Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 50, 2010

The Scottish people (Scots Gaelic: Albannaich), or Scots, are an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Celtic Picts (east) and the Gaels (west), incorporating neighbouring Britons as well as Germanic peoples such as the English and the Norse. In modern use, "Scottish people" or "Scots" is used to refer to anyone born in Scotland, or to anyone who has genetic links to, or family origins in Scotland. The Latin word Scotti used a Latin form of the word Scots as the name of the Gaels of Dál Riata. Though usually considered archaic or pejorative, the term Scotch has also been used for the Scottish people, but this use is now primarily by people outside of Scotland.

There are people of Scottish descent in many countries other than Scotland. Emigration, influenced by factors such as the Highland and Lowland Clearances, Scottish participation in the British Empire, and latterly industrial decline and unemployment, resulted in Scottish people being found throughout the world. Large populations of Scottish people settled the new-world lands of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, with a large Scottish presence particularly noticeable in Canada, which has the second largest population of descended Scots ancestry, after the United States. They took with them their Scottish languages and culture.