable, and inherently less valuable, well screw him. Depending on how important he is, it may not matter a jot. On the other hand if many many people do, that's a problem for the Scots people.
There is a book, "The Steel Bonnets" by George Fraser, which may be relevant to some of this. It is about the crime, violence and feuding on the English-Scottish border. This went on for quite a while until James I put a stop to most of it.
"Sassenach" I believe - but may be wrong - was originally used by Highland Scots to describe Lowlanders. Whether it was derogatory or not, I don't know. Here in Wales "Saesneg" is the normal word for "English".
When my wife was talking about potentially racist comments being made by the English about the Scots, she wasn't thinking of specific words but xenophobic attitudes.
On more than one occasion when visiting my daughter who lives in Scotland I have heard "another F""""" sassenach" muttered under the breath in a shop.
On the west coast a conversation in English moved very quickly on one side to a Gaelic interchange. It wasn't hard to figure that the comments were personal and not kindly!
Mind you in East Anglia we were always told never to give correct information if enquired by a stranger.
Hopefully things are better now than my husband's experience in the 1970s when his family relocated to Wales for a couple of years and he was badly bullied at secondary school for being English. Having a slightly posh sounding double barrelled surname probably didn't help even though his family were not wealthy by any stretch. It was a miserable experience.
No doubt there are good historical reasons for Welsh resentment of their treatment by the English but it is problematic when that is directed at individuals who have no personal power in what has happened.
"Sassenach" I believe - but may be wrong - was originally used by Highland Scots to describe Lowlanders. Whether it was derogatory or not, I don't know. Here in Wales "Saesneg" is the normal word for "English".
When my wife was talking about potentially racist comments being made by the English about the Scots, she wasn't thinking of specific words but xenophobic attitudes.
On more than one occasion when visiting my daughter who lives in Scotland I have heard "another F""""" sassenach" muttered under the breath in a shop.
On the west coast a conversation in English moved very quickly on one side to a Gaelic interchange. It wasn't hard to figure that the comments were personal and not kindly!
Mind you in East Anglia we were always told never to give correct information if enquired by a stranger.
How recent was this ?
I have had family in East Anglia all my life no one’s ever told me that. Likewise I’ve travelled in Scotland and that’s never happened, but that was this century.
As for East Anglia (well, S Cambridgeshire), it was certainly true until the 1980's amongst those who'd lived there for many years. After that I don't know as I moved away and the villages became more a place to live for those who commuted into London and Cambridge.
Mind you we also heard that you couldn't trust people in Cambridge - as Rupert Brooke put it "being urban squat and packed with guile." There's always a thought that Cambridge was a little bit up itself.
I have gone into a village pub, in a part of Wales where Welsh is very much the everyday language of the local people, and been granted the courtesy (?) of being recognised as English - whereupon at least a few of the other patrons also lapsed (?) into English, just to say hullo...
A number of English people lived in the village - a small place, but the HQ of one of the Great Little Trains - and most of them were learning Welsh, as a sort of return courtesy, I suppose!
Sassenach is simply a Gaelic word which means Saxon. I can't see it as any more insulting than English which is also a word for one of the Germanic tribes which moved to the 'British Isles' displacing at times the native Britons until they themselves were displaced or demoted in importance by the invading Normans.
The word is not always used pejoratively but simply means that the person in question is not Scottish,, but rather English.
I have gone into a village pub, in a part of Wales where Welsh is very much the everyday language of the local people, and been granted the courtesy (?) of being recognised as English - whereupon at least a few of the other patrons also lapsed (?) into English, just to say hullo...
A number of English people lived in the village - a small place, but the HQ of one of the Great Little Trains - and most of them were learning Welsh, as a sort of return courtesy, I suppose!
Maybe they had children at the local Welsh language schools and didnt want to be excluded from their secret plots?
I have gone into a village pub, in a part of Wales where Welsh is very much the everyday language of the local people, and been granted the courtesy (?) of being recognised as English - whereupon at least a few of the other patrons also lapsed (?) into English, just to say hullo...
A number of English people lived in the village - a small place, but the HQ of one of the Great Little Trains - and most of them were learning Welsh, as a sort of return courtesy, I suppose!
I've a friend who regularly recounts visiting a pub in Wales which was packed with locals watching a rugby match - on Welsh language TV. And, one of the locals noticing he was English proceeded to spend the rest of the game translating the commentary into English.
There are plenty of stereotypes of people in Wales or Scotland speaking their own language to exclude those who only speak English, or using words from their own languages to refer to English in derogatory ways, but actual instances of that happening are vanishingly rare and far outnumbered by the opposite reactions. Though English speaking people acting in obnoxious ways might increase the chances of experiencing that sort of reaction.
