St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1904-03-09

A great part of history is taken up with
an account of the conquest of one race
by another. When the Saxons invaded
Great Britain they drove the Celts before
them into Wales and Scotland.
The Highlanders, then living in the
northern part of Scotland are Celts, but
the Lowlanders are mixed race, not
ethnicallv different from the peoples that
inhabit the middle and southern por-
tons of Great Britain. They are a
mixed race of Saxons and Danes and
Morse, with intermarriage, doubtless.
with the Highlander, from time to time.
so that there is a strain of Highland
blood in the Lowland Scotch.
Now word about the clans. When
we set up to be Scotch, we all want to
know our pedigree, and we all want
to get back to some clan so that we can
wear the plaid. Now the term clan
belongs in fact not to the Lowland
Scotch at all, but only to the Highlanders,
or their descendants We find that away
back in history as long ago as the year
1000, these clans were formed somewhat
in this way. A certain family, having a
feud with the neighboring family set up
a claim of great antiquity, and they
selected among their ancestors some
or grandson of that chieltain. They
were called chiefs in Scotland and kings
in Ireland. That is where the Irish kings
come in. IF the chieftain was a grand
father, the prefix was O.; if he was father
the prefix was Mac. The great chief
tains in the Highlands had the right to
wear two eagle feathers in their bonnets,
and they came to have certain heredi-
tary rights, and the tartan was the milf
tary uniform by which they were recOg-
nized in battle and elsewhere. Each clan
was known by an emblem, the different
clans having different emblems by which
they were known among themselves and
to each other, such as the oak, the thistle,
the fern, the whortleberry.
The tartan was graded according to
the dignity of the chief or the clan. The
lowest class could wear only one color;
that might be red or yellow or whatever
it was, but only one color, and the num-
Der of colors in the tartan indicated the
degree of dignity of the wearer or of the
clan to which he belonged. The Low
landers, the Scotch whom we know the
best, never had these distinctions. They
were governed more as their southern
neighbors were governed.
Next, a word about the language. AS
I said, the Celtic or Gaelic language is
the language of the Highlands, but the
Scotch of the Lowlanders is not properly
a dialect. 1t is only one of the forms
that the Anglo-Saxon has taken in mod
ern times. There are a dozen or more
different forms of the English language
spoken on the island OF Great Britain,
and the fact that a certain language
became the court language has deter
mined that it should be called the Eng
lish language, but it has no more title
except in the fact that it has become
nationalized and printed and fossilized;
it has no more right to be called the
English language than the language of
Northumberland, or Yorkshire, or Ber-
wickshire.
The Scotch language is a very beauti-
full language. 1t has some characteristic
features which commend it to the admira-
ton, and l would say, to the love of
those who have ears to hear beauty in
language. It is highly poetical Ian
guage. It is a highly musical language,
partly because the words coalesce, sub
hitting themselves to abbrevia tons
much better than the language which we
call English. We used to be told in the
old time that one of the beauties of the
Greek and Latin language is that they
retain the infections which indicates
the mode and tense. We know better
now. We know that the languages
which are the most perfect instruments
of thought are those which submit them
selves with the greatest ease to the re-
quirements of tongue and ear, and we
find these authorizations contributing
such music to the Scotch as to constitute
almost its most characteristic note.
I am ready to say, being partly Eng
fish, partly Scotch, and wholly American,
[ am ready to say, that to my ear, the
%ot ~ -4aI
especially cultivated woman, is the
most charming language that ever hear.
To specify little what l mean, suppose
we take the song that we started out
with tonight:
'tScots, wha' haze VII Wallace b1ed,
Freeman stand or freeman fa',
Let him on wi me!''
See how it avoids consonants and sibi-
1ants and glides on from word to word,
and how this makes the language pleas
ant to the ear. musical, birdlike. And
then the Scotch have great number of
words which add a kind of sentiment to
their meaning, which we use when we
want to say of persons or things that
they are pets, that we have an affection
for them. When we say "girl" in Eng
lish we express no affection; but we can
express varying degrees of fondness in
Scotch by saying lass, lassie, lassikie,
lassock, vie bit lassikie.
Another characteristic of the Scotch
language is the great variety OF French
words introduced into it owing to the
long historical connection, between the
French and Scotch. / think it would
surprise some of US who claim to be lin
GUSTS when our attention is called to
some of our words which we thought
purely, delightfully."-, Scotch words, to
find that they are French words. The
word which is often used of certain
Scotchmen, 'douce," is French, and the
word which we use to express another
characteristic of the Scotch, very essen
tia1 characteristic, ''dour.' is also
French. And, tell it not in Gath, "hag-
gis" is the French hachis. Still another