Talk:Pictish language/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Untitled

This needs to be expanded. Alexander 007 07:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

From Talk:Picts

I'm copying this section (Talk:Picts#Pictish language) from the discussion page of Picts, as it is likely to prove useful background discussion to future editors of this page. QuartierLatin1968 17:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to say it, but gadzooks this all reads badly. It is particularly irritating to see Pictish discussed as a Brythonic language without a shred of linguistic data adduced. There are some interesting recent attempts to show that the language in Pictish Oghams are Norse by the way. I am not sure how to help this article, but it sure does need help. Other useful additions to this article would be about Pictish art, for instance, and Pictish Oghams. Evertype 16:34, 2005 Mar 8 (UTC)

If you are unhappy with the current article please feel free to rewrite the unsatisfactory parts and add anything that is currently missing. We'd love to have a better article. -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:25, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Then you'll be even more irritated now as I have removed all references to crank language theories. In the face of the onomastic and toponymic evidence it would take a very great deal to show that Pictish was not P-Celtic. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Angus McLellan 15:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that removing the crank theories was a good idea, Angus. The article previously made it fairly clear that they had much less evidence and support than the P-Celtic theory. Now that they're gone we can't discount them as we were doing. Many people are vaguely aware of them and thus it's helpful if we show what a thin foundation many of them are laid on. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

In a Pictish language article, perhaps. Argument by analogy's never convincing, but the Etruscan language article mentions the Magyar crank theory (but only that one while there are, or have been, plenty of others) while the Etruscan civilization article does not mention any alternatives. At any event, I don't really see what alternatives could be reasonably included. Has anyone addressed the matter of late ? It's not as if I'm an expert ... Angus McLellan 00:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The possibility that at least some Picts spoke a non-Indo-European language is widely held, and has to be dealt with; also, it is still argued that Pictish might have been a Goidelic dialect. Arguments can actually be made for these theories, and while they aren't nearly as convincing as the P-Celtic idea (which is not necessarily the same as the Brythonic idea), they are worth discussing. - Calgacus 00:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't seem that it is so well supported any longer. See the introduction to the SPNS web version of Watson's old book on Scottish placenames by A.G. James & Simon Taylor (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/institutes/sassi/spns/INDEX2INTRO.pdf - page 7).

<quote> Jackson also proposed another 'Pictish' language that incorporated pre-Celtic elements surviving (at least for epigraphic purposes) alongside 'Pritenic'. The latter hypothesis provoked most attention: it has little support among present-day scholars, and the debate, while interesting, has proved something of a distraction as far as the study of place-names is concerned ... (for recent reviews of and contributions to the debate on 'Pictish', see Nicolaisen 1996 and Forsyth 1998). </quote>

For a second source, Price's Languages in Britain and Ireland is on Google Books and the chapter on Pictish pretty is much readable. Forsyth's paper Literacy in Pictland is also on Google Books, but not very readable. Angus McLellan 16:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

A note to editors: Material removed from Picts and material not used in Picts

My sandbox User:Angusmclellan/Pictish language contains references originally in Picts concerning language (added by User:Pádraic MacUidhir, ta !). It also has some material I wrote for Picts and didn't use, and links that may be useful. The study of the Pictish language is a long story, which speaks against the usual "Whig history of science" served up on WP, and it could do with telling here. Very Kuhnian indeed. Feel free to use any, all, or none of it. Angus McLellan 22:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll check it out soon and see if I can help. Alexander 007 13:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Fin?

...is also the Gaelic prefix for white, so is it really valid to claim it as a Pictish prefix?

There is also no discussion of a pre-IE component to Pictish. --MacRusgail 11:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Fir should indeed go. That section was lifted from the original Picts article. Among the Pictish place name elements listed by Glanville Price, not given here already, there are pert (hedge, Welsh perth - Perth, Larbert), carden (thicket, Welsh cardden - Pluscarden, Kincardine), pevr (shining, Welsh pefr - Strathpeffer, Peffery) (Languages of Britain and Ireland, p. 128). I have an unread copy of Nicolaisen's book lying in Scotland. When I've read it, I should be able to add more.

Feel free to add non-IE Pictish. but, given the subject matter, it would be nice to cite sources here. Have you have a chance to read any of the online material on language and place names listed at Picts ? Angus McLellan 21:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Place within Celtic

So what's the scholarly consensus, if there is one, about where Pictish goes within the Celtic family? Is it sistered to Insular Celtic? sistered to Brythonic and Goidelic? within Brythonic? What are the young folk saying these days? QuartierLatin1968 16:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, here's something from Angr's talk archive, back from when I was faffing around earlier. So far as I know, the experts, if you mean paleolinguists by that, have no opinions. Angus McLellan 19:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

.... Begins ....

Section header: reverting Celtic languages (pictish)

You beat me to it. Hmmph. :P

→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 18:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

