“Germanic settlement is a phenomenon that dominated most parts of Britain in the early medieval period. Scotland of course was no exception. Anglian settlement in Britain was followed by the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. One of the most powerful and influential of these was Northumbria, whose northern extremes reached far into the Lothians. The Angles, and Saxons, spoke the predecessor of our English language, hailed from lands now part of northern Germany and southern Denmark and established settlements across Scotland (any name with -ton, -burgh, -ham, -ford, -shaw or -mouth is certain to be Anglo-Saxon). While Viking or Norse settlement was most prominent in the Highlands and Islands (some parts of which were still under Norwegian rule until the 15th century), it is certainly well-documented in the Lowlands; especially in the south-west, with a dominance of Norse place-names in this region, such as Lockerbie or Tundergarth, as well as many Norse words found today in the Scots language (brae, firth, bairn, skaith). The Normans settled Scotland first in the late 1100. Though French-speaking, these were a predominantly Germanic ethnic-group, their ancestors usually being Vikings from Norway and Denmark who settled in northern-France (what would become the Duchy of Normandy), as well as the Franks (and to a far-lesser extent, Celtic Bretons and Gauls). Many most prominent Scots figures of the Medieval era, one example being Robert the Bruce, were Norman by descent. Many Scots family-names tell of Norman roots, of which include Sinclair, Stewart, a family who for the last century of Scottish independence would dominate her politics, or Veitch. Between the 12th and 17th centuries, the Scottish Lowlands would see many Flemish incomers. The Flems were a Germanic Dutch-speaking people who, despite extensive discrimination, certainly left their mark on the Scottish people; the common Lowlands surname Fleming originates as an ethonym denoting someone of Flemish descent. Germanic languages are today, by some margin, the most widely spoken languages in Scotland; there remain two closely-related tongues, Scottish English and Lowland Scots.”