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Archive 1Archive 2

POV Bias

Since there are no certain records of Pictish, all published research is nothing but a reflection of contemporary political bias. Therefore, to be truly objective in reporting a Neutral Point of View as per wikipedia guidelines all different opinions on the subject need to be presented with equal weight. The current article has a heavy spin in favour of Celtic suppressing all other opinions and hiding the arguments which contradict a purely Celtic origin for the Picts. Claiming a theory is discredited is an over generalization. The best one could say is that "Author X tried to discredit the idea that ..." and back up the claim with sources. Bulgarios (talk) 18:48, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

You are clearly not following the latest research on Pictish. Cagwinn (talk) 18:59, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
We absolutely don't have to achieve NPOV that way! We reflect (as best we can) the balance of weight in serious recent sources. Having dipped the odd toe into Balkan archaeology, I can see why you might think "all published research is nothing but a reflection of contemporary political bias", but that really isn't the issue here. Johnbod (talk) 20:22, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
The article reflects academic consensus. There has not been any serious suggestion that Pictish was Germanic for the last couple of centuries. Please stop this nonsense. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 22:30, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

OK, I can see here there is no intention to open minds for a different view and nothing else matters. Bulgarios (talk) 00:48, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

If you can provide a solid line of reasoning with evidence and with sources that Pictish is not a Celtic language, provide evidence that the phrase mentioned in the article 'I[-]IRANNURRACTXEVVCXRROCCS' from Burrian, Orkney, has a more probable transliteration than the clearly Celtic 'I[-]irann uract cheuc chrocs', and demonstrate how a non-Celtic language managed to infiltrate the British Isles given the mounting evidence for in-place development of the Celtic languages in the British Isles over the migration hypothesis, then we will take you seriously. Andecombogios 19:32, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
On the contrary. You have to prove that Pictish is Celtic. And two dozen characters from Burrian, even if correctly transcribed, of complete gibberish won't do. SNOFFLE GRONCH. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.227.66 (talk) 19:13, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Go away. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 19:17, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Brittonic

So Celtic and Insular Celtic classifications I can see but from reading the article and some other stuff on the language there is absolutely not even remotely close to enough to suggest Pictish was Brittonic or even P-Celtic. As William Forbes Skene seems to touch on it seems more than likely Pictish formed some sort of hybrid midway Insular Celtic tongue in a dialectal continuum from Goidelic (we assume the oldest and 'purest' representation of the Proto-Insular Celtic once spoken throughout the entire British Isles) to Brythonic (a heavily divergent branch of Insular Celtic dialects as a result of hundreds of years of living under Roman rule).

It would make perfect sense for Pictish areas to be partly Brythonicized due to heavy interaction with Romanized Insular Celts both during and after the fall of Rome. And this process of Brythonicization would be more exacerbated in the southern areas bordering on Brythonic speaking lands which would explain the northern and southern Pictish division zones.

Nothing is really offered to dispute the theories posited by Skene. Have any academics really seriously addressed his theories and debunked them? There is heavy evidence of Goidelic placenames around northern Pictish areas and strongholds such as Fortriu as well as elsewhere. What exactly is there to suggest these Q Celtic placenames came about as the result of migraton/colonization only, but we don't assume the P Celtic placenames were also simply the result of migration/colonization from Brythonic speaking peoples?

Therefore there is literally just as much evidence that some kind of Q-Celtic was the main language of northern Pictish areas as there is that P-Celtic was. Why do we just assume Q Celtic emerged in Ireland and spread outwards? Is it not more likely that what emerged in Ireland was formal writing structures and linguistic advancement in Q Celtic which spread rapidly (especially bolstered with Christianity) to already Q Celtic speaking Pictish areas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 07:55, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