And I just put it back. I can readily find, and have added, sources supporting Celtic Pictish. It shouldn't be difficult, if it remains controversial, to find some published support for non-Celtic Pictish since the turn of the millennium using recent research. The best I could find was Marija Gimbutas in The Living Goddesses (1999), not exactly an uncontroversial work and not post-millennial. Sure, I found more, but they relied on positively ancient research. Lehmann's Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics (2005) is a good example of this sort of thing. Angus McLellan 12:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It's always difficult finding sources arguing against fringe theories like this, because while supporters publish lots, the majority who don't believe them just ignore the issue and don't bother publishing arguments against them. If Pictish is generally omitted from lists of Celtic languages compiled by modern scholars, then the implication is that they do not consider it to be a Celtic language, even if they don't discuss it explicitly. --Angr (tɔk) 12:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I confess to zero expertise in the matter - I only read the end results - but it seems to me that e.g. Price, Nicolaisen and Forsyth are not cranks. That being so, I don't see how the current orthodoxy can be any more of a fringe theory than Jackson's theory which preceded it. I understood that "P-Celtic Pictish" was also the long-accepted theory before Jackson proposed a non-IE Pictish alongside the Pretenic/Brythonic one. Re Jackson's theory on the Picts page, where you added a (fact) template, I know where he wrote about this, but I haven't read it myself. Wearing your Wiki-admin hat, is it considered the done thing for me to put in a ref to something I have not actually seen myself (i.e. Glanville Price says Kenneth Jackson says, so I can add "see Jackson, K.H. whatever") ? Thanks in advance ! Angus McLellan 00:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it (wearing my Celticist hat), the current orthodoxy is neither that Pictish is Brythonic, nor that it is non-IE, but that too little is known about Pictish to know what it is. That's what Ball & Fife say in the introduction to The Celtic Languages, and also what my professors said when I was studying Indo-European linguistics in graduate school. In the introduction to a different book also called The Celtic Languages Donald MacAulay has a diagram making Pictish a sister branch to Brittonic under the heading "P-Celtic" (itself a sister to "Q-Celtic" under "Insular Celtic") but in the text never discusses this. Paul Russell's An Introduction to the Celtic Languages never discusses Pictish at all. Wearing my admin hat, I think it's fine to give the bibliographical information of a source you haven't read, though you should probably be careful not to put words in Jackson's mouth before reading him yourself. I also want to make it clear that I'm all in favor of saying that there are people who have argued that Pictish is Brythonic, and citing those sources, but I don't think it's NPOV to present that as the current communis opinio. --Angr (tɔk) 09:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Belated thanks for the info. FWIW, MacAulay discusses Pictish at the bottom of page 2. ISTM that I could have written that. Angus McLellan 00:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

.... Ends ....

What is the point of listing a language which is virtually unattested under "Celtic languages"? I am sure it is undisputed that each Celtic tribe had its own Celtic dialect, but it is entirely pointless to list these as varieties of Celtic as they are completely unattested. Judging from the sources discussed in the article body (only), it appears that it is widely undisputed that Pictish was most likely Celtic (rather than non-Indo-European or any of the more eccentric suggestions), but that doesn't mean anything can be stated positively on its properties. I guess it is rather relevant, given the lack of other sources, that Bede lists Gaelic, Welsh and Pictish as three languages. Of course Bede was no comparative linguists and cannot class them as "Celtic", but it is important to know that there were three (not two, not four) indigenous languages in Britain in the 8th century (besides the two newcomers, English and Latin). --dab (𒁳) 15:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, exactly. Pictish was clearly a Celtic language, in all likelihood P-Celtic, yet distinct from Welsh. If it had simply been a dialect of Gaelic you might have a point but it appears to have been the language spoken throughout most of Scotland for many hundreds of years. The lack of surviving written material if frustrating but hardly a reason not to list it. Ben MacDui 09:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, if we take for granted that each Celtic tribe had its own Celtic language, a "list of Celtic languages" will be equivalent to a "list of Celtic tribes", only it will consist to 90% of languages that, while all spoken for many hundreds of years, are completely unattested.

But of course, since we do have a Pictish language article (unlike, say, Insubrian language) I see nothing wrong with listing this article under list of Celtic languages. I don't have an opinion on this. The point that Pictish was "distinct from Welsh" is rather difficult to assess. We are looking at 8th to 9th century Old Welsh, which is itself practically unattested. We more or less just have Bede's word that the languages were different, but that's hardly the judgement of a comparative philologist, it may mean that Pictish and Welsh were as distinct as, say, English and German, but it may also mean that they were as distinct as English and Scots. --dab (𒁳) 11:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The evidence for a significant difference between Welsh and Pictish may be weak, but it would seem to be all we have. Also, as I am sure you know, the Picts were not simply a "tribe" as List of Kings of the Picts suggests. Ben MacDui 08:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly dab's point is. We all know that a language is a dialect with an army and navy, and Bede may have categorized Pictish as a distinct language from British simply because there was a distinct Pictish kingdom. Nevertheless, Pictish has been traditionally treated as a separate language by linguists, and it is our job at Wikipedia to reflect scholarly consensus, not to carry out original research on language classification. BabelStone (talk) 09:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, the opposition to list it under "Celtic languages" is not the concern that it may be too similar to British, but the minority opinion that it may not have been Celtic at all. Nobody is proposing "original research". However, the compilation of list articles depends heavily on editorial good judgement based on such (contradictory) research as we have evidence for. --dab (𒁳) 09:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

So what is it?

The sentence "The problem of classification of the Pictish language was largely solved in 1582, by humanist scholar (and native Gaelic-speaker) George Buchanan, who expressed the view that Pictish was similar to Gaelic" is certainly going to lead the casual reader to believe the current communis opinio is that Pictish is Goidelic, which AFAIK is the one thing Pictish almost certainly is not. The "Glossary of Pictish words" lists only apparent loanwords from Norse, Old Irish, and Brythonic, so we're still left with nothing that's verifiably Pictish. The sentence "The evidence of placenames and personal names argue strongly that the Picts spoke Insular Celtic languages related to the more southerly Brythonic languages" is disingenuous since in general placenames and personal names are extremely unreliable indicators of genetic affiliation. (If place names and personal names were all we had of the Dravidian languages, we'd think they were descended from Sanskrit.) Angr (talk • contribs) 14:05, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

