Talk:Pictish language

Influence On Gaelic
It looks like from what I'm reading, the Picts were likely a Brittonic ruling class or overclass and the population of the regions they ruled was predominantly Gaelic-speaking. If they fled during the time of Roman occupation, it would explain why Pictish retained archaisms and resisted soundchanges in other Brittonic caused by Latin. It also explains why the Brittonic loanwords into Gaelic are mostly government oriented. And it explains the influence on syntax and such, the Brittonic-speakers adopted the Gaelic language. It would explain the gradual process of Picts adopting the Gaelic language. It would explain why there are so few Pictish placenames in the region. The kind of language shift we're talking about otherwise would simply be unthinkable without mass conquest and genocide of Pictish regions, which archaeogenetics and archaeology and contemporary sources don't seem to document. 92.5.108.62 (talk) 15:02, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

. Picts, regardless of status, spoke a Brythonic language. There aren't 'so few' Brythonic place-names in the region, and most Pictish place names are actually farm names, and names of politically unimportant villages, which is hardly indicative of a ruling class.

There are very few unambiguously Brythonic place-names in much of England, nearly all Old English, Norman and Old Norse, but nobody would doubt that they were once Brythonic.

There's no evidence for anything other than P-Celtic in Northern Scotland during the immediately pre-Pictish period, and there is no reason to assume anything different.

No, genocide would not be needed to extinguish the Pictish language. DNA shows a strong Celtic element in Eastern England, yet there are virtually no obvious Celtic place names there, and no trace of Celtic there post-6th century, which suggests that they were assimilated into Anglo-Saxon linguistics and culture. And this was a shift from a Celtic to a non-Celtic language.

Conversely, Pictish to Gaelic would be a shift between two Celtic languages. When you look at what survives of 6th-10th century Irish and Welsh, the two languages still resemble each other a lot, so its hardly difficult to imagine one language converging into the other. That's what we saw with several Germanic languages of Europe.

We have no idea how the Celtic languages developed in Britain, and it isn't helpful to think of terms like 'Gaelic' in Roman times. Other than the P/Q split, a relatively marginal change, the evidence from the 1st Century AD suggests that all Celtic speakers of Britain and Europe were speaking something extremely similar. It's possible that, with Argyll being isolated geographically from the rest of Britain so much of its immediate contact came from Ireland via sea, that Gaelic was a phenomenon that developed on either side, in Ulster and Argyll, which would partly explain why the nation of Dal Riata appears to have emerged simultaneously in those regions. But it's just one possibility out of a million.

--JoeyofScotia (talk) 08:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

What sense does it make for the picts to have spoken any celtic language?
The picts came to scotland through the northeast of scotland, not on route for celts to move to unless they literally sailed around the british isles to get there, and they were there before the celts even arrived in britain to begin with, what sense does it make for them to have spoken a celtic language at all? Kenn32 (talk) 14:58, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * So what did they speak, Basque language? For several decades it has been thought unlikely that there was a language-changing event like "the celts even arrived in britain to begin with". Anyway, we follow WP:RS. Johnbod (talk) 19:00, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * are there any dna tests done on picts? that could shed light on their language H20346 (talk) 01:10, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
 * picts are confirmed celtic due to DNA so they spoke a celtic language. but their celtic languagd was distinct from welsh and irish. Probably an extinct branch of insular celtic H20346 (talk) 01:46, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that's rather more than we actually know - DNA doesn't tell you what language(s) people spoke! But this is the usual current thinking. Johnbod (talk) 02:53, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * but then the celts sailed the whole way around the british isles just for the sake of settling there and then just adopted a completely different culture, no longer liking gold but instead wearing iron and painting themselves in woad.
 * And DNA testing normally just tell you where someone's ancestors have lived or what population has the closest common dna, unless you're talking about haplogroups which do give a hint as to one's ethnicity/origins. Kenn32 (talk) 07:33, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think Kenn's confusion is due to a lack of understanding of the timeline of language in Britain. The Picts did not come to Scotland, they developed as a culture there. Pre-Roman conquest, all people in the British Isles spoke Celtic languages. The Celtic languages were replaced in the South of Britain during repeated colonisation events over the next thousand years, with the languages holding on only in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Man and Cornwall, before gradually being eroded away over centuries. But you can see evidence of their existence... For instance, all through Scotland towns have very obviously Celtic names (exceptions being in areas that had a Norn language population in the middle ages).

