Editing Pictish language (section)

==Language classification==
[[File:Columba at Bridei's fort.jpg|thumb|Picture by [[Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton]] (1865–1927) depicting [[Columba]] preaching to [[Bridei I of the Picts|Bridei]], king of [[Fortriu]] in 565]]
The existence of a distinct Pictish language during the Early Middle Ages is attested clearly in [[Bede]]'s early eighth-century ''[[Ecclesiastical History of the English People]]'', which names Pictish as a language distinct from those spoken by the [[Celtic Britons|Britons]], the [[Gaels|Irish]], and the [[Anglo-Saxons|English]].<ref name="Bede">{{harvnb|Bede|1910|loc=HE I.1}}; references to Pictish also at several other points in that text.</ref> Bede states that [[Columba]], a [[Gaels|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 [[Common Brittonic|Brittonic]] (descendants [[Welsh language|Welsh]], [[Cornish language|Cornish]], [[Cumbric]], and [[Breton language|Breton]]). 
* Pictish was an insular Celtic language allied to the [[Q-Celtic]] (Goidelic) languages ([[Irish language|Irish]], [[Scottish Gaelic]], and [[Manx language|Manx]]). 
* Pictish was one of the [[Pre-Indo-European languages]], a relic of the [[Bronze Age]].

Most modern scholars agree that the ancestor of the Pictish language, spoken at the time of the [[Roman conquest of Britain|Roman conquest]], was a branch of the Brittonic language, while a few scholars accept that it was merely "related" to the Brittonic language.{{sfn|Forsyth|2006|p=1447}}{{sfn|Forsyth|1997}}{{sfn|Fraser|2009|pp=52–53}} [[Thomas Charles-Edwards]] argues that there was a common language in north Briton in the early Roman period, and that the Pictish language developed as a consequence of the emergence of the Pictish confederation in the late third century.{{sfn|Charles-Edwards|2013|p=34}} Pictish came under increasing influence from the Goidelic language spoken in [[Dál Riata]] from the eighth century until its eventual replacement.{{sfn|Forsyth|2006|p=1447}}{{sfn|Woolf|2007|pages=322–340}}{{sfn|Forsyth|1997}}{{sfn|Fraser|2009|pp=52–53}}

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]] of Scottish Gaelic, which is more similar to Brittonic languages than to Irish.{{sfn|Forsyth|2006|p=1447}}{{sfn|Woolf|2007|pages=322–340}}<ref>{{harvnb|Greene|1966}}; {{harvnb|Greene|1994}}.</ref>

Some commentators have noted that, in light of the disparate nature of the surviving evidence and large geographical area in which it was spoken, that Pictish may have represented not a single language, but rather a number of discrete Brittonic varieties.<ref name="millar23">{{cite book |last1=McColl Millar |first1=Robert |title=A History of the Scots Language |date=2023 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=9780192609458 |pages=32, 33 }}</ref><ref name="UGlas" />
===Position within Celtic===
The evidence of [[toponymy|place names]] and [[Anthroponymy|personal names]] demonstrates that an insular Celtic language related to the more southerly Brittonic languages was formerly spoken in the Pictish area.<ref>{{harvnb|Watson|1926}}; {{harvnb|Jackson|1955}}; {{harvnb|Koch|1983}}; {{harvnb|Smyth|1984}}; {{harvnb|Forsyth|1997}}; {{harvnb|Price|2000}}; {{harvnb|Forsyth|2006}}; {{harvnb|Woolf|2007}}; {{harvnb|Fraser|2009}}.</ref> The view of Pictish as a P-Celtic language was first proposed in 1582 by [[George Buchanan (humanist)|George Buchanan]], who aligned the language with [[Gaulish language|Gaulish]].<ref>All other research into Pictish has been described as a postscript to Buchanan's work. This view may be something of an oversimplification: {{harvnb|Forsyth|1997}} offers a short account of the debate; {{harvnb|Cowan|2000}} may be helpful for a broader view.</ref> A compatible view was advanced by antiquarian [[George Chalmers (antiquarian)|George Chalmers]] in the early 19th century. Chalmers considered that Pictish and [[Common Brittonic|Brittonic]] were one and the same, basing his argument on P-Celtic orthography in the [[List of kings of the Picts|Pictish king lists]] and in place names predominant in historically Pictish areas.{{sfn|Chalmers|1807|pp=198–224}}

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]].<ref name="UGlas">{{cite thesis|last1=Rhys |first1=Guto|title=Approaching the Pictish language: historiography, early evidence and the question of Pritenic|degree=PhD |url=http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6285/7/2015RhysPhD.pdf |publisher=University of Glasgow|date=2015}}</ref>

[[File:Calgacus.JPG|left|thumb|Personal names of Roman-era chieftains from the Pictish area, including [[Calgacus]] (above) have a Celtic origin.<ref>Calgacus ('swordsman') was recorded by [[Tacitus]] in his [[Agricola (book)|''Agricola'']]. Another example is ''Argentocoxus'' ('steel leg'), recorded by [[Cassius Dio]]. See {{harvnb|Forsyth|2006}}.</ref>]]
Celtic scholar [[Whitley Stokes (scholar)|Whitley Stokes]], in a philological study of the [[Irish annals]], concluded that Pictish was closely related to Welsh.{{sfn|Stokes|1890|p=392}} This conclusion was supported by philologist [[Alexander MacBain]]'s analysis of the place and tribe names in Ptolemy's second-century ''[[Geographia]]''.{{sfn|MacBain|1892}} Toponymist [[William J. Watson|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.{{sfn|Watson|1926}}

