Great Britain was just a name change in order to make the annexation of Scotland easier to swallow for the latter (it had been a romantic term for England for centuries, much in the way Gaul was for France)
That's the first time I've heard someone claim that. Most sources state that the term was coined by King James VI/ I after he united the the crowns. Do you have any references?
Agreeing to let the Scots retain certain institutions was standard practice when realms were taken over by bigger ones, and the name change was not as significant as it appears to us.
I can think of quite a few examples where this 'standard practice' of letting annexed countries (as you see it) keep their institutions, not to mention giving them representation and privileged tax breaks, was not enforced...
The situation was the people who agreed to it (whose real authority to agree to it BTW was not taken that highly by either themselves or the crown) were under severe pressure, both from financial ruin and the threat of that big army from their crown. If you think I'm trying to argue for or against the legitimacy of that, well you're wrong since I couldn't care less.
The Scottish MPs didn't take their authority seriously??? If all you're saying is that the Scottish authorities were under severe pressure, from financial ruin and the potential for war with England then I agree with you.
Well, funny thing is that in most of those countries British isn't an ethnicity, English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, Irish and Welsh are, but not British.
What I meant by British-Irish ethnicity was people of mixed English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ancestry. Whether that is a legally or popularly recognised ethnicity is irrelevant to my point, which was that the majority of people in these countries have this kind of ancestry.
Also, civ as a game has to deal with more than just the "British" nomenclature phase of English history and civilization ... the previous 1000 years + also have to be take account of. Elizabeth after all ruled England, not Britain/United Kingdom; Victoria and Churchill "ruled" Britain/UK, which included England.
This is certainly a valid argument against a British civ. My take is that British history is of far more significance than pre-union English history, and that turns are much more frequent in late history civ. Also, a British civ could still represent a collection of related peoples in the same way that the Indian, Greek, Maya etc represent their civs during their long periods of disunity.
Gaelic though as I said is the language of the country called Scotland in the same way that English is the language of the country called England ... nothing to do with geography.
The linguistic history of England is not comparable to that of Scotland. Scots has been a very significant part of Scottish culture since well before Scotland was even edging towards nationhood. There is no equivalent in England's history.
Neither Atina L. K. Nihtinen nor the person she cites here are experts on early Scottish or Celtic history as you claim... The only language we have any firm evidence for in Scotland-proper before the late 12th century was the language called by the 10th century Gaelic (Scotica).
Alas, I am not knowledgeable enough on the history of Scottish languages to either refute or accept your arguments. And although I find this very interesting I just don't have time to try and do more research myself.
You gotta get rid of these ideas of "true" languages, they are only later nationalist creations; there were neither universal languages of the masses nor true languages in that period.
When I used the word 'true' I was only clumsily attempting to paraphrase your assertion that Gaelic is to Scotland what English is to England, and your implied dismissal of the importance of the Scots language to Scottish history.