The Insular Celtic languages were just what was spoken in the British Isles by the native inhabitants. From population genetics studies it looks like there was some major population replacement in the British Isles around the mid-third millenium BCE, where 90% of population ancestry changed, followed by another around 1000 BCE. Linguistic origins are probably explainable to some extent by these population movements. Population dynamics is a complicated subject and the temptation of viewing this as evidence of wide-spread settlement or invasion followed by genocide should be avoided. These population changes probably took place over centuries.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  09:36, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Scotland has gaelic names,a gaelic language, and even their name is attributed to the Scotti who were celts.
 * However, these names and languages do not have pictish origins. And all of scotland did not have picts, as the lowlands were Dalriata while the highlands were where the picts lived. The celts invaded the picts and eventually the picts began to speak gaelic and name in gaelic.
 * Names of scottish areas of pictish(linguistic) origin,are such as Oykel and Migdale
 * Names of people with pictish origins are Drest,Uridech,Canutelacharma,Vipoig,etc
 * More are found here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kings_of_the_Picts
 * You can tell by the earliest/pictish names, avoiding the gaelic ones, that they are not alike gaelic and do not have celtic roots Kenn32 (talk) 13:54, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * how were the celts able to replace the previous inhabitants by 90? was there some type of mass genocide? did they spread disease they were not immune to? H20346 (talk) 14:09, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't believe they replaced the picts, the picts just had to submit to them eventually: I don't fully remember though.
 * But yes, there was a mass-genocide committed by the dal-riata celts against the picts eventually. Kenn32 (talk) 14:38, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The claim that people present is that the picts were brittonic and had a brittonic language, so why would any other one not get replaced through time when that acclaimed one did? The way picts became gaels is the same as how they would've as britons, through a war. Kenn32 (talk) 21:37, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry Kenn, but this isn't up for discussion. There is broad academic consensus that the Pictish language was an insular Celtic language related to Brittonic. There is a large body of academic work covering Pictish placenames and placename elements. You may be able to access them through your local university library, depending where you are. No, there was no genocide of the Picts by Dal Riata... There's a lot of nonsense out there about the Picts, if you want some help looking out reliable sources I can help you out with a reading list.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  17:44, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * academics are popularity-based, not logically. That's why academics change over time.
 * But the picts did not name scotland or most of the land except for a few places like Magdale and Orkyle Kenn32 (talk) 21:39, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't really know what you're trying to say in the first statement. The second statement is also confusing... where are "Magdale" and "Orkyle"?  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  20:28, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The picts are not the ones who named the majority of scotland, let alone scotland itself. Also search Magdale and Orkyle, google will give you results.
 * Magdale and Orkyle are some of the only places in scotland actually named by the pictish people. Kenn32 (talk) 22:54, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Firstly Kenn, a bit late to the party here, Brittonic place names in the Pictish regions are actually more common than you would think, there are several hundred of them, some of these are listed in the page. Many of them are minor settlements.
 * Also, even if there was a lack of Brittonic place names here (and there isn't), it wouldn't really matter. The East of England has few obviously Brittonic river-names, let alone Brittonic names for settlements, nearly all date from the Anglo-Saxon period post the 5th century AD. Yet nobody would credibly refute the existence of a widely-spoken P-Celtic language here prior to the Saxons coming. Also there's no evidence for genocide or a war in Eastern England, meaning the native Celts most likely simply adopted Old English. JoeyofScotia (talk) 12:27, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Google doesn't come up with anything convincing for either word, but maybe you're half-remembering something. When you say "Magdale", do you mean Migdale? That is probably derived from a P-Celtic (i.e. Pictish in the area we're talking about) name, similar to Meigle and Dalmigavie, where *Mig is similar to the Welsh mign (swamp or bog). "Orkyle" do you maybe mean Ochil? Again, that's P-Celtic, similar to uchel (high) in Welsh and you can see it in Ogil, Ogilvie, Ochiltree, Catochil... There are quite a few other place name elements that indicate naming by P-Celtic speakers, including *Aber, *Cet, *Cuper, *Dol, *Lanerc, *Pert, etc.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  09:27, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

