Pictish and Scottish monarchs
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Pictish is the
extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
Brittonic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographical and
personal names A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known, ...
found on monuments and the contemporary records in the area controlled by the kingdoms of the Picts, dating to the early medieval period. Such evidence, however, points strongly to the language being an Insular Celtic language related to the Brittonic language spoken prior to Anglo-Saxon settlement in what is now southern Scotland, England, and Wales. The prevailing view in the second half of the 20th century was that Pictish was a non- Indo-European
language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...
, predating a Gaelic colonisation of Scotland or that a non-Indo-European Pictish and Brittonic Pictish language coexisted. Pictish was replaced by – or subsumed into –
Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...
in the latter centuries of the Pictish period. During the reign of
Domnall mac Causantín Domnall mac Causantín ( Modern Gaelic: , IPA: t̪oːvnəɫ̪ˈmaʰkˈxoːʃɪm, anglicised as Donald II (died 900), was King of the Picts or King of Alba in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I (Causantín mac Cináeda). Dona ...
(889–900), outsiders began to refer to the region as the kingdom of Alba rather than the kingdom of the Picts. However, the Pictish language did not disappear suddenly. A process of Gaelicisation (which may have begun generations earlier) was clearly underway during the reigns of Domnall and his successors. By a certain point, probably during the 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become fully Gaelicised Scots, and the Pictish identity was forgotten.


Language classification

The existence of a distinct Pictish language during the Early Middle Ages is attested clearly in
Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
's early eighth-century ''
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum The ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' ( la, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), written by Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict be ...
'', which names Pictish as a language distinct from that spoken by the Britons, the Irish, and the English.; references to Pictish also at several other points in that text. Bede states that
Columba Columba or Colmcille; gd, Calum Cille; gv, Colum Keeilley; non, Kolban or at least partly reinterpreted as (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is toda ...
, a Gael, used an interpreter during his mission to the Picts. A number of competing theories have been advanced regarding the nature of the Pictish language: * Pictish was an insular Celtic language allied to the P-Celtic language Brittonic (descendants
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
, Cornish, Cumbric, and
Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...
). * Pictish was an insular Celtic language allied to the Q-Celtic (Goidelic) languages ( Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and
Manx Manx (; formerly sometimes spelled Manks) is an adjective (and derived noun) describing things or people related to the Isle of Man: * Manx people **Manx surnames * Isle of Man It may also refer to: Languages * Manx language, also known as Manx ...
). * Pictish was a
pre-Indo-European language The Pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages. The oldest Indo-Europe ...
, a relic of the Bronze Age. Most modern scholars agree that Pictish was, at the time of the Roman conquest, a branch of the Brittonic language, while a few scholars accept that it was merely 'related' to the Brittonic language. Pictish came under increasing influence from the Goidelic language spoken in Dál Riata from the eighth century until its eventual replacement. Pictish is thought to have influenced the development of modern Scottish Gaelic. This is perhaps most obvious in the contribution of loan words, but, more importantly, Pictish is thought to have influenced the
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
of Scottish Gaelic, which is more similar to Brittonic languages than to Irish.