If I may say so, the remark "lists only apparent loanwords" is puzzling. Clearly the Norse stuff is rubbish, but what else should supposedly Pictish words resemble but Insular Celtic ones ? The list is, in large part, that done by Jackson fifty years ago, and still accepted by Price and Nicolaisen recently. Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:17, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, "crosc possibly derived from the Old Irish word for 'cross'" has to be a loanword somehow since the Old Irish word for "cross" is itself a loanword from Latin. Angr (talk • contribs) 17:59, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. But since the word list was unsourced, I have deleted it, leaving the five roots identified by Jackson and Bede's supposedly Pictish placename. There is considerable discussion of place-names in Watson, and also in Nicolaisen's revised Scottish Place-Names, but that's for some other time. Angus McLellan (Talk) 09:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Richard Cox and Pictish=Norse

The article should certainly discuss the text of the "pictish" inscriptions to some extent. Richard Cox's "Norse" theory should also be at least mentioned, whether or not you find it persuasive. Thoughts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CecilWard (talk • contribs) 13:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC).

Opacity

Of all the many articles I've come across in Wikipédia, the opening section of this one is by far the worst in terms of opacity and misuse of jargon. I wish I had the knowledge of the subjet to edit it and make somthing worthwhile.--UserUser:TalkTalk (talk) 00:16, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

New inscriptions lists.

These lists are maybe interesting, but do they add any value to the article as presented? Do we know which of the inscriptions are in Pictish in any case? Some of them have been interpreted as being in gaelic and one of the latin alphabet inscriptions looks like it is in Latin. Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I've removed these lists. They were, for the most part, copied and pasted from http://web.onetel.net. uk/~hibou/Pictish%20Inscriptions.html with identical formatting. See WP:COPYVIO. The 'repeated elements' section fell foul of WP:NOR.

Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 16:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for developing this article. I was disappointed to see the Ogham list go though I understand your reasoning. I think the information is of interest but copyright (if applicable) must prevail. Maybe Ogham inscriptions#Scholastic inscriptions (which could be expanded) is a place that could be linked to from here. I have seen a comparable list in The Picts and Their Symbols by Cummins [1] (there is also a later edition) and I think the information, suitably reorganised, could be incorporated without any breach of copyright. Thincat (talk) 12:37, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I've got a lot more to do to it... I'm going to bring in a bit more about the ogham but with a bit more context. Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 18:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Reversion of edit

I've reverted the following edits:

John Pinkerton attempted in 1789 to demonstrate that Pictish was of Germanic origin and that the Picts originated in Scandinavia (following the climate deterioration in the late Nordic Bronze Age).(Pinkerton (1789)) He maintained that Pictish was the predecessor to Modern Scots and his evidences were rambling and often bizarre (for example he sought to prove that the place name elements Aber and Inver were of Germanic rather than celtic origin). According to Fergusson (1998), The motivation behind his thesis was apparently his belief that Celts were an inferior people.

Pinkerton made many strange claims in his work, but nobody was making any claims about climate change in the Nordic Bronze Age in 1789. Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 13:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The older history of "Pictish studies"

Right now, the introduction seems to indicate, that the word "Pictish" started to be used as a name for an (or several) old language(s) in 1955. This is of course false; whence the introduction ought to be clarified. The unclear sentence is

The term "Pictish" was used by Jackson (1955), and followed by Forsyth (1997), to mean the language spoken mainly north of the Forth-Clyde line in the Early Middle Ages.

Possibly, Jackson made a re-definition of the term "Pictish", as scolars often do (since they need rather precise meaning of their key terminology). If so, write this; but do not write it in such a manner that a casual reader doesn't understand that it was used before that year.

I just looked up Pictish in the OED on line. Note, that the Anglo-saxon spelling was "Pihttisc", which was rendered as "Pictish" (at least) from 1690 on.

I also looked at some older encyclopaediae. The term Pictish definitely was used to denote a language before 1955, too. JoergenB (talk) 19:24, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Before the 1955 reference is mentioned the article clearly states that Pictish was referred to by Bede in the 8th century, so I don't really see your point. --dab (𒁳) 20:02, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

What is the point of the reference to Jackson's use of the term? Does he change the meaning of the term, or make it more precise? When I read it, my first impression was that the purpose of the sentence is to explain that Jackson introduced the term. I agree that the article mentions Bede (who, however, was not a modern scolar...). However, more readers than I might get the impression from the text that the modern investigations of Pictish started in 1955. Is this by intent? JoergenB (talk) 21:08, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit clunky. Watson uses the term (albeit with inverted commas) in The Celtic Placenames of Scotland (1926) Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 21:17, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The term "Pictish" was in the language, as you may see from the OED excerpts (loc. cit.); e. g., a Celtic language scholar, Sir John Rhys, mentioned it as non-Indoeuropean in 1892. There is no inverted comma in the OED excerpt. JoergenB (talk) 14:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Arthurian Placenames as an evidence of Brittonic culture.

