Stone dead left
no fellow to colonize Scotland. We find, therefore, only the results and
not the process of this racial displacement. These results were the
adoption of English manners and the English tongue, and the growth of
English names, and we wish to suggest that they may find an historical
explanation which does not involve the total disappearance of the
Scottish farmer from Fife, or of the Scottish artisan from Aberdeen.
Before proceeding to a statement of the explanation to which we desire
to direct the reader's attention, it may be useful to deal briefly with
the questions relating to the spoken language of Lowland Scotland and to
its place-names. The fact that the language of the Angles and Saxons
completely superseded, in England, the tongue of the conquered Britons,
is admitted to be a powerful argument for the view that the Anglo-Saxon
conquest of England resulted in a racial displacement. But the argument
cannot be transferred to the case of the Scottish Lowlands, where, also,
the English language has completely superseded a Celtic tongue. For, in
the first case, the victory is that of the language of a savage people,
known to be in a state of actual warfare, and it is a victory which
follows as an immediate result of conquest. In Scotland, the victory of
the English tongue (outside the Lothians) dates from a relatively
advanced period of civilization, and it is a victory won, not by
conquest or bloodshed, but by peaceful means.
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