Pictish language facts for kids

Pictish was an ancient language spoken by the Picts. These people lived in eastern and northern Scotland from about the 300s to the 1000s AD. We don't have many direct examples of the Pictish language. Most of what we know comes from place names and personal names. These names are found on old stones and in records from the Early Middle Ages.

The evidence we have suggests that Pictish was an Insular Celtic language. This means it was part of the Celtic language family. It was related to the Brittonic language spoken in what is now southern Scotland, England, and Wales. For a long time, some people thought Pictish was not an Indo-European language at all. But most experts now agree it was Celtic.

Pictish slowly disappeared as the Gaelic language became more common. This happened in the later centuries of the Pictish kingdom. Around the time of King Domnall mac Causantín (889–900), people started calling the region the kingdom of Alba. Before that, it was known as the kingdom of the Picts. The change was gradual, and by the 11th century, most people in Alba spoke Gaelic. The Pictish identity eventually faded away.

Understanding the Pictish Language

We know that Pictish was a distinct language because of old writings. Bede's book, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, written in the early 700s, says Pictish was different from the languages of the Britons, Irish, and English. Bede even mentions that Columba, who was Gaelic, needed an interpreter to talk to the Picts.

Experts have different ideas about what Pictish was like:

• Some think it was an Insular Celtic language similar to P-Celtic languages. These include Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
• Others thought it was an Insular Celtic language similar to Q-Celtic languages. These are Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx.
• A few believed it was a very old language from before the Indo-European family arrived. This idea is not widely accepted today.

Most modern scholars believe Pictish came from a branch of the Brittonic language. This was the language spoken when the Romans arrived in Britain. Over time, Pictish was influenced by the Goidelic language. This language was spoken in Dál Riata, a kingdom that grew in power from the 700s.

Pictish might have even influenced how modern Scottish Gaelic developed. It gave some words to Gaelic. More importantly, it might have changed the syntax (sentence structure) of Scottish Gaelic. This is why Scottish Gaelic's sentence structure is more like Brittonic languages than Irish.

How Pictish Fits into Celtic Languages

Evidence from place names and personal names shows that a Celtic language, similar to the Brittonic languages further south, was spoken in the Pictish area. The idea that Pictish was a P-Celtic language was first suggested in 1582 by George Buchanan. He thought it was like Gaulish. Later, in the 1800s, George Chalmers agreed. He believed Pictish and Brittonic were the same. He based this on the P-Celtic spellings in the Pictish king lists and in place names.

It's hard to be completely sure about the exact Celtic family of the languages spoken by the Picts' ancestors during Roman times. But a personal name, Vepogeni, recorded around 230 AD, suggests that P-Celtic was spoken by at least the Caledonians.

Personal names of Roman-era chieftains from the Pictish area, like Calgacus, have Celtic origins.

A Celtic expert named Whitley Stokes studied old Irish records. He concluded that Pictish was closely related to Welsh. Alexander MacBain, another language expert, supported this. He looked at place and tribe names in Ptolemy's Geographia from the 100s AD. William Watson also studied Scottish place names. He strongly showed that a P-Celtic language was dominant in Pictish areas. He believed Pictish was a northern version of British, and Gaelic came later from Ireland.

In 1837, William Forbes Skene thought Pictish was a Goidelic language, like the ancestor of modern Scottish Gaelic. He suggested that Columba used an interpreter because he was speaking Latin to the Picts, not because their languages were different. This idea was popular in 19th-century Scotland.

Skene later changed his mind. He saw that Pictish seemed to have parts of both Goidelic and Brittonic. He wrote:

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.

From about the 700s, the Picts were more and more influenced by the Dál Riata kingdom. The Picts slowly became Gaelic-speaking. By the time the Pictish and Dál Riatan kingdoms joined, the Picts mostly spoke Gaelic. Katherine Forsyth thinks that some people in faraway areas might have spoken both languages for a few more generations. Scottish Gaelic has many Brittonic loan-words. Also, its verb system is like Welsh, not Irish.

The old idea of P-Celtic versus Q-Celtic languages suggested they were very different. It was thought that the Irish Sea separated them. However, it's likely that the Insular Celtic languages developed from one main proto-Celtic language in the British Isles. The differences between P-Celtic Pictish and Q-Celtic Dalriadan Goidelic were probably small enough for people to understand each other a bit. This means a gradual mixing of languages was possible, especially with the Columban Church in Pictland.

Old Ideas About Pictish

It was hard to translate ogham inscriptions like those on the Brandsbutt Stone. This led many to believe Pictish was not an Indo-European language.

In 1892, John Rhys suggested that Pictish was not an Indo-European language. He thought this because of the ogham inscriptions found in Pictish areas. These inscriptions seemed impossible to understand. Heinrich Zimmer also thought this. He said that Pictish customs, like tattooing and a family system where power passed through mothers, were also not Indo-European. This idea continued for some time in the 1900s.

A slightly changed version of this idea came from Kenneth Jackson in 1955. He suggested that Pictish was P-Celtic, but it might have had an older, non-Celtic language layer underneath. He thought a second language might have been used for inscriptions. Jackson's idea was popular for the rest of the 20th century. But new discoveries in archaeology have made it less likely. Recently, some Ogham inscriptions have been interpreted as Celtic, but this is still debated.