Arthurs
Seat

Suidh
Artair

Beinn
Artair

Aghaidh Artair

Arthurstone

Arthur's Cairn

Arthurseat

Suidhe Artair

Arthur's
Oven

class=notpageimage|

Locations:

– Picts; – Strathclyde Britons; – Goddodin (Britonnic); Name

Watson briefly mentions Arthurian legends in Celtic Placenames of Scotland (p208), as an evidence of Brittonic culture:

Along with this, there are the place-names and traditions involving the name of Arthur. The Gael carried the tale of Diarmid to Scotland, locating the scene of his hunting of the Boar and his tragic death in many parts of the North, as for instance at Beinn Laghail (Ben Loyal) in Sutherland, in Kintail of Ross-shire, in Brae Lochaber, and in Perthshire. Similarly the post-Roman Britons took with them wherever they went the tale of Arthur, and as place-names and traditions connected with the Diarmid saga are a sure sign of the presence of the Gael, so Arthurian names and legends are a sign of the presence of the Briton. The best-known 'Arthurian locality' is Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh. North of the Wall on the West are Suidhe Artair, Arthur's Seat, Dumbarton, on the right bank of the Leven; Beinn Artair (the Cobbler), at the head of Loch Long; Aghaidh Artair, 'Arthur's Face,' a rock on the west side of Glenkinglas, in the same district, with the likeness of a man's profile; Sruth Artair, Struarthour 1573 (RMS) in Glassary, Argyll. In the East there are Arthurstone near Cupar Angus, Arthur's Cairn, Arthouriscairne 1595 (RMS), apparently on the south side of Bennachie, Aberdeenshire; Arthurseat in Aberdeenshire ; and Suidhe Artair, Suiarthour 1638 (Ret.), now Suidhe, in Glenlivet, Banffshire. There is, or rather was, also Arthur's Oven, in 1293 Furnus Arthuri, described in 1723 as between the house of Stenhouse (Larbert) and the water of Carron, 'an old building in form of a sugar loaf, built without [209] lime or any other mortar.' (3) It may well be that these are not all connected with the British hero, but most of them probably are so connected, and it is particularly suggestive to find an 'Arthur's Seat' at the head of Glenlivet.

Worth mentioning in this article? Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 11:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

There's also the legends as transcribed by Boece, of Vanora/Guinivere (Guanora in Bellenden) having a memorial at Meigle (Meigle 2), as well as the legend of the battle between Arthur and Mordred at Dunnichen (before it was edited into the battle of Nechtansmere) Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 11:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Popularity of Gaelic Pictish in the 19th century

I've removed an editorial comment from the Position within Celtic section. After the statement This view, involving independent invasions of Ireland and Scotland by Goedelic invaders, enjoyed wide popular acceptance in 19th-century Scotland, as it discounted an Irish influence in the development of Gaelic Scotland. the single word question (How?) had been added, with the edit summary If waves of gaels came over a longer period, how does that negate an Irish influence?

I don't think there's any particular ambiguity in the way the sentence is worded, but to clarify, Skene's views found popularity as it removed an Irish origin for Scottish Gaelic. The sentence is referenced to two reliable sources and we don't need to go into any great depth exploring anti-Irish sentiment in 19th century Scotland.

The passages referenced:

Jackson (1955) p131: This was popularised by Skene as early as 1836, and it was widely accepted in Scotland, where it had the advantage of making the Gaelic language appear to be indigenous and not an importation from Ireland. Skene's arguments are now quite out of date, and need not be recapitulated.

Forsyth (1997) p6: In the eighteenth century respected scholars argued, in terms that now seem alarmingly racist, that Pictish was the ancestor of modern Scots (English) and thus that there were civilized Germanic-speakers in Scotland long before the first barbaric Goidel stepped ashore. More subtle, perhaps, was the view that it was from Pictish rather than Old-Irish that the Scottish Gaelic descended, thus disposing of the supposed embarrassment of a Presbyterian nation founded by immigrant Irish Catholics!

For an Irish viewpoint see O'Rahilly (1946) p379: Skene's writings, with his obsession in favour of the Picts, his prejudice against the 'barbarous' Irish colonists, and his 'Scottish-Gaelic-owes-nothing-to-Ireland' theory, engendered in some of his fellow-countrymen a kind of patriotic Pictomania [...]

Catfish Jim & the soapdish 15:38, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

A quote from Skene exemplifying these views on him would be more useful in backing them up. Gaelic was still viewed as Irish by many AngloScots in the nineteenth century which would make a lengthier Gaelic presence less popular amongst those promoting anti Irish sentiment. Seamusalba (talk) 16:00, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Without a reference, such a claim would be original research, regardless of its merits. Catfish Jim & the soapdish 16:40, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of its merits is an important clause. Seamusalba (talk) 16:46, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Imagine I wanted to edit the text as it now stands to say:

One reason this view, involving independent invasions of Ireland and Scotland by Goedelic invaders, enjoyed wide popular acceptance in 19th-century Scotland, was that it was viewed by some as discounting an Irish influence in the development of Gaelic Scotland.¹³ However, Skene's position would have been unpopular amongst anti-gaelic Anglo-Scots as the Gaelic language was viewed as Irish.

It would likely be reverted as the added statement is something that has not come from a reliable published source. Catfish Jim & the soapdish 16:59, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Its important to have the clarification that it was ONE reason for its popularity, as there is never just one reason for the popularity of anything. Seamusalba (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Another written attestation of Pictish?

This is not my area of expertise, but I noticed that Medieval Archaeology published an article in 2004 titled: "English and Pictish Terms for Brooch in an 8th-century Irish Law-Text". Someone interested in this topic may want to check it out. The Jade Knight (talk) 22:23, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

AD vs CE

The date formatting in this article were changed earlier today from AD to CE with the following edit summary:

This was changed out of process by an era warrior against WP:ERA

This does not seem to be the case. The dates had originally been introduced by two editors, User:Dbachmann and User:Adresia in the AD format:

• [2] (October 2007)
• [3] (April 2010)
• [4] (April 2010)

Subsequently, a legend from a map was altered by User:Asarlaí with a date in CE format:

• [5] (March 2011)

This was edited for consistency within the article by an IP editor as per WP:ERA:

• [6] (July 2011)

As WP:ERA states: Do not arbitrarily change from one style to the other on any given article. Instead, attempt to establish a consensus for change at the talk page. I guess we need to have a discussion about this here. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 10:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I may have been wrong about this. I got hold of a serial date-warrior earlier and undid a number of his edits, but that process can sometimes lead to confusion. If the regular editors of this article want it to be at AD, I have no objections. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 10:40, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about it. In certain cases CE is preferable, but I don't think it's too much of an issue on this page. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 10:52, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

so, it turns out the "era warrior" (the IP making the unilateral change without discussion) introduced CE, not AD. How on earth did you conclude the opposite was the case?

