SCOTLAND (LANGUAGE) 



247 



established at a later period in connection with 

 the Scottish monastery at Katisbon. During the 

 whole of the 17th and 18th centuries, or until the 

 episcopate of the illustrious convert from Pro- 

 testantism, Dr William Hay (1769-1811), the 

 fortunes of the Scottish Catholics were at a veiy 

 low ebb. Bishop Hay founded in 1799 a seminary 

 at Aquhorthies near Inverurie, and provided Catho- 

 lics with a new literature. 



A report made to Rome in 1679 estimated the 

 total number of Catholic communicants at 14,000. 

 Of these 12,000 belonged to the Highlands, where, 

 however, there were only 3 or 4 priests. In 1705 

 there were said to be 160 Catholics in Edinburgh, 

 5 in Leith, and 12 in Glasgow. Certain districts 

 of the Highlands and Islands named as exclusively 

 Catholic are South Uist and Barra, Canna, Rum 

 and Muck, Knoydart and Morar, Arisaig, Moydart 

 and Glengarry, in which places there were al>out 

 4500 Catholics. The district of Braemar contained 

 500. There were at this time 36 priests on the 

 mission in all Scotland. The number of Catholics 

 in the country about the year 1779 has been 

 estimated at from 20,000 to 30,000, while it is 

 said that not more than twenty of these possessed 

 land worth a hundred a year. A very great in- 

 crease, chiefly owing to the influx of Irishmen, 

 took place at the beginning of the 19th century. 

 In 1800 Edinburgh and Leith contained 1000 

 Catholics; in 1829, 14,000. In the latter year 

 there were 25,000 in Glasgow, 1500 in Perth, 1400 

 at Preshome, 1500 in Glengarry, 1000 in Dumfries, 

 and 3000 in Aberdeen the whole Catholic popula- 

 tion being reckoned a!x>ut this time at 70,000, 

 including the bishops and 50 priests. In 1890 

 there were in Scotland 338,643 Catholics ( 220,000 

 in Glasgow alone), 332 chapels, and 350 prieste. 



The first bishop appointed as vicar-apostolic for 

 Scotland was Thomas Nicolson ( 1695 ). The 

 vicariate was divided into a Lowland District and 

 Highland District in 1731, and into three districts 

 in 1828. The Hierarchy, consisting of two arch- 

 bishops, St Andrews and Edinburgh, and Glasgow, 

 and four bishops suffragans of the former, was 

 established by Leo XIII., March 4, 1878. St 

 Mary's College at Blairs, 6 miles south-west of 

 Aberdeen (whither the seminary was removed 

 from Aquhorthies in 1829), has a president and four 

 professors. 



The chief original authorities for the ecclesiastical 

 history of Scotland down to the Revolution are the 

 lame as those mentioned in the article on the Civil 

 History, to which may be added Theiner's Vetera Monu- 

 menta Hibtmrrrum ft Scotorttm and Joseph Robertson's 

 Concilia Scotia; 1 2 vols., Bannatyne Club, 1866). The 

 chief modem authorities are Cook's Hiitorii of the Re- 

 formation and Hintory of the Church of Scotland ; Prin- 

 cipal Lee's Lecture* (1860); Principal Cunningham's 

 Church Hiftory of Scotland (2d ed. 1883); the present 

 writer's Eccletiaitical History of Scotland (4 vols. 1861); 

 Scott's Faxti Ecclentt Scoticana ; The Church of Scot- 

 land, 1'ait ami Pretent, edited by Professor Story ( 5 vols. 

 1891 ). See also Dean Stanley's Lecturei on the History 

 of the Church of Scotland (2d ed. 1879), with Principal 

 Kainy's Reply (1872); the St OiM Lectures (1881); 

 Bishop Wordsworth's Dicourte (1881); for the Free 

 Church point of view, M'Crie's Sketches (1841), Hether- 

 ington'g Hiitory (1841), and Buchanan's Ten Year/ Con- 

 flict (1849); for the Episcopal side, Russell's Church of 

 Scotland (1838) and Miss Kinloch's Hittory (1888). 

 See W. Forbes-Leith, S.J., Narrative* of Scottish 

 Catholict under Mary Stuart and Jame VI. (1885); 

 The Catholic Church in Scotland, edited by the Rev. J. 

 F. S. Gordon (Glasgow, 1869); and Dr Bellesheim, 

 Sittory of the Catholic Church in Scotland, trans, by F. 