Discredited Theories

Old stories (which are now rejected) said that the Picts came to Scotland from Scythia. This was a large area in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Buchanan thought the Cotini (which he called Gothuni), a Gaulish-speaking tribe from what is now Slovakia, were the ancestors of the Picts. Later, in 1710, Robert Sibbald misunderstood this. He thought Gothuni meant the Germanic-speaking Goths. John Pinkerton expanded on this in 1789. He claimed Pictish was the language before modern Scots. Pinkerton's ideas were often strange and driven by his belief that Celts were not as good as other people. The idea that Pictish was a Germanic language is no longer believed by experts.

Ogham Inscriptions and What They Tell Us

More than 40 Ogham inscriptions from Pictish areas are still hard to understand. However, some have been found to contain Brittonic words. Guto Rhys (2015) says we need to be careful when interpreting these. We don't know important things like the exact way they were written or how many Picts could read and write.

One Ogham inscription at the Broch of Burrian in Orkney has been read as I[-]IRANNURRACTX EVVCXRROCCS. If we break it down as I[-]irann uract cheuc chrocs, it might show a Pictish word like Old Welsh guract meaning 'he/she made'. The fourth word might be Pictish *crocs meaning 'cross' (like Welsh croes from Latin crux). If the first word is a name, the inscription could be a Pictish sentence explaining who carved the cross.

Inscriptions in Shetland at Cunningsburgh and Lunnasting read EHTECONMORS and [E]TTECUHETTS. These have been understood as Brittonic phrases meaning "this is as great" and "this is as far." These messages would be good for boundary stones.

The Brandsbutt Stone inscription, read as IRATADDOARENS, might have a Pictish word similar to Old Breton irha-, "he lies." This word appears in an inscription in Brittany.

Pictish Place Names

You can find Pictish place names in Scotland, north of the River Forth. They are found from Fife to the Isle of Skye. They are quite common south of the Dornoch Firth but rare in the far north.

Many important towns and natural features in the region have names that come from Pictish. Here are some examples:

• Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire. This means "mouth of the River Don." It's like the Welsh word aber, meaning "estuary" or "where rivers meet."
• Cupar, Fife. This means "confluence," which is where two rivers join. It's like the Welsh word cymer.
• Keith, Banffshire. This means "forest." It's like the Welsh word coed.
• Kirkcaldy, Fife. This means "place of the hard fort." It comes from caer ("fort") and caled ("hard").
• Perth, Perthshire. This means "wood" or "grove." It's like the Welsh word perth.
• Yell, Shetland. This means "unfruitful land." It's like the Welsh word iâl.

Some Pictish words appear many times in place names. Here are some examples, with their Welsh equivalents:

Some Pictish names were later replaced by Gaelic names. Sometimes, we can see the older Pictish forms in historical records.

• Inverbervie, Kincardineshire. It was called Haberberui in 1290. This shows that the Pictish aber ("estuary") was replaced by the Gaelic inbhir, which means the same thing.
• Inverie, Fife. An early form, Auerin (1141), might be for *Aberin. This would show the same change from aber to inbhir.
• Kindrochit Alian, Aberdeenshire. It was called Doldauha before about 850 AD. The first part, dôl, means "meadow."
• Strathtyrum, Fife. It was Trestirum in 1190. This suggests a Pictish tref ("estate") was changed to the Gaelic srath ("a valley").

How Pictish Influenced Gaelic

Studies of the Scottish Gaelic language, especially by Alexander Macbain in 1896, show that it has many Pictish loanwords. Some of these words have shorter vowels than similar British words. This suggests Pictish might have resisted some sound changes from the 6th century. Linguist Guto Rhys also noted that many of these loanwords seem to be related to taxes or government. He thinks they might have entered Gaelic as a group in a government setting.

Several Gaelic nouns have meanings that are closer to their Brittonic relatives than to Irish words. This means Pictish might have influenced the meaning and use of these words as a substrate (an older language influencing a newer one). For example, Srath (which became Strath-) meant "grassland" in Old Irish. But in modern Gaelic, it means "broad valley," just like its Brittonic relatives (like Welsh ystrad). Words like Dùn, foithir, lios, ràth, and tom might also show this influence from Pictish.

Greene noted that the Gaelic verb system, which came from Old Irish, became very similar to modern spoken Welsh. Because of this, Guto Rhys believes Pictish might have changed the way Gaelic verbs are used in sentences.

Pictish Personal Names

Pictish personal names, found in documents like the Poppleton manuscript, show clear Brittonic features. For example, they kept the ending -st and the starting w- (like Pictish Uurgust compared to Gaelic Fergus). Also, -ora- changed to -ara- (like Pictish Taran compared to Gaelic torann).

Many Pictish names are directly similar to names and nouns in other Brittonic languages. Here are some Pictish names and their equivalents in other Celtic languages:

Several common parts used to form Brittonic names also appear in Pictish names. These include *jʉð, meaning "lord" (seen in Ciniod), and *res, meaning "passion" or "ardor" (seen in Resad; like Welsh Rhys).

Images for kids

• 

  Picture by Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton (1865–1927) showing Columba preaching to Bridei, king of Fortriu in 565