In my book, "CE" is a pathetic gesture born from political correctness. There is no reason whatsoever to use it unless you are stuck to your eyebrows in the 1980s-era mud that is PC. I accept that this is indeed the case for some people, enough to make it a valid "alternative" used in some articles, but I really do not have much patience with people going around imposing this thing on the work of others. This kind of political correctness was a terrible idea from the beginning, and it has been exposed as a terrible idea for anyone who cares to look for 20 years or more, and it is really past due time to let it die already. --dab (𒁳) 11:00, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

A similar edit was made at Gaels with the summary:

'Revert date warring'

• [7]

This altered three pieces of text. Two were introduced by User:Cagwinn with the AD format:

• [8] September 2010
• [9] December 2010

And a third that is a little harder to follow as it's been knocked about a bit, but originated with this edit by User:Sergeirichard:

• [10] November 2005

It may be tricky to assume good faith here. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 11:24, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I reverted a load of edits made today by Steven J. Anderson where he changed BC/AD to BCE/CE with the edit summary "Revert date warring" or "This was changed out of process by an era warrior against WP:ERA" as he wasn't reverting a specific recent edit and there was no recent history of date warring on the pages, but I eventually realised that he was actually reverting changes made by an IP about a year ago, which was not obvious in the edit histories of most of the articles. I should have assumed good faith, but his edit summaries were misleading and I (mistakenly) thought it was a dishonest attempt to impose BCE/CE on the articles. IMO, if an article has used the same era convention for a long period of time, even if it was previously unilaterally changed by an IP, then it should be discussed on the talk page before changing back. BabelStone (talk)

Prittenic

Hey, I came across a thing called "Prittenic", which was a revival project of Pictish. You can see the page on wikispaces here. I don't know is this is notable for the article, add it if it is, but I want to know, how did they get the Pictish words? Where can I find texts in Pictish if I wanted to? I thought it wasn't ever attested. Please respond. Shikku27316 (talk) 19:04, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

The owner of the site has created the words and phrases based on some basic assumptions. Interesting, perhaps, but whether it has any academic merit is questionable.

The site is not a reliable source in any case. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 07:59, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

So, in other words, the owner just came up with a bunch of random sounds, or did they take the few words of Pictish we know and find sound correspondences and change them over, or what? I wish to send them a message, as it is interesting, as to how they got these words. So, it's not really Pictish? Not knowing any Britonic languages myself, I couldn't even say if they resembled Britonic. Shikku27316 (talk) 01:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

They're not random sounds... there are celtic-sounding words there, but where the owner got them from, I couldn't say. There is no recorded Pictish words other than placenames and personal names. "tiocolat" is not one of them. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 22:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

So, you're saying that these words are conversions over from other Brythonic languages? Or it's just poorly done Brythonic sounding words? Is there a possibility that it could really be Pictish? Shikku27316 (talk) 02:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, just to get that out of the way, it's not really Pictish. Pictish is extinct and there are no written records of it. We have sufficient clues from place names and names recorded in the King lists to know that it was originally a Brythonic language, and we think that it was increasingly Gaelicised over the course of a few centuries until it gave way to Gaelic (a Brythonicised Gaelic at that), but that's about it.

The author of the website states that he is constructing languages. One is "Prittenic", what he imagines Pictish may have been like in 300-400AD. The other is "Prithenic" which is what he believes Pictish may have been like if it had survived to the present day. The "Prittenic" is what is of interest here.

The author give "Good night" as "Nochtos mâtos" in "Prittenic". This seems closer to Welsh ("Nos da"), Breton ("Noz vat") and Cornish ("Nos dha") than it is to Gaelic ("Oidhche mhath"), Irish ("Oíche mhaith") and Manx ("Oie vie"). He also gives "Good day" as "Diwos mâtos" "Day" in Gaelic is "Latha" but "Dydd" in Welsh (there is another Welsh word for day, "diwrnod" which is really a measure of time rather than day/night).

It looks like the author is attempting to construct a Brythonic language as opposed to a Goidelic. I have no idea how close "nochtos" is to the Archaic Welsh word for night (or, indeed, if it is known). The closest I can come is Middle Welsh (again, "nos"), but we're about 1000 years too late. Nor do I know if it has any similarities to Lepontic or Gaulish. I'm not a linguist, so can't make any judgement on the quality of the work. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 10:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. I think it is interesting that someone is trying to "revive" Pictish, though. Either way, I'm glad to know about this new "Prittenic". Shikku27316 (talk) 17:52, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

It is interesting, but I don't know how exactly the author of that website is approaching the subject. If I were in his/her position I would start from the viewpoint expressed by Forsyth:

[O]n current evidence the only acceptable conclusion is that, from the time of our earliest historical sources, there was only one language spoken in Pictland, the most northerly reflex of Brittonic.

