Who were the Picts?

by LoveUniHateExams 7 Replies latest social current

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  LoveUniHateExams

  So, I've been reading a bit about the Picts recently.

  I'm not sure there's a consensus on exactly who they were or what type of language they spoke.

  Even their name - Picts - has more than one explanation of where it came from. I've read some scholars believe it comes from Latin pictus (painted), referring to their supposed habit of painting themselves and/or tattooing themselves. Other scholars believe that the name Pict comes from another source.

  I've read several passages from Greek & Latin historians that refer to the Picts. They are usually described as red-haired.

  So, people with tattoos and red hair ... sounds like Glasgow on a Friday night.

  The Picts were a confederacy of tribes located in central & northern Scotland. They had their own language(s) and culture. Before the Viking Age, Orkney and Shetland were part of the Pictish realm, I think.

  What was the Pictish language like? Well, I don't know.

  And scholars aren't 100% sure, either. Some believe Pictish was a Brythonic language.

  Brythonic languages are a group of Celtic languages, called P-Celtic because IndoEuropean k becomes p in this language group. Compare the Welsh numerals 4 & 5, pedwar and pump, to the corresponding Latin quattuor and quinque.

  The Brythonic languages (also called Brittonic) were spoken all across what became England and southern Scotland - these languages were spoken by ancient Britons and eventually evolved into Welsh, Cumbric, Cornish and Breton.

  Other scholars believe Pictish to be a separate branch within Celtic or a different IndoEuropean language altogether.

  Here's were it starts to get confusing ... some time in the 5th century CE, Gaels from Ireland came to Scotland. It would've been a short journey - apparently you can stand on a beach in northern Ireland and see Scotland on a clear day. These Gaels established a kingdom called Dal Riata which straddled parts of northern Ireland and south west Scotland. The Gaels, naturally, spoke Gaelic.

  The Gaelic languages comprise another branch of the Celtic family, and are called Q-Celtic because IndoEuropean k became q (later c) in these languages. (Compare/contrast the numerals for 4 & 5 in Scottish Gaelic, ceithir, coig and in Welsh pedwar, pump.)

  In late antiquity/early middle ages, the Pictish kingdom either merged with Dal Riata or was absorbed into it, becoming the kingdom of Alba. A process of Gaelicisation happened, the Picts apparently stopped using their own language and switched to Gaelic. Pictish kings adopted Gaelic names. For instance I read about a Pictish king called Angus mac Fergusa. In Gaelic the noun mac means 'son'; combined with another name it means 'son of'. I did read that Angus mac Fergusa had a Pictish equivalent which I can't remember off the top of my head, except that mac was replaced with map before the second name. So map must be Pictish for 'son of'. I find this interesting because the Welsh word for 'son' is mab. So, was Pictish a Brythonic language, like Welsh? Well, maybe.

  Also worth considering is the fact that Welsh wasn't confined to Wales. Historically, Welsh, or a similar language, was spoken in parts of north west England and southern Scotland. The name Cumbria is very similar to the Welsh name for Wales - Cymru (pronounced 'cum-ree') Also, Wallace is a fairly common name for lowland Scots. It means 'Welsh'. The Welsh called these parts of north west England & southern Scotland Yr Hen Ogledd (the Old North).

  So, who were the Picts?

  I don't know for sure.

  Were they a single group of similar tribes, or were they a group of completely unrelated tribes speaking unrelated languages?

  They might have been ancient British tribes, similar to the Welsh and Cornish, or they could have been completely different.
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  Bungi Bill

  Roman writers described the typical Pict as being tall, long limbed and red-headed. This raises an alternative - that they were possibly of Germanic origin.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  Roman writers described the typical Pict as being tall, long limbed and red-headed. This raises an alternative - that they were possibly of Germanic origin - good point.

  And I've read about this suggestion, too.

  It's entirely possible that the Picts were Germanic, who originally spoke Germanic languages.

  And what about the Pictish king, Angus mac Fergusa? Well, he ruled over Gaelic subjects, so it makes sense for him to adopt a Gaelic version of his name.

  And what about the map equivalent? Well, he also ruled over Brythonic (Welsh) subjects, so it would have also made sense for him to have a Brythonic/Welsh version of his name.

  So, yes, it's entirely possible that the Picts were a Germanic people who switched to speaking Gaelic.

  Germanic people switching to speaking Gaelic? Yes, it's happened at other times in history.

  Norsemen settled in the Hebrides, parts of Ireland, and the isle of Man. These Norsemen referred to themselves as 'Eastmen' and called the Gaels of Scotland, Ireland and Mann 'Westmen'.

  These Norsemen married Gaelic women (or at least had children with them) and learnt the local Gaelic language.

  Their offspring were the Norse-Gaels (called Gall-Gaeil, 'foreigner-Gaels' by the Gaels themselves).

  Genetic studies of modern-day Icelanders and Faroe Islanders show that the majority of their DNA on their fathers' side (Y chromosome) is Norse, and the majority of their DNA on their mothers' side (mitochondrial chromosome) is Gaelic.
  
  
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  Half banana

  It's going to be hard to ever get to know the Picts because they left little written evidence except from some scanty Ogham texts. However I've just read new information that by the third century they had made a number of engravings in stone, some with repeated symbols which look like they had imitated in some measure the Latin texts of the occupying Romans.

  I was in Orkney a while back and came across some delightful folk songs in the now dead language called Norn once spoken in the north east and the islands.The language Norn died out in the 19th century but it came from the North Germanic language group and is related to Faroese. I wonder if this was related to Pictish? However I think Norn came over after the Picts had already arrived.

  There is tantalising evidence for some type of proto-writing on Neolithic Orcadian ceramics, also influenced by Germanic tribes. It would be a remarkable feat to get some development in relating this to the language spoken there.
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  truth_b_known

  Robert E. Howard, author and creator of the Conan the Barbarian series, used the Picts a lot in his novels. I always wondered who they were.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  I was in Orkney a while back and came across some delightful folk songs in the now dead language called Norn once spoken in the north east and the islands.The language Norn died out in the 19th century but it came from the North Germanic language group and is related to Faroese - yes, Norn was a north Germanic language related to Icelandic, Faroese and some western dialects of Norwegian.

  Orkney and Shetland were part of Norway until about 1450.

  I think Norn came over after the Picts had already arrived - yes, Norsemen arrived in Orkney and Shetland in the Viking age. But there were already people on these islands before that.

  I wonder if this was related to Pictish? - there's no real way to tell. But if the Picts spoke Norn or another Germanic language they would've likely had Germanic names, too.

  Why did Pictish kings adopt Gaelic names but their own Germanic names (if they spoke Norn) didn't make it into the historical record?
  
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  JeffT

  I don't know who they were, but they grooved in caves with small furry animals.

  Pict in a cave
  
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  Syme

  Nice topic. Indeed, it's not clarified if they were Celts (and Brythonic-speaking) or a pre-Celtic population. The latter is quite plausible, since the Celts were not the first inhabitants of the Isles, and the Highlands were always a hard place to conquer. As for the first Gaels in Pictland, the Dalriadans, it seems they were partly defeated by the Picts and paid tribute to them, but instead of the Scots adopting the Picts language, the Picts adopted the Gaels language and eventually even their name (Scots). Which points to some kind of merging. As you indicated, some of the first known 'Scotish' kings were actually Picts with a Scottish name form. One of those first ones, I don't remember the exact name, had a Brythonic first name followed by 'Mac'.

  The whole process seems lost in time, but is very interesting.