While we're talking about P-Celtic placename elements it might be useful to mention *Pett or *Pit. I spent days producing a map showing how its distribution mirrors the distribution of Pictish stones really well. I'm not quite sure what to do with it given the discussion in. *Pett absolutely has a Pictish origin, but most of the placenames that contain it are later than the Pictish period, with *Pett having been introduced as a loanword into Gaelic.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  09:57, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Potential Nordic origins?
I recently looked into the origin of picts and apparently they came in the 3rd-6th century and they began in the northeast of scotland, so it makes the most sense to come from the closest country to the north and i searched it up and it said Norway is the closest country to the north, and there was a pictish king called Canutelacharma which has "Canute" which is an old norse name meaning Knot, however i don't know if there's a meaning to lacharma,and also Picts seemingly having a nordic-european appearance according to a reconstruction. There are also historical sources claiming the picts came from scythians, which i read may be a mistake of scythian and scandinavian. Kenn32 (talk) 13:39, 6 June 2023 (UTC)


 * DNA results confirm picts to be Celtic people
 * https://explorersweb.com/dna-evidence-picts/ H20346 (talk) 01:44, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I can't find a mention of celtic dna there, or any haplogroup at all for that matter. It just says the picts lived in britain. Kenn32 (talk) 07:34, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * they had haplogroup R1b-DF49, a branch of larger R1b-L21. so yes they were likely celtic people H20346 (talk) 14:18, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * where does that come from? Kenn32 (talk) 14:42, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * haplogroup R1b-L21 entered britian with the arrival of the celtic speaking peoples. H20346 (talk) 05:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * No,i mean where does that claim come from? Kenn32 (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Also my clan is of pictish origins and we have Y haplogroup I, which is associated with the sami so we were non-indo-european, let alone celtic. Kenn32 (talk) 09:19, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * What "Clan" would that be?  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  09:39, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Clan MacMillan, Haplogroup among paternal members is I-M170 Kenn32 (talk) 11:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The concept of Clans is much misunderstood and misused, as are Y chromosome haplogroups. Belonging to a clan (when clans actually existed in any meaningful sense) did not indicate that you are a direct descendent through the male line from the (often mythological) apex ancestor. They were essentially tenants of a landowner (clan chief), rarely related by blood to him and little more than indentured servants. Moreover succession was governed by tanistry rather than primogeniture. I-M170 does not indicate descent from the Saami. It is common in Scandinavian populations in general, but also in Caucasian and Balkan populations. Any MacMillans with an I-M170 haplogroup can probably thank Norse settlers on the West coast for that. It's worth noting that the MacMillans are not a monolithic group of I-M170 haplogroup... the lineage to the Dunmore MacMillans who were clan chiefs in the 17th century are R-1b.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  17:02, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * clan membership is mostly through paternal descent.
 * Also i never mentioned descending from sami, i said they were related to sami by being indigenous Europeans.
 * Chieftains were normally from the oldest line of the clan.
 * Clans are like extended families and they descend from the same people, even if it's not direct. Kenn32 (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * also I-M170 is the same Y haplogroup as Cheddarman. It is much more realistic to say I-M170 would come from the picts than from scandinavia as it is already the Indigenous-british haplogroup. Kenn32 (talk) 19:04, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Kenn32 Using early king names to discern the language of the Picts is shaky business at best. It's widely agreed that several of the earliest kings not only have corrupt names, but are also 'legendary', ie they appear in no historical documents, only in regnal lists that were made long after they were apparently deceased. Even still, all the kings either side of the 'Canutulachama' have Celtic names.
 * Galam is generally agreed to be the first Historical, ie appears on record in somewhere other than the king lists, king of the Picts JoeyofScotia (talk) 08:22, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Galam became gaelic, and what about Uradech,Alpin,Gartnait,Talorc,Nechtan,Galan,Drest,etc? The first actually gaelic king is Eochaidh and he wasn't pictish. Kenn32 (talk) 09:18, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

