PICTISH LANGUAGE

'Pictish' is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to be spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. The idea that a distinct Pictish language was perceived at some point is only attested clearly in Bede's early 8th century ''Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'',^[2] and there is not enough evidence to test either the language's ''sprachraum'' or its coherency as a dialect continuum.
What evidence there is of the language is limited to place names and to the names of people found on monuments and the contemporary records in the area controlled by the Kingdom of the Picts at its height. At its height, it may have been spoken from Shetland down to Fife. The term "Pictish" was used by Jackson, and followed by Forsyth, to mean the language spoken mainly north of the Forth-Clyde line in the Early Middle Ages. They use the term "Pritennic" to refer to the language spoken in the Iron Age in this area that was the precursor to Pictish. Some scholars believe that there was an earlier non-Celtic language. However, sometimes the term "Pictish" is used to refer to the earlier language.

Contents

Language Classification

Inscriptions

Place names

Personal names and orthography

Notes

References

Language Classification

The classification of the Pictish language is still controversial. An influential review of Pictish by Jackson^[3], considered that Pictish was probably Celtic but that it may have been non-Celtic or have a non-Celtic substratum; however ForsythKatherine Forsyth, ''Language in Pictland'', De Keltiche Draak (1997) 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. Other research into Pictish has been described as postscript to Buchanan's work.^[4] Some scholars have argued that Pictish was a Q-Celtic language, and indeed there is likely to have been an influence from Scotti invasions from Ireland, but the majority consider it to have been a P-Celtic language.

Inscriptions

Among the ogham stones in Scotland there is a small subset that do not have Gaelic inscriptions. These are generally assumed to be in Pictish as they date from the Early Middle Ages. However, many alternative languages have been suggested - from non-Indo-European to Norse. It may have been that an older language was retained for inscriptions, in a similar way to Latin.
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". Jackson considered that the language of the inscriptions was a different one from that of the place-names. However, Forsyth has interpreted these inscriptions as a Celtic language. Henri Guiter in 1968 concluded that the language was a form of Basque, which might tie in with DNA studies of pre-historic migrations.

Place names

However, the evidence of place names and personal names argue strongly that at some point at least some of the people in the Pictish area spoke Insular Celtic languages related to the more southerly Brythonic languages^[6] though it has also been proposed that the language was closer to Gaulish than the Brythonic languages.^[7] Columba, a Gael, used an interpreter in Pictland when conducting ceremonies in Latin; Bede claimed that the Pictish was a distinct language from that spoken by the Britons, the Irish and the English, 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. Pre-Indo-European elements can be found fairly frequently in northern Scottish place names, 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 Pictish use 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. "Pit" refers to a unit of land, and "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.^[8] Other suggested place-name elements include "pert" (hedge, Welsh ''perth'' - Perth, Larbert), "carden" (thicket, Welsh ''cardden'' - Pluscarden, Kincardine), "pevr" (shining, Welsh ''pefr'' - Strathpeffer, Peffery).^[9]
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.^[10] 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.^[11]

Personal names and orthography

Apart from the inscriptions, the main source of personal names in Pictish is the Pictish Chronicle, which possibly dates from the 8th century but is only available in an 10th century version. This gives the names of Pictish kings, some of which are considered to be in Pictish orthography (e.g. Urguist, Ciniod) while others are in Gaelic orthography (e.g. Fergus, Cinaed).

Notes

1. This has in the past been disputed, as for instance Jackson's suggestion of two Pictish languages, a Celtic and a non-Indo-European Pictish; see Jackson, "Pictish Language", in Wainwright (ed.), ''The Problem of the Picts''. The non-Indo-European suggestion has been all but abandoned by scholars working on the Picts.
2. At several points in that text, for instance, HE I. 1.
3. Kenneth H. Jackson, ''The Pictish Language'', in F. T. Wainwright (ed.), ''The Problem of the Picts'', Edinburgh, Nelson, 1955
4. This view may be something of an oversimplification: Forsyth, in ''Language in Pictland'', offers a short account of the debate. Cowan, "Invention of Celtic Scotland" may be helpful for a broader view.
5. Katherine Forsyth, "The ogham-inscribed spindle-whorl from Buckquoy: evidence for the Irish language in pre-Viking Orkney?", in 'The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland'', 125, (1995), pp. 677-96
6. Forsyth, ''Language in Pictland'', Price "Pictish", Taylor, "Place names", Watson, ''Celtic Place Names''. For Kenneth H. Jackson's views, see "The Language of the Picts" in Wainright (ed.) ''The Problem of the Picts.''
7. Ferguson, ''The Identity of the Scottish Nation''.
8. For place names in general, see Watson, ''Celtic Place Names'', for shires/thanages see Barrow, "Pre-Feudal Scotland."
9. Glanville Price, "Pictish", p.128.
10. Watson, ''Celtic Place Names'', page numbers wanting.
11. Nicolasen, ''Scottish Place-Names'', pp. 204-205.

References

★ Ball, Martin J. and James Fife (eds.) ''The Celtic Languages''. London: Routledge (2001) ISBN 0-415-28080-X

★ Cox, R. A. V. "Abstract: Modern Scottish Gaelic Reflexes of Two Pictish Words:
★ pett and
★ lannerc." in Ronald Black, William Gillies, and Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh (eds.) ''Celtic Connections: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Vol. 1.'' East Linton: Tuckwell Press (1999), p. 504

★ Dunbavin, Paul. ''Picts and the Ancient Britons''.

★ Ferguson, William. ; ''The Identity of the Scottish Nation'' Edinburgh University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-7486-1071-5

★ Forsyth, Katherine, "The ogham-inscribed spindle-whorl from Buckquoy: evidence for the Irish language in pre-Viking Orkney?", in 'The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland'', 125, (1995), pp. 677-96 (ARCHway)

★ Forsyth, K. ''Language in Pictland : the case against 'non-Indo-European Pictish' in Studia Hameliana #2. Utrecht: de Keltische Draak (1997). Etext Rev. Damian McManus. Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies #38 (Winter 1999), pp. 109-110

★ Forsyth, K.; "Abstract: The Three Writing Systems of the Picts." in Black et al. (1999), p. 508

★ Griffen, T.D.; "The Grammar of the Pictish Symbol Stones" in LACUS Forum #27 (2001), pp. 217-26

★ Henderson, Isabel, The Picts (1967)

★ Lockwood, W.B., Languages of The British Isles, Past And Present, 1975, André Deutsch, ISBN 0-233-96666-8

★ Nicolaisen, W.F.H., ''Scottish Place-Names.'' John Donald, Edinburgh, 2001. ISBN 0-85976-556-3

★ Okasha, E.; "The Non-Ogam Inscriptions of Pictland" in Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies #9 (1985), pp. 43-69

★ Price, Glanville, "Pictish" in Glanville Price (ed.), ''Languages in Britain & Ireland.'' Blackwell, Oxford, 2000. ISBN 0-631-21581-6

★ Wainwright, F.T. (editor), The Problem of the Picts (1955). ISBN 0-906664-07-1