Position within Celtic

The evidence of place names and
personal names A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known, ...
demonstrates that an insular Celtic language related to the more southerly Brittonic languages was formerly spoken in the Pictish area. The view of Pictish as a P-Celtic language was first proposed in 1582 by George Buchanan, who aligned the language with Gaulish. A compatible view was advanced by antiquarian George Chalmers in the early 19th century. Chalmers considered that Pictish and Brittonic were one and the same, basing his argument on P-Celtic orthography in the Pictish king lists and in place names predominant in historically Pictish areas. Although demonstrably Celtic-speaking, the exact linguistic affinity of the Roman-era predecessors to the Picts is difficult to securely establish. The personal name ''Vepogeni'', recorded c. 230 AD, implies that P-Celtic was spoken by at least the
Caledonians The Caledonians (; la, Caledones or '; grc-gre, Καληδῶνες, ''Kalēdōnes'') or the Caledonian Confederacy were a Brittonic-speaking (Celtic) tribal confederacy in what is now Scotland during the Iron Age and Roman eras. The Gree ...
. Celtic scholar Whitley Stokes, in a philological study of the
Irish annals A number of Irish annals, of which the earliest was the Chronicle of Ireland, were compiled up to and shortly after the end of the 17th century. Annals were originally a means by which monks determined the yearly chronology of feast days. Over t ...
, concluded that Pictish was closely related to Welsh. This conclusion was supported by philologist Alexander MacBain's analysis of the place and tribe names in Ptolemy's second-century '' Geographia''. Toponymist William Watson's exhaustive review of Scottish place names demonstrated convincingly the existence of a dominant P-Celtic language in historically Pictish areas, concluding that the Pictish language was a northern extension of British and that Gaelic was a later introduction from Ireland. William Forbes Skene argued in 1837 that Pictish was a Goidelic language, the ancestor of modern Scottish Gaelic. He suggested that Columba's use of an interpreter reflected his preaching to the Picts in Latin, rather than any difference between the Irish and Pictish languages. This view, involving independent settlement of Ireland and Scotland by Goidelic people, obviated an Irish influence in the development of Gaelic Scotland and enjoyed wide popular acceptance in 19th-century Scotland. Skene later revised his view of Pictish, noting that it appeared to share elements of both Goidelic and Brittonic: The Picts were under increasing political, social, and linguistic influence from Dál Riata from around the eighth century. The Picts were steadily Gaelicised through the latter centuries of the Pictish kingdom, and by the time of the merging of the Pictish and Dál Riatan kingdoms, the Picts were essentially a Gaelic-speaking people.
Forsyth Forsyth may refer to: Places Oceania * Forsyth Island, Queensland, Australia, one of the West Wellesley Islands (aka Forsyth Islands) * Forsyth Island, Tasmania, Australia * Forsyth Island (New Zealand), in the outer Marlborough Sounds of South I ...
speculates that a period of bilingualism may have outlasted the Pictish kingdom in peripheral areas by several generations. Scottish Gaelic, unlike Irish, maintains a substantial corpus of Brittonic loan-words and, moreover, uses a verbal system modelled on the same pattern as
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
. The traditional Q-Celtic vs P-Celtic model, involving separate migrations of P-Celtic and Q-Celtic speaking settlers into the British Isles, is one of mutual unintelligibility, with the Irish Sea serving as the frontier between the two. However, it is likely that the Insular Celtic languages evolved from a more-or-less unified proto-Celtic language within the British Isles. Divergence between P-Celtic Pictish and Q-Celtic Dalriadan Goidelic was slight enough to allow Picts and Dalriadans to understand each other's language to some degree. Under this scenario, a gradual linguistic convergence is conceivable and even probable given the presence of the Columban Church in Pictland.


Pre-Indo-European theory

In 1892, John Rhys proposed that Pictish was a non- Indo-European language. This opinion was based on the apparently unintelligible ogham inscriptions found in historically Pictish areas (compare ). A similar position was taken by Heinrich Zimmer, who argued that the Picts' supposedly exotic cultural practices (tattooing and matriliny) were equally non-Indo-European, and a pre-Indo-European model was maintained by some well into the 20th century. A modified version of this theory was advanced in an influential 1955 review of Pictish by Kenneth Jackson, who proposed a two-language model: while Pictish was undoubtedly P-Celtic, it may have had a non-Celtic
substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
and a second language may have been used for inscriptions. Jackson's hypothesis was framed in the then-current model that a Brittonic elite, identified as the
Broch A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Their origin is a matter of some controversy. Origin ...
-builders, had migrated from the south of Britain into Pictish territory, dominating a pre-Celtic majority. He used this to reconcile the perceived translational difficulties of Ogham with the overwhelming evidence for a P-Celtic Pictish language. Jackson was content to write off Ogham inscriptions as inherently unintelligible. Jackson's model became the orthodox position for the latter half of the 20th century. However, it became progressively undermined by advances in understanding of late Iron Age archaeology. Celtic interpretations have been suggested for a number of Ogham inscriptions in recent years, though this remains a matter of debate.


Discredited theories

Traditional accounts (now rejected) claimed that the Picts had migrated to Scotland from Scythia, a region that encompassed Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Buchanan, looking for a Scythian P-Celtic candidate for the ancestral Pict, settled on the Gaulish-speaking Cotini (which he rendered as ''Gothuni''), a tribe from the region that is now Slovakia. This was later misunderstood by
Robert Sibbald Sir Robert Sibbald (15 April 1641 – August 1722) was a Scottish physician and antiquary. Life He was born in Edinburgh, the son of David Sibbald (brother of Sir James Sibbald) and Margaret Boyd (January 1606 – 10 July 1672). Educated at th ...
in 1710, who equated ''Gothuni'' with the Germanic-speaking '' Goths''. John Pinkerton expanded on this in 1789, claiming that Pictish was the predecessor to modern Scots. Pinkerton's arguments were often rambling, bizarre and clearly motivated by his belief that Celts were an inferior people. The theory of a Germanic Pictish language is no longer considered credible.