[[William Forbes Skene]] argued in 1837 that Pictish was a Goidelic language, the ancestor of modern [[Scottish Gaelic]].{{sfn|Skene|1837|pp=67–87}}{{sfn|Fraser|1923}} 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.{{sfn|Skene|1837|pp=71–72}} 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.{{sfn|Jackson|1955|p=131}}{{sfn|Forsyth|1997|p=6}}

Skene later revised his view of Pictish, noting that it appeared to share elements of both Goidelic and Brittonic:
{{blockquote|It has been too much narrowed by the assumption that, if it is shewn to be a Celtic dialect, it must of necessity be absolutely identic in all its features either with Welsh or with Gaelic. But this necessity does not really exist; and the result I come to is, that it is not Welsh, neither is it Gaelic; but it is a Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh forms.{{sfn|Skene|1868|pages=95–96}}}} 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.{{sfn|Forsyth|2006|p=1447}} [[Katherine Forsyth|Forsyth]] speculates that a period of bilingualism may have outlasted the Pictish kingdom in peripheral areas by several generations.{{sfn|Forsyth|1995a}} [[Scottish Gaelic]], unlike [[Irish language|Irish]], maintains a substantial corpus of Brittonic loan-words and, moreover, uses a verbal system modelled on the same pattern as [[Welsh language|Welsh]].{{sfn|Greene|1966|p=135}}

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.<ref>{{harvnb|Greene|1994}}: See {{harvnb|Koch|2006a}} for alternate views.</ref> 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.{{sfn|Woolf|2007|pages=322–340}}{{sfn|Campbell|2001|pp=285–292}} Under this scenario, a gradual linguistic convergence is conceivable and even probable given the presence of the Columban Church in Pictland.{{sfn|Woolf|2007|pages=322–340}}

===Pre-Indo-European hypothesis===
[[File:Brandsbutt stone.jpg|right|thumb|Difficulties in translation of [[ogham]] inscriptions, like those found on the [[Brandsbutt Stone]], led to a widely held belief that Pictish was a non-Indo-European language.]]
In 1892, the Welsh scholar [[John Rhŷs]] proposed that Pictish was a non-[[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] language. This opinion was based on the apparently unintelligible [[ogham inscription]]s found in historically Pictish areas (compare {{slink|Ogham inscription|Scholastic inscriptions}}).<ref>{{harvnb|Rhys|1892}}; {{harvnb|Rhys|1898}}.</ref> A similar position was taken by [[Heinrich Zimmer (Celticist)|Heinrich Zimmer]], who argued that the Picts' supposedly exotic cultural practices (tattooing and matriliny) were equally non-Indo-European,<ref>{{harvnb|Zimmer|1898}}; see {{harvnb|Woolf|1998}} for a more current view of Pictish matriliny</ref> and a pre-Indo-European model was maintained by some well into the 20th century.<ref>For example: {{harvnb|MacNeill|1939}}; {{harvnb|Macalister|1940}}.</ref>

A modified version of this theory was advanced in an influential 1955 review of Pictish by [[Kenneth H. Jackson|Kenneth Jackson]], who proposed a two-language model: while Pictish was undoubtedly P-Celtic, it may have had a non-Celtic [[Substrata (linguistics)|substratum]] and a second language may have been used for inscriptions.{{sfn|Jackson|1955}} Jackson's hypothesis was framed in the then-current model that a Brittonic elite, identified as the [[Broch]]-builders, had migrated from the south of Britain into Pictish territory, dominating a pre-Celtic majority.<ref>See, for example, {{harvnb|Piggot|1955}}.</ref> 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.<ref>For a general view, see {{harvnb|Jackson|1955}}.</ref>

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.<ref>{{harvnb|Armit|1990}}; {{harvnb|Armit|2002}}</ref> Celtic interpretations have been suggested for a number of Ogham inscriptions in recent years, though this remains a matter of debate.<ref>Compare for example {{harvnb|Forsyth|1998}} and {{harvnb|Rodway|2020}}</ref>

===Other 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.<ref>See for example {{harvnb|Bede|1910|loc=HE I.1}}; {{harvnb|Forsyth|2006}} suggests this tradition originated from a misreading of {{harvnb|Servius}}' fifth-century AD commentary on {{harvnb|Virgil}}'s Aeneid:<br />Aeneid 4:146 reads: ''Cretesque Dryopesque fremunt pictique Agathyrsi''.<br />Servius' commentary states: ''Pictique Agathyrsi populi sunt Scythiae, colentes Apollinem hyperboreum, cuius logia, id est responsa, feruntur. 'Picti' autem, non stigmata habentes, sicut gens in Britannia, sed pulchri, hoc est cyanea coma placentes.'' Which actually states that the Scythian [[Agathyrsi]] did ''not'' "bear marks" like the British, but had blue hair.</ref> 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]] in 1710, who equated ''Gothuni'' with the Germanic-speaking ''[[Goths]]''.{{sfn|Sibbald|1710}} [[John Pinkerton]] expanded on this in 1789, claiming that Pictish was the predecessor to [[Scots language|modern Scots]].{{sfn|Pinkerton|1789}} 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.<ref>For a discussion of Sibbald's misunderstanding and of Pinkerton's thesis, see {{harvnb|Ferguson|1991}}.</ref>