Reconstruction of Brythonic/Brittonic is well established and involves comparative studies of its surviving descendants (Welsh, Breton and Cornish). The remaining peculiarities of Pictish could be further extracted from the Brythonic elements that influenced Scottish Gaelic (comparison of Scottish Gaelic with Irish/Old Irish). This may be what he/she is doing. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, now I'm interested. If I can get in touch with this person, I will ask them and report back here. Shikku27316 (talk) 19:11, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The man is clearly an amateur, and clueless at that. For instance, Nochtos mâtos is clearly bollocks. Ancient Celtic (Proto-Insular-Celtic being one ancient Celtic dialect) would have *nox(t)s matis or in the accusative, *noxtan matin or the like (x stands for a voiceless velar fricative here). What he does is barely more than adding random -os endings to Welsh words, creating some sort of "Dog Celtic" along the lines of Biggus Dickus-type Dog Latin. And tries to pass that off as a serious reconstruction.

It's more likely, in my opinion, that by 300–400 AD, Pictish was identical with or at least very close to Common Brittonic (more precisely, Schrijver's Early Proto-British), and had it survived until the present day, it would be roughly as similar to Welsh as Cornish and Breton are, much like Cumbric. So Modern Welsh is really the best approximation to a hypothetical Modern Pictish. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Poorly cited and poorly written

This article is rather confusing, mixing current theories and long-since discredited theories as if they were all equal. In language classification, there's no need to bring up theories discredited for over a century (WP:UNDUE) and the complete lack of sources makes it unclear whose theories these are. Similarly, no source is given for the claim that most scholars regard Pictish as Brittonic. Probably true, but not source. As for "the few" who dispute it, a source is needed there as well. Jeppiz (talk) 22:50, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

It would be beneficial if the users deleting the templates would start discussing rather than just blanket-deleting templates without providing any sources. As I already commented, none of the tagged claims are satisfactorily sourced. Jeppiz (talk) 08:06, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Language Classification

(talk page comment moved to bottom as per convention) Catfish Jim and the soapdish 21:22, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm confused here. The article states that Pictish is a Celtic language however when I click the link it takes to me to a page which states the language is unclassified. The current consensus is that Pictish is a Celtic language, but is far as I'm aware it has yet to be actually confirmed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.0.79 (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it appears Language Tree is somewhat out of date. I'm happy to leave the classification in the infobox as "unclassified" until they update it. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 21:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I know the Celtic language explanation is the most plausible scenario, but isn't it not without its own dissenting voices? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.0.79 (talk) 21:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Not especially (as far as I am aware... I'm not a specialist). The only credible alternative in the last century has been the non-indo european hypothesis. This depended on a particular interpretation of iron age archaeology that has long since flown. Forsyth effectively demolished this 15 years ago in her paper Language in Pictland. If there's any response to that, I'd be interested (I've not read any, but that may be because I wasn't specifically looking for it).

Much of the recent debate has been about what exactly is meant by Pictish, as the replacement by Gaelic appears to have been very gradual (and not necessarily complete). When did it stop being Pictish? Is the distinction between P/Q celtic as real as we used to think? Catfish Jim and the soapdish 22:21, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

http://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/picts-in-many-places-if-picts-is-the-word/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.0.79 (talk) 07:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The majority of scholars now favor the notion of a single, P-Celtic Pictish language over a non-Indo-European Pictish or ‘two Pictishes’. However, again, this is not necessarily the last word on the subject. Several of Forsyth’s points are themselves open to question. If the presence of non-Indo-European place-names does not indicate the presence of a non-Indo-European language, then why does the presence of Celtic place-names indicate the presence of a Celtic language? Or again, if non-Indo-European place names do not guarantee the presence of non-Indo-European speech, they also hardly preclude it. Another point of Forsyth’s also strikes one as particularly dubious: she claims that the notion of a Celtic aristocracy ruling over a pre-Celtic population is ‘not compatible with what we know of settled barbarian social organization’. She fails to explain what this ‘barbarian’ social structure is and why it precludes an ethnically or linguistically distinct aristocracy, nor indeed why there is a generic ‘barbarian’ social structure that may be projected onto the Picts (or for that matter why, in the late 20th century, she is still referring to her ancestors with a Roman insult for foreigners, barbari). More importantly, she also overlooks the historically well-documented cases of Celtic-speaking peoples ruling over non-Celtic populations, e.g. in Galatia where a few thousand Celts became masters of the populations living in central Turkey. Given the lack of decisive evidence, and the general mystique and appeal of the Picts, a people who left an impressive artistic legacy at the dawn of Scottish history before almost completely disappearing, a healthy debate is likely to go on for some time.

This is another brief criticism I've read, then again this could be wrong and many of the questions raised have possibly been answered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.0.79 (talk) 07:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the evidence for non-Indoeuropean placenames in use in Pictish times is slim. We certainly don't have them now.

Note: that's not correct. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 23:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Jackson interpreted some of the names on Ptolomy's map as non-Indoeuropean, but most are less problematic than he claimed, were potentially garbled by being reported in a foreign language from secondhand information (and, if I remember correctly, he was somewhat over-selective in what he presented).

It might be worthwhile inserting a sentence or two about non-Indoeuropean maintaining some appeal to a popular audience due to the mystique aspect.

Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:24, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

In favor of P-Celtic, I'd point out that we know from the names of some Pictish kings that the patronymic prefix was "Map." 01:08, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Aren't there some etymologically obscure place names, especially names of islands, in northern Scotland that have been suggested to be of Pre-Indo-European origin? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've read somewhere that some historians are in the opinion that there may have been more than one culture (possibly language?) in the area called Pictland.

http://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/pictland-should-be-plural/

http://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/iron-age-picts-and-their-spoken-language/

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.250.59.168 (talk) 16:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course there were... what we refer to as the Picts were a loose collection of societies covering a period of several hundred years. "Pictish" covers a continuum of languages from the P-celtic Pritenic, through a range of hybrid forms, where Pictish increasingly took on the vocabulary of Old Irish, until it was subsumed by Irish as early Scottish Gaelic, which retains Pictish syntax. Throughout this process, Old Irish would have been used by the religious elite. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 11:11, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

That was to the previous user asking about the possible pre-Celtic (pre-IE?) origins of some Scottish island names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.217.244.241 (talk) 19:14, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

There were two languages spoken in "Pictland"... Gaelic and Pictish, both Celtic languages. There is nothing controversial in this. There is also nothing controversial in the fact that some pre-Indo European place names have survived in Scotland. They have also survived in England... this doesn't imply that pre-Indo-European language itself survived to the middle ages in either country. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 23:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Not against P-Celtic Pictish, I thought the articles above are about pre-Celtic people of Scotland (particularly on the north west) and that archeologists don't really know much about them let alone assign a language to them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.217.244.241 (talk) 21:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

The first article says that we should not think of the Picts as a single culture... not particularly controversial, but he's addressing a popular misconception rather than academic orthodoxy.

The second article deals with the recent Royal Society paper that looked at Pictish symbols. I've read the paper in question a few times and am likewise baffled at the amount of coverage it got in the media given that its actual conclusions were so pedestrian (that the symbols contain information rather than being random). Anyway... the blog author mentions Forsyth's demolition of Jackson. He reckons Gaelic was spoken earlier than commonly thought (how early and thought by whom?) and says that a learned Celticist says that some Scottish placenames aren't Celtic (but he hasn't published). I'd like to see more about the placename argument, to see if there is any controversy there (hydronyms are notoriously well-conserved, for example, and say little about survival of languages). Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:48, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the (discredited) pre-Indo European theory can be elaborated a bit? I know it's highly unlikely, but it will help explain its enduring appeal, mystique or whatever. I can accept that the Picts spoke a P-Celtic language, though I've always been curious about the people before the Celts, their culture and language even if it died out centuries before the Romans set foot in Scotland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.231.5 (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Going out on a limb for a moment (and I'm perfectly aware of the obscurum per obscurius fallacy, I'm only speculating), it just occurred to me that even some of the etymologically obscure place names on Iceland mentioned in History of Icelandic#Toponyms, insofar as they are not of continental Scandinavian (especially Sámi) origin, might have been imported from Scotland (or the isles in general) instead, and might therefore belong to the same (hypothetical) Pre-Indo-European stratum, considering the intense contacts between Iceland and Scotland (or the isles in general). Of course I'm not trying to suggest that Pre-Indo-European languages survived in Britain into the medieval period, but as tenacious as toponyms can be, they can hardly be all that old, and given that indigenous languages even in the modern age are often surprisingly tenacious, I believe it is fair to suggest that Pre-Indo-European survived (especially at the margins, such as northern Scotland) into the Iron Age at least (though that does not necessarily mean it must have survived in those place names relayed to us by ancient authors). But it is certainly true that the disappearance of (almost?) all traces of Pre-Indo-European in the isles is frustrating. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:39, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Given the timeline, I think it's unlikely that there was any importation of Pre-IE toponomy from Britain into Iceland. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 13:16, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, I just think it's a line worth investigating. Perhaps there are indeed placenames similar to some of the obscure placenames on Iceland in Scotland, names that have been missed because scholars didn't think of looking in Scotland.

By the way, the distinction between P- and Q-Celtic – or more precisely Brythonic and Goidelic – is certainly "real", insofar as there are more early differences (especially sound laws) than the P/Q one that distinguish the two languages, and there are differences in syntax too; as mentioned in the article, Scottish Gaelic has diverged in a striking way syntactically from Modern Irish (we can tell that it was Scottish Gaelic that innovated because of Old/Middle Irish), and in a way that just so happens to fit Brythonic. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:15, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Not from Scandinavia

I know that the Germanic bit is a discredited theory, but that section includes that claim that the "Gothone" are the Goths, and that the Goths are from Scandinavia. "Gothone" is an odd form, so this theory may involve even more confusion beyond the equation of the Cotini with the Goths with Scandinavia with Scythia with the Picts. Also, most recent work on Gothic history rejects the idea of a Scandinavian origin. 96.231.17.131 (talk) 16:54, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

But the section doesn't claim that the Gothone are Goths. Rather, it claims that Sibbald claimed this. There doesn't seem to be anything dubious about this claim. It's just reporting the history of the anthropology in this case. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 17:22, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It's very much a work in progress, despite the lack of banner saying so. "Gothones" comes from Tacitus and is mentioned briefly here: Gothiscandza. I was going to edit this article further over the holidays and will attempt to clarify this section. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Most scholars do not say that the Goths are not from Scandinavia (and North and Eastern Germanic are definitely and official more alike than they are to West Germanic) only that the Goths were a mix of Scandinavian immigrants and locals from the area which is now Poland etc. 86.171.60.190 (talk) 02:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

North Germanic and Gothic (the rest of East Germanic is too little known to analyse, so we don't really know if it was a valid subbranch of Germanic) have hardly anything in common, the only clear common innovation being Holtzmann's law (which differs in the details and from runic attestations and Germanic loanwords in Finnic probably happened in North Germanic independently at a time when Gothic was already separate, so even this innovation probably does not matter). See Gotho-Nordic hypothesis and Holtzmann's law#Alternative views.

The idea that immigrants from Scandinavia arrived at the mouth of the Vistula ca. 200 AD and perhaps set the Gothic migration in motion appears more defensible archaeologically, although that does not necessarily mean that the language is an import from Scandinavia as well and the immigrants were likely no more than a small group of warriors who established themselves as the ruling class among the Goths, perhaps similar to the Norse Rus' in Eastern Europe among the East Slavs.