Linguistic evidence

Linguist Guto Rhys summarized evidence for the Pictish language as amounting to "a few hundred" individual articles of information. Evidence is most numerous in the form of proper nouns, such as place-names in Pictish regions, and personal names borne by Picts according to Scottish, Irish and
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
sources. Other sources include Ogham inscriptions and Pictish words surviving as loans; especially in the Scottish Gaelic language.


Place names

Pictish toponyms occur in Scotland north of the River Forth. Distributed from
Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...
to the
Isle of Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (; gd, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or ; sco, Isle o Skye), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated ...
, they are relatively abundant south of the Dornoch Firth but rare in the extreme north. Many principal settlements and geographical features of the region bear names of Pictish origin, including: * Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire. Meaning "mouth of the River Don" (cf.
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
, "estuary, confluence"). * Cupar, Fife. Meaning "confluence" (cf. Welsh ). *
Keith Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...
, Banffshire. Meaning "forest" (cf. Welsh ). *
Kirkcaldy Kirkcaldy ( ; sco, Kirkcaldy; gd, Cair Chaladain) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, ...
, Fife. Meaning "place of the hard fort" from ''caer'', "fort" and ''caled'', "hard". * Perth, Perthshire. Meaning "wood, grove" (cf. Welsh ). *
Yell A yell is a loud vocalization; see screaming. Yell may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Yell, Shetland, one of the North Isles of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland * Yell Sound, Shetland, Scotland United States * Yell, Tennessee, an unin ...
, Shetland. Meaning "unfruitful land" (cf. Welsh ''iâl''). Several Pictish elements occur multiple times in the region. This table lists selected instances according to the Welsh equivalent. Some Pictish names have been succeeded by Gaelic forms, and in certain instances the earlier forms appear on historical record. * Inverbervie, Kincardineshire. ''Haberberui'' in 1290, demonstrates that a Pictish ''aber'', "estuary, confluence" has been supplanted by Gaelic ''inbhir'', with identical meaning. * Inverie, Fife. A possible early form, ''Auerin'' (1141), may be for ''*Aberin'', thus attesting the same ''inbhir'' for ''aber'' substitution as above. * Kindrochit Alian, Aberdeenshire. ''Doldauha'' before c. 850 AD, in which the first element is ''dôl'' ("meadow"). *
Strathtyrum Strathtyrum is a country estate in the north-western outskirts of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. It is accessed via the A91. Etymology The name ''Strathtyrum'' was recorded as ''Trestirum'' in 1190, and may rooted in either a Gaelic or Picti ...
, Fife. ''Trestirum'' in 1190, suggestive of assimilation of a Pictish ''tref'', "estate", to (unconnected) Gaelic ''srath'', "a valley".


Ogham inscriptions

Although the interpretation of over 40 Ogham inscriptions remains uncertain, several have been acknowledged to contain Brittonic forms. Guto Rhys (2015) notes that significant caution is required in the interpretation of such inscriptions because crucial information, such as the orthographic key, the linguistic context in which they were composed and the extent of literacy in Pictland, remains unknown. An Ogham inscription at the
Broch of Burrian The Broch of Burrian is an Iron Age broch located on North Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands, in Scotland (). Location The Broch of Burrian is located on the southern tip of North Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands. The broch stands on a small hea ...
,
Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
has been transliterated as . Broken up as , this may reveal a Pictish cognate of
Old Welsh Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg) is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh.Koch, p. 1757. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic ...
'he/she made' in ( Middle Welsh ). (The only direct continuation in Middle Welsh is 1sg. < ''*u̯rakt-ū'' in the poem known as " Peis Dinogat" in the Book of Aneirin; this form was eventually reformed to ''gwnaeth''.) With the fourth word explained as spirantized Pictish 'cross' (Welsh < Latin ) and the corrupted first word a personal name, the inscription may represent a Pictish sentence explaining who carved the cross. The Shetland inscriptions at Cunningsburgh and
Lunnasting Vidlin (from Old Norse: ''Vaðill'' meaning a ford) is a small village located on Mainland, Shetland, Scotland. The settlement is within the parish of Nesting. History It is at the head of Vidlin Voe, and is the modern heart of the old parish ...
reading and have been understood as Brittonic expressions meaning "this is as great" and "this is as far", respectively, messages appropriate for
boundary stones A boundary marker, border marker, boundary stone, or border stone is a robust physical marker that identifies the start of a land boundary or the change in a boundary, especially a change in direction of a boundary. There are several other ty ...
. Transliterated as , it is possible that the
Brandsbutt Stone The Brandsbutt Stone is a class I Pictish symbol stone in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Description A large block of whinstone, high, wide and deep, the stone had been broken up and used in building a dry stone wall before 1866. The st ...
inscription attests a Pictish form cognate with
Old Breton Breton (, ; or in Morbihan) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of t ...
, "he lies", in ''IRA-'', occurring at the Lomarec inscription in Brittany.


