Жоғалған пикт тілі

Extinct language spoken by the Picts

Pictish is an extinct Brittonic Celtic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographical and personal names found on monuments and early medieval records in the area controlled by the kingdoms of the Picts. Such evidence, however, shows the language to be an Insular Celtic language related to the Brittonic language then spoken in most of the rest of Britain. The prevailing view in the second half of the 20th century was that Pictish was a non Indo European language isolate, or that a non Indo European Pictish and Brittonic Pictish language coexisted. Pictish was replaced by – or subsumed into – Gaelic in the latter centuries of the Pictish period. During the reign of Donald II of Scotland (889–900), outsiders began to refer to the region as the kingdom of Alba rather than the kingdom of the Picts. However, the Pictish language did not disappear suddenly. A process of Gaelicisation (which may have begun generations earlier) was clearly under way during the reigns of Domnall and his successors. By a certain point, probably during the 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become fully Gaelicised Scots, and the Pictish identity was forgotten.

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 Britons, the Irish, and the English. Bede states that Columba, a 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 Brittonic (descendants Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric, and Breton). Pictish was an insular Celtic language allied to the Q Celtic (Goidelic) languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and 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, was a branch of the Brittonic language, while a few scholars accept that it was merely "related" to the Brittonic language. Pictish came under increasing influence from the Goidelic language spoken in Dál Riata from the eighth century until its eventual replacement. 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.

In 1892, John Rhys proposed that Pictish was a non Indo European language. This opinion was based on the apparently unintelligible ogham inscriptions found in historically Pictish areas (compare ). A similar position was taken by Heinrich Zimmer, who argued that the Picts' supposedly exotic cultural practices (tattooing and matriliny) were equally non Indo European, and a pre Indo European model was maintained by some well into the 20th century. A modified version of this theory was advanced in an influential 1955 review of Pictish by Kenneth Jackson, who proposed a two language model: while Pictish was undoubtedly P Celtic, it may have had a non Celtic substratum and a second language may have been used for inscriptions. 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. 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. 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. Celtic interpretations have been suggested for a number of Ogham inscriptions in recent years, though this remains a matter of debate.

Traditional accounts (now rejected) claimed that the Picts had migrated to Scotland from Scythia, a region that encompassed Eastern Europe and Central Asia. 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. John Pinkerton expanded on this in 1789, claiming that Pictish was the predecessor to modern Scots. 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.

Although the interpretation of over 40 Ogham inscriptions remains uncertain, several have been acknowledged to contain Brittonic forms. Guto Rhys (2015) notes that significant caution is required in the interpretation of such inscriptions because crucial information, such as the orthographic key, the linguistic context in which they were composed and the extent of literacy in Pictland, remains unknown. (The only direct continuation in Middle Welsh is 1sg. gwreith < *u̯rakt ū in the poem known as "Peis Dinogat" in the Book of Aneirin; this form was eventually reformed to gwnaeth.) With the fourth word explained as spirantized Pictish crocs 'cross' (Welsh croes < Latin crux) and the corrupted first word a personal name, the inscription may represent a Pictish sentence explaining who carved the cross. Distributed from Fife to the Isle of Skye, they are relatively abundant south of the Dornoch Firth but rare in the extreme north. Perth, Perthshire. Meaning "wood, grove" (cf. Welsh perth). Strathtyrum, Fife. Trestirum in 1190, suggestive of assimilation of a Pictish tref, "estate", to (unconnected) Gaelic srath, "a valley".

Etymological investigation of the Scottish Gaelic language, in particular the 1896 efforts of Alexander Macbain, On the basis of a number of the loans attesting shorter vowels than other British cognates, linguist Guto Rhys proposed Pictish resisted some 6th century Latin influenced sound changes. Rhys has also noted the potentially "fiscal" profile of several of the loans, and hypothesized that they could have entered Gaelic as a package in a governmental context. and consequently Guto Rhys adjudged that Pictish may have modified Gaelic verbal syntax.