Whilst anti-English behaviour might be rare, I have personally been refused service in a highlands pub in the 1990s for no given reason, but presumably for being English as it was lunchtime and everyone else was being served. I was in a group of 5 impeccably behaved non-obnoxious English people, 4 of whom were nurses, and we were turned away.
Maybe they had children at the local Welsh language schools and didnt want to be excluded from their secret plots?
Here in Cardiff quite a few English-speaking parents choose to send their children to Welsh-medium schools. We would if we had children of school age.
Yes, language skills are closely aligned to other intellectual skills ie Maths and it can be advantageous to learn another language.
We used to visit Bala regularly where both the very old and those under 30 spoke Welsh as their first language, those in the middle less so. We were never treated other than courteously in shops etc.
Whilst anti-English behaviour might be rare, I have personally been refused service in a highlands pub in the 1990s for no given reason, but presumably for being English as it was lunchtime and everyone else was being served. I was in a group of 5 impeccably behaved non-obnoxious English people, 4 of whom were nurses, and we were turned away.
Very many years ago, 4 of us young women (as we were then) - 2 english, 1 Irish, 1 Scottish - tried to get a table in an Edinburgh restaurant, to be told none were available. When the husband of one of us turned up subsequently - that being where we said we'd meet - strangely there was a table to be had...
Whilst anti-English behaviour might be rare, I have personally been refused service in a highlands pub in the 1990s for no given reason, but presumably for being English as it was lunchtime and everyone else was being served. I was in a group of 5 impeccably behaved non-obnoxious English people, 4 of whom were nurses, and we were turned away.
I remember an incident in the town where I grew up in Somerset where my family went into a local pub wanting food and were not only refused service but completely ignored. Some people are just weird, regardless of nation.
We (husband, self, teenage son and daughter) once got refused service in a Highland cafe on the basis that it was the staff's lunch break....
We were told that if we wanted lunch we should come back later, once it was no longer lunch time. Absolutely no idea what that was about.
I've been attending Zoom lectures from UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands). In one, the lecturer claimed that "politeness" was one of the causes of the decline in Gaelic as a living language. She said that if Gaelic speakers always switch to English in the presence of a monoglot English speaker, then Gaelic becomes less visible, less used, effectively excluded from the public space and confined to the private space. I hadn't thought of that before, but I think she had a point.
I've been attending Zoom lectures from UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands). In one, the lecturer claimed that "politeness" was one of the causes of the decline in Gaelic as a living language. She said that if Gaelic speakers always switch to English in the presence of a monoglot English speaker, then Gaelic becomes less visible, less used, effectively excluded from the public space and confined to the private space. I hadn't thought of that before, but I think she had a point.
As a learner that was exactly my experience and I never managed to make the jump to being able to converse with native speakers (as opposed to other learners). I mean that's on me, I should have tried harder and gone on immersion courses and such like, but yes, it definitely a factor in there being an extra degree of difficulty
I'm doing Nat 5 Gaelic this year and suspect that even if I pass it, I will be nowhere near conversing with native speakers. Of course, I'm not living in a Gaelic-speaking area, but I grew up on the edge of the Gaidhealtachd, knew a lot of native Gaelic speakers, but never learned any myself.
I think the lecturer has a point about one monoglot English speaker having a disproportionate impact. If on week one, there is a monoglot English tourist in the pub, and everyone politely speaks English, then on week two there is a different monoglot English tourist in the pub, and everyone politely speaks English, and so on, then Gaelic-in-the-pub cannot flourish.
But if people speak Gaelic, there is the assumption, as ExclamationMark demonstartes, that on the west coast a conversation in English moved very quickly on one side to a Gaelic interchange. It wasn't hard to figure that the comments were personal and not kindly!
(For non-Scots Nat 5 is roughly equivalent to GCSE)
Though, I don't understand why it would be expected that conversation in a pub would change to English if someone who doesn't speak the local language came in. It's not as though anyone would expect to be included in the conversations of groups of people they don't know. If I'm in a pub, I wouldn't turn to the people on the next table and discuss the weather with them - so it makes no difference if they're talking English, Gàidhlig, Welsh or Polish. It's useful to be able to converse with staff to put in an order, but general conversation with locals surely isn't expected?
But, I do admit there seems to be a subset of English people who object to any language other than English being used, even where the local language is different. Perhaps if someone came into a pub thinking they had a right to listen into the conversations of strangers then they'd get a less than friendly welcome.
Comments
My (white, Scottish) wife would say that comments about the folk "north of the Border" made by certain (white, English) people are racist - or tending towards it, at least
North of the Border the term Sassenach was once common ... arguably racist?
I suppose it could be used in a pejorative fashion, and probably still is, but I'm not so sure about *north of the border*.
Yes, that could be said in a derogatory way, but it could also be a way of simply describing where someone comes from when you don't know the actual area or town - though you could just say *Scotland*, of course.
