Message #8384

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Pictish language

The Pictish language is the extinct language of the Picts, once spoken in what is now Scotland. Evidence of the language is limited to place names and to the names of people found on monuments and the contemporary records. At its height, it may have been spoken from Shetland down to Fife.

The classification of the Pictish language is still controversial. An influential review of Pictish was that by Jackson, who considered that Pictish may have been non Celtic or have a non Celtic substratum. However Forsyth denies this.

In 1582, the humanist scholar (and native Gaelic-speaker) George Buchanan, expressed the view that Pictish was similar to languages like Welsh, Gaulish and Gaelic. The rest of research into Pictish has been described as postscript to Buchanan's work. [1]

According to W. B. Lockwood (1975) the view that Pictish was a Celtic language is tentative. Referring to an inscription in Shetland he writes: "When the personal names are extracted, the residue is entirely incomprehensible. Thus the Lunnasting stone in Shetland reads ettocuhetts ahehhttann hccvvevv nehhtons. The last word is clearly the commonly occurring name Nechton, but the rest, even allowing for the perhaps arbitrary doubling of consonants in Ogam, appears so exotic that philologists conclude that Pictish was a non-Indo-European language of unknown affinities".

However, the evidence of place names and personal names argue strongly that the Picts spoke Insular Celtic languages related to the more southerly Brythonic languages[2] though it has also been proposed that the language was closer to Gaulish than the Brythonic languages.[3] Columba, a Gael, needed an interpreter in Pictland when conducting ceremonies in Latin; Bede claimed that the Picts spoke a different language from the Britons, statements which say nothing about the nature of the Pictish language. It has been argued that one or more non-Indo-European languages survived in Pictland, an argument that is considered to be primarily based on limited negative evidence and the long discarded view that languages and material cultures can spread only through invasion and migration.[4] Pre-Indo-European elements can be found fairly frequently in northern Scottish place names[citation needed], and it is theorised that some Pictish ogam inscriptions may also represent examples of this language.

Place names are often used to try to deduce the existence of historic Pictish settlements in Scotland. Those prefixed with "Aber-" (river mouth), "Lhan-" (churchyard), "Pit-" (portion, share, farm), or "Fin-" (hill [?]) lie in regions inhabited by Picts in the past (for example: Aberdeen, Lhanbryde, Pitmedden, Pittodrie, Findochty, etc). However, it is "Pit-" which is the most distinctive element, while "Aber-" can also be found in places which were Brythonic-speaking. Some of the Pictish elements, such as "Pit-", were formed after Pictish times and only attested therein, and the term refers to a unit of land. "Pit-" names occur in Scottish Gaelic place-names from the 12th century onwards as a generic element variation, showing that the word had this meaning in that language.[5] Other suggested place-name elements include "pert" (hedge, Welsh perth - Perth, Larbert), "carden" (thicket, Welsh cardden - Pluscarden, Kincardine), "pevr" (shining, Welsh pefr - Strathpeffer, Peffery).[6]

The evidence of place names may also reveal the advance of Gaelic into Pictland. As noted, Atholl, perhaps meaning "New Ireland", is attested in the early 8th century. This may be an indication of the advance of Gaelic. Fortriu also contains place names suggesting Gaelic settlement, or Gaelic influences.[7] There are a number of Pictish loanwords in modern Scottish Gaelic.

Apart from personal names, Bede provides a single Pictish place name (HE, I, 12), when discussing the Antonine Wall:

It begins at about two miles' distance from the monastery of Abercurnig, on the west, at a place called in the Pictish language, Peanfahel, but in the English tongue, Penneltun, and running to the westward, ends near the city Alcluith.

Peanfahel - modern Kinneil, by Bo'ness - appears to contain elements cognate with Brythonic penn 'at the end' and Goidelic fal 'wall'. It is notable that this place is south of the Forth, in West Lothian, outside of what is traditionally regarded as "Pictland". Alcluith, 'rock of the Clyde', is modern Dumbarton Rock, site of a major early medieval fortress and later castle.