 Until late in the 15th century, "Scottis" in Scottish English (or "Scots Inglis") was used to refer only to Gaelic, and the speakers of this language who were identified as "Scots".As the ruling elite became Scots Inglis/English-speaking, "Scottis" was gradually associated with the land rather than the people, and the word "Erse" ('Irish') was gradually used more and more as an act of culturo-political disassociation, with an overt implication that the language was not really Scottish, and therefore foreign.This was something of a propaganda label, as Gaelic has been in Scotland for at least as long as English, if not longer.