It might easily be, and often is, an example of othering* - not one of us/not from here. But northerner/ southerner/ yellow belly etc. can all be used similarly.
(*As, indeed, is racism)
J R R Tolkien used the word in LOTR to describe the Haradrim, from lands way south of Gondor, and AIUI it is sometimes used in Scotland to describe the English.
I don't find it at all derogatory, but I realise that others might, and therefore I keep it to myself, as it were.
The English word is, as the Oxford English dictionary says 'Frequently somewhat derogatory' but has several senses
It basically comes from the Gaelic term for an English or Scots speaker.
Given the way Lowland Scots have historically treated Gaels - a Gael calling me, a Lowland Scot, a sassenach in the sense of the English word would be extremely mild and might be merited, especially if I was claiming linguistic superiority and doing something anti-Gaelic like writing some of the letters you see about Gaelic road signs in the papers. Though it's such an old fashioned word I doubt it would happen and if applied in the correct Gaelic sense it's not derogatory.
There is indeed anti-English prejudice that surfaces in some places and contexts in Scotland but sassenach is really old fashioned stuff like you'd read in a deliberately set-in-the-past comic strip like 'The Broons'. If meeting somebody prejudiced, you'd be more likely to encounter ordinary sweary/abusive terms coupled with the term English and mixed up with stuff about class and politics (assumptions of being posh or Tory).
When my wife was talking about potentially racist comments being made by the English about the Scots, she wasn't thinking of specific words but xenophobic attitudes.
Oddly we generally weren't constructed that way by historic racists. 19th/early 20th century racism tended to split us into two races - Celtic (Highlanders ) and Germanic/Saxon (Lowlanders) and you got quarrels as to which 'race' was superior. Some of this stuff was absolutely wild with phrenologists trying to decide genius by looking at the hat sizes in Edinburgh and Glasgow ( well all of it was wild but that took the biscuit!)
In terms of UK national identities, the one where I would guess the old fashioned racism still hangs on most tends to be the anti-Irish stuff which was historically tied up with the worst sort of scientific racism - seeing people as an inferior race and with sectarianism too. So I think racism is often still the right word there, but I'd tend to go with xenophobia where anti-Scots stuff is concerned.
Derisive terms for someone from the north/south, city/country, that religion/this religion - in fact every cultural, social, geographical division you can think of - abound. So what? I don't think it's even in the same postcode as those based on skin colour.
Yes. I didn't for one moment assume that Mrs BT was thinking *racism*.
Very true, although if I'm talking to someone who hasn't a received or estuary English accent (like wot I 'ave), I would be careful, and simply ask *which part of the country do you come from?* if I judge that they won't be offended by the question.
Do you think being prejudiced against someone for being Scottish is somehow fundamentally different from being prejudiced against someone for having a particular skin tone?
It used to be the case that prejudice against the Irish and common stereotypes resulted in more frequent detention under the mental health act. Also a must-be-a-terrorist assumption. But I don't think that was a risk for Scots in the last hundred years or so.
There's a lot of white nationalist 'grievance' populist history built on that kind of thing which also very much ignores the role of Scots oppressing each other over language, religion and class, so I'm wary of it - it can be a way of doing down Black and Asian Scots by white Scots falsely doing a 'we' ve been oppressed just like you! ' narrative when the white Scottish experience is nothing like that - and especially nothing like what chattel enslavement was in the history of many Black Scots who are working to get that history properly told and recognised.
This is, I fear, something that may often vanish under the radar dahn 'ere...
So, yes, pretty damn racist at that point.
Good gods. I hope we've moved on since then, but sometimes I wonder...
It's not so long ago that I rebuked a visiting server at Our Place for making an *Irish* joke by telling him that I am, in fact, entitled to Irish citizenship. He was duly mortified and silenced.
And part of the process of extending English cultural hegemony in Scotland was to portray Gaelic Scotland as Irish.
I can see that there might be a crossover, though - my late Ma's family moved at some point from SW Scotland to what is now the Republic of Ireland (we have cousins in County Meath, and my maternal grandfather was a Dubliner).
I regard myself as having mixed Scottish/Irish ancestry on the maternal side - my father OTOH was of Norman descent (his forebears came over with William the Conqueror, no less).
Come to think of it, I'm not really English at all - sort of Scottish/Irish/French, with an English accent...I wonder where Ms Braverman would like to deport me to?
Language was a big part of it - "Inglis" morphed into "Scotis" and the language of the Scots (lingua scotica was labelled by speakers of "Inglis" as "Irish", but the root of the language shift comes from the intermarriage of Scottish and English nobility. It got to the point where English speaking Scots were so convinced by their own propaganda that Episcopalians didn't realise the need to translate the prayer book into Gaelic because they thought the Irish BCP would serve.