Influence on Gaelic

Etymological investigation of the Scottish Gaelic language, in particular the 1896 efforts of Alexander Macbain, has demonstrated the presence of a corpus of Pictish loanwords in the language. The following are possibilities: *''bad''. Meaning "cluster" (cf.
Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...
) *''bagaid''. Meaning "cluster, troop" (cf. Welsh ) *''dail''. Meaning "meadow" (cf. Welsh ) *''dìleab''. Meaning "legacy" *''monadh''. Meaning "mountain, moor" (cf. Welsh ) *'' mormaer''. Legal term meaning "earl, count" (cf. Welsh + ) *''pailt''. Meaning "plentiful" (cf. Cornish , Middle Welsh ) *''peasg''. Meaning "gash, chilblain" (cf. Welsh ) *''peit''. Meaning "small area of ground" (cf. Welsh ) *''pòr''. Meaning "grain, crops" (cf. Welsh ) *''preas''. Meaning "bush, thicket" (cf. Welsh ) On the basis of a number of the loans attesting shorter vowels than other British cognates, linguist Guto Rhys proposed Pictish resisted some 6th century Latin-influenced sound changes. Rhys has also noted the potentially "fiscal" profile of several of the loans, and hypothesized that they could have entered Gaelic as a package in a governmental context. Several Gaelic nouns have meanings more closely matching their Brittonic cognates than those in Irish, indicating that Pictish may have influenced the sense and usage of these words as a
substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached ** Substrate (locomotion), the surface over which an organism lo ...
. ''Srath'' (> '' Strath-'') is recorded to have meant "grassland" in Old Irish, whereas the modern Gaelic realization means "broad valley", exactly as in its Brittonic cognates (cf. Welsh ). '' Dùn'', ''foithir'', ''lios'', ''ràth'' and ''tom'' may, by the same token, attest a substrate influence from Pictish. Greene noted that the verbal system inherited in Gaelic from Old Irish had been brought "into complete conformity with that of modern spoken Welsh", and consequently Guto Rhys adjudged that Pictish may have modified Gaelic verbal syntax.


Personal names

Pictish personal names, as acquired from documents such as the
Poppleton manuscript {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 The Poppleton manuscript is the name given to the fourteenth-century codex probably compiled by Robert of Poppleton, a Carmelite friar who was the Prior of Hulne, near Alnwick. The manuscript contains numerous work ...
, show significant diagnostically Brittonic features including the retention of final ''-st'' and initial ''w-'' (cf. P. ''Uurgust'' vs. Goidelic ''Fergus'') as well as development of ''-ora-'' to ''-ara-'' (cf. P. ''Taran'' vs G. ''torann''). Several Pictish names are directly paralleled by names and nouns in other Brittonic languages. Several Pictish names are listed below according to their equivalents in Brittonic and other Celtic languages. Several elements common in forming Brittonic names also appear in the names of Picts. These include ''*jʉð'', "lord" (> ''Ciniod'') and ''*res'', "ardor" (> ''Resad''; cf. Welsh ''Rhys'').


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pictish Language Extinct Celtic languages Language Extinct languages of Scotland Extinct languages of Europe Languages extinct in the 11th century Brittonic languages Unclassified languages of Europe Unclassified Indo-European languages