Admittedly, there are some tantalising but inconclusive indications that a language or languages closely related to Gothic may have been spoken at least on Gotland at some point and possibly in parts of Sweden (and perhaps Finland/Estonia?) as well; I believe it's an attractive possibility, considering that Old Gutnish is very close to Old Swedish and at some point in the early medieval period they must have formed a common East Norse proto-dialect (and in any case slightly earlier a common Proto-North-Germanic, which must have expanded and overlaid older linguistic strata), which points to a late import of North Germanic on Gotland, but apparently a Gothic-like substratum in the region cannot be demonstrated with any certainty. I admit it's an attractive possibility but it remains speculative. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:25, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for getting carried away; this doesn't have anything to do with Pictish anymore. I just wished to correct the misconception of the IP that the Gotho-Nordic hypothesis is still mainstream or even "official"; it has long since been discredited. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:28, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Why not a Fenno-Ugrian language? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.75.151.132 (talk) 22:09, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Circular reasoning, cart before horse, Occam's razor

"Scottish Gaelic, unlike Irish (and, for that matter, Old Irish) maintains a substantial corpus of Brittonic loan-words and, moreover, uses a verbal system modelled on the same pattern as Welsh."

First, isn't it putting the cart before the horse to compare Scottish Gaelic in this way to Welsh? The Welsh of this period was already massively influenced by centuries of Roman-era Latin: roughly half the basic Welsh vocabulary was replaced by direct Latin loanwords. This happened at a time when the language of the north-west of the island was the least able to be influenced by Latin. The same subsequently happened with the Germanic language: although modern English has had an effect on Gaelic, this is since late-medieval times. The influence of Old English on Gaelic was negligible.

The sound of Gaelic has mutated a lot, but it is more conservative of Celtic-group root vocabulary now, than Welsh was even during the dark ages/early medieval period being discussed.

Second, where is any evidence that this corpus is "loaned"? Logically, this statement presumes that whatever people spoke in western Scotland before the Dal Riata period must have been (a) thoroughly expunged, (b) replaced by this (conjectured) importation of Gaelic at the time of Dal Riata (c) must have changed very rapidly from Irish Gaelic (d) whilst "borrowing" words and structures from Brittonic in some unexplained process.

By Occam's razor the presumption should be that this corpus of words (and structures) were retained -- conserved -- from the language spoken in north/west Scotland before Dal Riatan influence, whatever the scope of that conjectured linguistic influence was.

I think what is being said there is that Scottish Gaelic seems to have developed (or diverged from Old Irish) as a pidgin/creole language. Brittonic speakers took on a Goidelic language through influence of church leaders and the political elite but retained grammatical norms of their native tongue. The statement is referenced from Greene, D (1966), "The Making of Insular Celtic", Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Celtic Studies, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 123–136 Catfish Jim and the soapdish 15:41, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Too thin on actual info

This article is very poor. It's not necessarily the editors' fault: research on Pictish is poor and shallow. The data itself is sparse, of course. - The reason for a non-IE classification is that it hasn't been possible to make sense of the actual inscriptions as IE. Not only are they untranslatable, they just don't look IE, In that regars, Pictish is Britain's North Picene. - Forsyth's work has been 'the mainstream' because there's no one else working on this.... but otherwise it's rather devoid of actual linguistic discussion. - Sorry, but the occurrence of the characters 'maq' in otherwise incomprehensible character sequences isn't by itself evidence for anything. Which amounts to saying that the state of the art regarding Pictish is so sorry that: - this article should be much shorter, lest the public gets the idea there's meaningful research going on - it should best avoid pronouncements, though of course the 'general' opinion can be mentioned - it should scoop whatever little data there is.... such as, the most important thing that should be here, a list of examples! I won't be editing this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.48.144.91 (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

The ogham is a distraction... my personal opinion is that they are largely devoid of content and were intended as decoration, but that's just speculation. The real evidence is in the placenames and personal names. The notion that Pictish was non-IE was developed at a time when we believed Celtic languages were a relatively recent introduction to the British isles, and takes a heck of a lot of special pleading in the light of the Atlantic Celtic origin theory... As far as discussion of the data, we're not allowed to undertake original research or form original syntheses from original sources here. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 22:06, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Removed section

I removed a section on Pictish vocabulary. While the information was largely correct, it didn't sit well in the article. It probably could be improved with better, reliable sources, preferably published academic work (not websites). The sole book that had been used in the section was this:

• Donoghue, Clayton N. (2017). The Picts of Scotland. Friesen Press. p. 69-64. ISBN 978-1-4602-9288-4.

This is a self-published work and should not be used as per WP:RSSELF. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 10:31, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Possible Pictish verb on Burrian inscription, Okrney.

From Katherine Forsyth, Language In Pictland - the case against 'non Indo-European Pictish' 1997, page 36:

"the text scratched along the length of the small cross-slab from Burrian in Orkney is problematic for several reasons. It is cursively carved with no indication of word division, a number of key letters are damaged and there arc several forfeda characters of uncertain sound-value. A fair transliteration of the ogham letters would be I[-]IRANNURRACTX EVVCXRROCCS. This is rebarbative to say the least, but if we break it up as I[-]irann uract cheuc chrocs we could take the second word as a Pictish cognate of the Old Welsh *guract 'he/she made' (cf. gwreith 'I made') and the fourth as a spirantized form of a straightforward Pictish *crocs, 'cross' (< Latin crux). The third word remains problematic, but if the damaged first word is a personal name we may have here a Pictish sentence explaining who carved the cross."

It seems here that we may have a Pictish verb in *uract 'he/she made'. This warrants a mention in the article, surely? --JoeyofScotia (talk) 19:24, 11 February 2018 (UTC)