There's also, in the later period, sectarianism to consider, with the Highlands and Islands lumped together with Ireland as poor, backward and, worst of all, Catholic.
I think you're right though about the early modern sleight of hand that transformed Gaelic into Irish/Erse
Ah yes - see what you mean.
Thanks for the clarification.
I am told by someone who lives there how much animosity there is toward us (the English) by many Irish people, and I have myself been reminded of Bannockburn on a visit to Scotland (I had no recall of it, unsurprisingly).
In the end though it’s surely only racism if it is acted upon in a discriminatory way?
Basically I would decline to answer as I am not British. That said, I think I would consider it a question of perception and privilege. If one particular jerk view Scots as lower than, less capable, and inherently less valuable, well screw him. Depending on how important he is, it may not matter a jot. On the other hand if many many people do, that's a problem for the Scots people.
On more than one occasion when visiting my daughter who lives in Scotland I have heard "another F""""" sassenach" muttered under the breath in a shop.
On the west coast a conversation in English moved very quickly on one side to a Gaelic interchange. It wasn't hard to figure that the comments were personal and not kindly!
Mind you in East Anglia we were always told never to give correct information if enquired by a stranger.
No doubt there are good historical reasons for Welsh resentment of their treatment by the English but it is problematic when that is directed at individuals who have no personal power in what has happened.
How recent was this ?
I have had family in East Anglia all my life no one’s ever told me that. Likewise I’ve travelled in Scotland and that’s never happened, but that was this century.
As for East Anglia (well, S Cambridgeshire), it was certainly true until the 1980's amongst those who'd lived there for many years. After that I don't know as I moved away and the villages became more a place to live for those who commuted into London and Cambridge.
Mind you we also heard that you couldn't trust people in Cambridge - as Rupert Brooke put it "being urban squat and packed with guile." There's always a thought that Cambridge was a little bit up itself.
A number of English people lived in the village - a small place, but the HQ of one of the Great Little Trains - and most of them were learning Welsh, as a sort of return courtesy, I suppose!
The word is not always used pejoratively but simply means that the person in question is not Scottish,, but rather English.
Maybe they had children at the local Welsh language schools and didnt want to be excluded from their secret plots?
There are plenty of stereotypes of people in Wales or Scotland speaking their own language to exclude those who only speak English, or using words from their own languages to refer to English in derogatory ways, but actual instances of that happening are vanishingly rare and far outnumbered by the opposite reactions. Though English speaking people acting in obnoxious ways might increase the chances of experiencing that sort of reaction.
Yes, language skills are closely aligned to other intellectual skills ie Maths and it can be advantageous to learn another language.
We used to visit Bala regularly where both the very old and those under 30 spoke Welsh as their first language, those in the middle less so. We were never treated other than courteously in shops etc.
Very many years ago, 4 of us young women (as we were then) - 2 english, 1 Irish, 1 Scottish - tried to get a table in an Edinburgh restaurant, to be told none were available. When the husband of one of us turned up subsequently - that being where we said we'd meet - strangely there was a table to be had...
Eateries can be weird.
I remember an incident in the town where I grew up in Somerset where my family went into a local pub wanting food and were not only refused service but completely ignored. Some people are just weird, regardless of nation.
We were told that if we wanted lunch we should come back later, once it was no longer lunch time. Absolutely no idea what that was about.
I've been attending Zoom lectures from UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands). In one, the lecturer claimed that "politeness" was one of the causes of the decline in Gaelic as a living language. She said that if Gaelic speakers always switch to English in the presence of a monoglot English speaker, then Gaelic becomes less visible, less used, effectively excluded from the public space and confined to the private space. I hadn't thought of that before, but I think she had a point.
As a learner that was exactly my experience and I never managed to make the jump to being able to converse with native speakers (as opposed to other learners). I mean that's on me, I should have tried harder and gone on immersion courses and such like, but yes, it definitely a factor in there being an extra degree of difficulty
I think the lecturer has a point about one monoglot English speaker having a disproportionate impact. If on week one, there is a monoglot English tourist in the pub, and everyone politely speaks English, then on week two there is a different monoglot English tourist in the pub, and everyone politely speaks English, and so on, then Gaelic-in-the-pub cannot flourish.
But if people speak Gaelic, there is the assumption, as ExclamationMark demonstartes, that on the west coast a conversation in English moved very quickly on one side to a Gaelic interchange. It wasn't hard to figure that the comments were personal and not kindly!
(For non-Scots Nat 5 is roughly equivalent to GCSE)
But, I do admit there seems to be a subset of English people who object to any language other than English being used, even where the local language is different. Perhaps if someone came into a pub thinking they had a right to listen into the conversations of strangers then they'd get a less than friendly welcome.