I'm sure there are lots of writings in other dialects too. I'm no expert on medieval German but I'm rather sure they would have used terms like "Its written in Saxon" and the like too.A language is a dialect with an army. Scots (which is not English spoken today in even the broadest of Scottish accents, but rather the language of Burns, except when he wrote in English, obviously) is every bit as distinct as Belarusian and Slovak. And while indeed there have historically been English (and German) dialects of similar distinctiveness, none have ever been considered languages by anyone (well, except Dutch). Whereas Scots was distinguished from English by Burns and Smith in their own works.
Scots formerly being more different...yeah, but then so were English dialects. I recall a tale of when George Stephenson went down to London, I think he met the king- it may have just been some other important person though- and they said "What? Who is this man? Is he speaking German?"
Of course I wouldn't as that would be silly.No, it's an incorrect wording of Anglo-Saxon. Do you call Australians and Americans "English" to their faces? That would be a silly thing to do. Besides causing offense, it would be wrong, since they don't live in England or feel any affinity with English national identity. Anglo-Saxon (in the modern Anglospheric sense) they undeniably are, as are the Scots. So say that.
When we're talking about cultures though and speaking in a broad historical sense then its valid to say they are English (though British would be better there given when Australia was colonised).
Yes they do if we're looking at the broad scope of history. Just as the British aren't technically British the Scots aren't technically Scots.How about "historical sense"? Or just call them the Dalriadans to simplify things. In any case the historical Scots in no way make the modern Scots any less Scottish.
Purely looking at things from today then of course Scotland is Scotland. When we're on about 1000+ years ago though then you have to talk about the Scots as being purely the Gaels and the Northumbrians as being English.
Ditto too for Prussia.I know all this perfectly well, but they (the Northumbrians) didn't "steal" anything. They by a very gradual process changed a meaning, but Scotland was a continuous entity and its Germanification remains incomplete as far as the Western Isles are concerned.
I didn't call them fake.Of course, although they obviously overlap considerably, but that's no reason to go around calling Scottish people "fake" or "English".
I think what the problem is here is you're looking at it from a modern perspective and taking English to mean purely of modern England whilst I'm speaking more about the distant past, including the times when England was not even solidified as a nation and instead you just had English people spread all across the island- including in Scotland. I'm using English in a 'Anglo-Saxon' sense. Sorry for the confusion.