No, there is no support for a Scandinavian origin of Pictish.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  08:55, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * there is less for a celtic origin Kenn32 (talk) 13:44, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * iT says they were a subgroup of celt8c people and their DNA was most closely related to iron age britons. H20346 (talk) 14:05, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * the DNA testing doesn't show ethnicity or ancestry, it just shows where ancestors have lived for a while or where your DNA is most common. It does not mention Britons, it says the picts were british which means they lived in the british isles which is obvious, and there is nothing about haplogroups which would actually give a hint towards their origins.
 * The DNA test is ultimately meaningless. it also does not say that their DNA was like the britons, it simply says their DNA was british. Kenn32 (talk) 14:41, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Before we get too bogged down on this, DNA is not evidence for culture or language, but it can show relationships between individuals and populations. The limited number of ancient Pictish genomes that have been sequenced show genetic admixtures that are most like those of Celtic populations. They are similar to Iron Age individuals from Britain and they are not similar to Iron Age Scandinavians. Multivariate analyses show that they cluster with modern Welsh and Scottish people, but not with modern Scandinavian people. It would take some extraordinary special pleading to argue that they were not native British people. This too is not up for debate at the level suggested here. Picts were not Scandinavian by origin.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  19:47, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * britons and celts aren't native british though, and only 10% of scottish people can trace their ancestry to celts Kenn32 (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2023 (UTC)


 * At this point it's clear that you are either trolling or this is an extreme case of WP:CIR. This is not a subject you ought to be concentrating on if you have an interest in being a Wikipedia editor. There may be some reddit forums that suit you better if you want to explore alternative wisdom... it doesn't go down well here. We are not a discussion forum. Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  22:07, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * huh? How am i trolling? What i stated is factual and you can even search it, yourself. Kenn32 (talk) 07:36, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not factual.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  20:06, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * To expand slightly, I don't know where you've got the idea that only 10% of Scots can trace their ancestry to celts, but I'm guessing you've misunderstood something about Y chromosomal haplogroups. Your assertion about Britons and Celts not being native British is also difficult to interpret. "Celtic" has a couple of different meanings, and it's possible that you're confusing these. We are obviously using it in its linguistic sense here. To suggest that a people whose history in a given area goes back nearly five thousand years are not native is, well, just strange.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  09:33, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Britons and Celts come from outside like austria, can you please just ask google? Kenn32 (talk) 10:11, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * What you've latched onto is the Hallstatt culture being from Austria. They were not the predecessors of the Britons, and "Celtic" languages are thought to have been present in the British Isles for a very long time before the Hallstatt culture emerged and spread. It's been some time since we viewed the history of the celts in an essentialist, Culture-Historical model.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  10:49, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, just read our articles please (which are often top on google). Johnbod (talk) 11:45, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * To be fair, there are some incidences where the Hallstatt culture is being called the origin of the Celts on Wikipedia; for instance in Bronze Age Britain (although the 2021 Nature paper that unravelled the Bronze Age migration is given good coverage in the next paragraph).  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  20:46, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * We should not say DNA is proof of language or culture but is certainly evidence. Certainly probabilities of what native language someone speaks based on DNA can be calculated. Gortaleen (talk) 13:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

The OP wanted to delete these discussions, which is of course not the proper procedure. Do you agree to close and hat this section and the one above per WP:NOTFORUM? –Austronesier (talk) 19:24, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes... it's a massive time sink.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  19:33, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll have to let someone uninvolved to close it.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  19:46, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Place names
Is there any particular reason why the element on place-names in the Pictish regions has been removed? Pictish place-names are one of the most plenteous sources of linguistic evidence for Pictish, and the article only makes a footnote on it.

The general source for this is The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland by WJ Watson, 1926. Pictish Porgress (2011) is another. JoeyofScotia (talk) 08:56, 30 June 2023 (UTC)


 * This was removed by me when I was trimming a lot of excess material from the article. My main intention at the time was to reduce the number of references to Guto Rhys' thesis (valuable as it is, the article was seriously unbalanced by it). I probably got carried away... I'll reintroduce the section. Nicolaisen is another good source for this.  Catfish  Jim <small style="COLOR:#313F33"> and the soapdish  10:13, 30 June 2023 (UTC)