The P Celtic theory was largely confirmed in many peoples' eyes by Watson's Placenames of Scotland, and Forsyth regards Pictish to have been the most northerly reflex of Brittonic. The challenge is that we're talking about a language that existed over hundreds of years... one that evolved considerably through its lifetime. The P/Q distinction probably wasn't as important as some would have us believe in Roman Times, but became more so through the Anglo Saxon period. As Dalriada and Pictland became more interdependent towards the end of the Pictish period, it probably developed into a pidgin language, from which modern Scots Gaelic is a descendent. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 08:41, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

How did Watson explain the prevalence of Goidelic placenames around northern Pictish areas and elsewere in Pictish zones? Does he really believe Goidelic speakers from a sparsely populated petty sea kingdom in the western extremities of Scotland migrated in such significant numbers as to utterly usurp the indigenous culture of a peoples who, by all contemporary accounts and evidence, utterly dominated this petty sea kingdom and reduced it to vassalage before likely absorbing it entirely in the preceding centuries? Wouldn't the existence of many Goidelic placenames in Pictish areas lend as much credence to the theory that Q Celtic had always been spoken there (at least) as well? And yet, much like in the case of Dal Riata, there is zero archaeological or contemporary historical evidence to suggest any largescale migration from west to east of Goidelic speaking peoples around this time.

Is there any evidence at all of P Celtic placenames in the more rural areas of Pictish zones? IIRC in the northern extremities all Pictish placenames are believed to have been entirely obliterated by Norse placenames right? Isn't that a little strange when in the Hebrides both Norse and Goidelic derived placenames survived? I mean especially the case of the Outer Hebrides which are believed to have been Pictish areas, isn't it extremely odd that somehow in the Outer Hebrides only Q Celtic and Norse placenames exist despite it presumably being under fairly heavy Pictish influence at one point (judging by the number of stones found there).

Mhmm, and verbal only languages(which I assume in Pictish case also quite a primitive verbal language). Muddies things considerbaly more and leaves far too much open to interpretation for my liking, haha! Is there any evidence at all that a P/Q Insular split was in effect at the time of Roman arrival? Like surely the 500 or so years of Roman occupation of England and Wales had to have had a drastic effect on the Insular Celtic tongues spoken there? In other regions such as Gaul and Iberia it replaced indigenous tongues entirely, so is it not quite reasonable to suggest that the P/Q split results near entirely from Roman occupation and influence on the natives' languages?

In this scenario, it would make sense for Brythonic and Goidelic missionaries to need interpreters when speaking to Picts, as the Picts they were speaking to could have been alternately P or Q Celtic speaking or by this time Pictish could have been a midway hybrid tongue somewhere between Q Celtic and the Romanized P Celtic since Picts would have had some considerable influence from Romanized Celtic tribes. And it would also explain why so many Ogham stones with Goidelic inscriptions on them are found in the rural extremities of Wales and Cornwall, this has (as in the case of western Scotland) always been put down to Irish invasion/colonization but IIRC there is also no archaeological or contemporary historical evidence that the Irish ever colonized these areas either, right? And Q Celtic survives in the isolated Isle of Man also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 17:12, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Watson goes into great depth about placenames throughout Scotland. It's an extremely long and detailed analysis and well worth a read. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 17:16, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I will check it out, thanks for the recommendation! By the way do you know of any academic theories on the cause of the P/Q split? I just always seem to read it is assumed to have happened at some point before recorded history with no more details or attempts to explain why or at least why it dispersed the way it did. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 18:25, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I would check it out here... Celtic languages there's some info there about the PQ vs Insular models. There's also a PhD thesis by a guy called Guto Rhys available online (Glasgow I think). Catfish Jim and the soapdish 19:03, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah I've read most of the Wiki pages but none of them seem to touch on why P and Q diverge in the Insular model. Like why do they go from Proto Insular Celtic to Q and P and why is it dispersed the way it is, geographically it doesn't make a whole heap of sense.

