In modern usage, "Scottish people" or "Scots" refers to anyone whose linguistic, cultural, family ancestral or genetic origins are from Scotland. The Latin word Scoti[14] originally referred to the Gaels, but came to describe all inhabitants of Scotland.[15] Considered pejorative by some,[16] the term Scotch has also been used for Scottish people, now primarily outwith Scotland.
People of Scottish descent live in many countries. Emigration, influenced by factors such as the Highland and Lowland Clearances, Scottish emigration to various locales throughout the British Empire, and latterly industrial decline and unemployment, have resulted in the spread of Scottish languages and culture. Large populations of Scottish people settled the 'New World' lands of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. The highest concentrations of people of Scottish descent in the world outside of Scotland are in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in Canada, Otago and Murihiku/Southland in New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, and Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Canada has the highest level of Scottish descendants per capita in the world and the second-largest population of Scottish descendants, after the United States.[17]
^"Isle of Man Census Report 2006"(PDF). Economic Affairs Division, Isle of Man Government Treasury. 2006. p. 20. Archived(PDF) from the original on 17 July 2014. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
^Bede used a Latin form of the word Scots as the name of the Gaels of Dál Riata.Roger Collins, Judith McClure; Beda el Venerable, Bede (1999). The Ecclesiastical History of the English People: The Greater Chronicle; Bede's Letter to Egbert. Oxford University Press. p. 386.
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Anthony Richard (TRN) Birley, Cornelius Tacitus; Cayo Cornelio Tácito. Agricola and Germany. Oxford University Press.
^"Scotch". dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 25 April 2019. [Scotch is] disdained by the Scottish because of the many insulting and pejorative formations made from it by the English...
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Landsman, Ned C. (1 October 2001). Nation and Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and the Americas. Bucknell University Press.