 Hunter-Blair, vols. iii. and iv. ( 1889-90); and see in this 

 work the articles on CONFESSIONS OF FAITH, COVENANT, 

 PRIHBTTERIANISM, ASSEMBLY, ELDER, FREE CHUBCH, 

 UHITKD PRESBYTERIANS, CAMF.RONIANS, and those on 

 the great church leaders, Knox, Melville, Henderson, 

 Chalmers, Macleod, Tulloch, Sus. 



SCOTTISH LANGUAGE. This name is now applied 

 to the Teutonic speech of Lowland Scotland, especi- 

 ally in its literary form, as the official language of 

 the kingdom in the 15th and 16th centuries, and 

 the vehicle of ballad and lyric poetry down to the 

 present day. As originally used, it meant the 

 Celtic language of the Scoti or Scots of Ireland, 

 and to a comparatively late date it continued to be 

 applied to the same language as spoken by the 

 Celtic people of the Highlands and Western Isles, 

 the ' Saxon ' tongue of the Lowlander being then 

 usually distinguished as ' Inglis ' or English. All 

 the earlier Scottish writers, Barbour, VVyntoun, 

 Harry the Minstrel, Dunbar, and even Sir David 

 Lyndsay recognised their language as 'Inglis;' 

 Fordan, about 1400, still applied the name Scottish 

 to the Celtic, saying of his countrymen : ' For they 

 use two languages, the Scottish and the Teutonic 

 (Scoticd et ^Teutonicd) ; the people speaking the 

 latter occupies the seacoast and lowland districts, 

 the people of Scottish language (linguce gens 

 Scoticce) inhabit the highlands and isles beyond.' 

 But as the nationality of Scotland, as distinct from 

 England, became more definitely recognised, there 

 were obvious inconveniences in applying the name 

 Scottish to the speech of what had become the 

 least important section of the nation, and the 

 Celtic tongue began to be usually spoken of by 

 Lowlanders as Yrische or Ersche ; it was natural 

 also that in the struggle with 'oure aide enemeis 

 of Ingland,' the name Inglis should become dis- 

 tasteful to patriotic Scots ; and, accordingly, in the 

 16th century, the name 'Scottis,' after having 

 been disused for more than a century, was recalled, 

 and applied to the Lowland tongue as being the 

 official language of Scotland and of the vast 

 majority of Scotsmen. Thus Gavin Douglas in 

 the preface to his translation of Virgil, and the 

 author of the Complaynt of Scotland, claimed to 

 write in the ' Scottis toung ; ' and from 1550 on- 

 wards this has always meant the Teutonic or Saxon 

 speech of Lowland Scotland, the original lingua 

 Stwlica of the Highlanders being distinguished as 

 Erse or Scottish Gaelic. The latter is a form, or 

 group of forms, of the common Celtic tongue which 

 is spoken, with many dialectal gradations, from 

 Cape Wrath in Scotland to Cape Clear in Ireland, 

 the Gaelic of Argyll and Islay not differing from 

 the Irish Gaelic of Ulster on the one hand, more 

 than it does from the Scottish Gaelic of Inverness 

 and Skye on the other. The Erse has l>een a liter- 

 ary language in Ireland from a remote period ; its 

 literary career in Scotland is much shorter, begin- 

 ning with Carswell's Gaelic version of John Knox's 

 Liturgy, printed in 1567, and of little moment before 

 the 19th century. The Gaelic is still extensively 

 spoken in Scotland west and north of a line which 

 runs up the Firth of Clyde and Loch Long, and 

 crosses oy Glen Douglas, Rowardennan, Aberfoyle, 

 Callander, Comrie, Dunkeld, Glen Shee, Mount 

 Blair, till it reaches the Dee 6 miles above Bal- 

 moral ; leaving the Dee 3 miles above Ballater, 

 it continues by the southern watershed of Glen 

 Livet to the Spey and Knock of Moray, Coulmony 

 on the Findhorn, and reaches the Moray Firth 

 about 3 miles west of Nairn. East of this line, 

 as also in the north-east half of Caithness and in 

 the Orkney and Shetland Isles, Gaelic is no longer 

 native ; but even to the west of the line a large 

 proportion of the population is bilingual. There 

 has never been any newspaper or journal published 

 in Gaelic, so that the literary standing of the 

 language is very different from that of Welsh. 



The Lowland Scotch is a form of the Teutonic 

 or Germanic speech introduced into Britain by the 

 Angles and Saxons in the 5th century. These 

 tribes spoke different dialects, which may be 

 broadly distinguished as Saxon, including West 