I'll check out ths Guto Rhys's thoughts. Nice to see you again, did you ever share that theory with Deacon? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 21:18, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

The theory I have is probably not all that innovative so I never got round to putting it down on paper/screen. In any case it would need to be published in the conventional sense before being put on WP. Languages evolve in much the same way as biological populations and species evolve (Whitfield, J. (2008), "Across the curious parallel of language and species", PLoS Biol, vol. 6, p. e186, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060186{{citation}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)), which got me thinking about a well-established phenomenon we call ring species. There is genetic (or linguistic) flow between adjacent populations, but as populations get further from each other along a population (or dialect) continuum, they lose the ability to interact. When the continuum is around a geographical barrier, then you have a situation where the two extremes of the continuum can actually be in contact but cannot interbreed (or communicate in the case of languages).
In a ring species, gene flow occurs between neighbouring populations of a species, but at the ends of the "ring" , the populations cannot interbreed.
In the case of Insular Celtic, pretending we're somewhere in the Bronze Age (possibly even Neolithic if we want to be controversial, but probably not Iron Age) with a "pristine" Celtic founder population. These probably spread throughout Britain and Ireland relatively quickly, replacing the pre-celtic population simply by out-competing them. Initially the populations would have been able to communicate, but gradually they diverged such that the populations at the extremes of the dialect continuum (say, Wales and Southern Ireland... the sea between the two is far more difficult to traverse than the Northern Channel between Ulster and Kintyre/Galloway) were using languages that had evolved independently from the original proto-Insular Celtic that they were now mutually unintelligible.
Three major events disrupted the continuum... first the Roman invasion, then the Saxon invasion and finally the Viking incursions in the Western Isles. The first of these cut communication at the Scottish border, the second at the Welsh border and the third cut communication between Ireland and Scotland. And that's pretty much it... WP:NOR Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:27, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Guto Rhys' thesis is here: Rhys, Guto (2015), Approaching the Pictish language: historiography, early evidence and the question of Pritennic. PhD Thesis (PDF), Glasgow: University of Glasgow

Thanks for sharing. Yeah this is much the way I envision Proto Celtic spreading into and developing into Insular Celtic within the British Isles. I think it's the one that makes the most logical sense. I think there's really something to it but I think you will get pretty fierce resistance to this kind of theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 13:25, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Huh... By the way I just stumbled upon webpage from 2003 espousing my theories on the Pictish/Dal Riatan language issues. Explains it a lot better than I can here, but this is my general thoughts/perception of how things likely were back then. Only issue I would disagree strongly on is the last part about a literal movement of Gaels into Ireland and Scotland at some point bringing the language with them, I don't think there's any evidence for this whatsover and there's no reason Q Celtic did not spread/develop in the two regions (and possibly elsewhere all over the British Isles) naturally from Proto Insular Celtic.

Anyway, here's the page: http://glendiscovery.com/dalriada.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 22:08, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

This is a fascinating read, but it's not doing much to convince me that Pictish was Brittonic or even P Celtic, at least exclusively or predominantly. He seems much to quick to write off the pro-Goidelic theories as "they were Gaels/Gael sympathizers who feared persecution of the time". He also seems to reiterate a few times that Irish sources Gaelicize Pictish names and placenames, but one of the examples he used (I think it was Adomnan) actually lists P Celtic placenames along with clearly Goidelic/Q Celtic placeneames in Pictish lands, what that source would seem to suggest is they were predominantly Goidelic/Q Celtic speaking with a minority of P Celtic placenames, which could easily be explained by migrating/fleeing P Celtic speakers from Roman Britain.

"Peanfahel" in particular is fasctinating, it's literally a hybrid word and could lend credence to the concept that the Picts spoke some kind of hybrid Q Celtic interlaced with mild Brythonic influence from refugees or migrants from Roman Britain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 19:22, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

So Few Brittonic Placenames

Hey, any sources on why there are so few P-Celtic roots in the placenames of former Pictish areas? From what I've read the overwhelming majority of placenames in Pictish areas, even in their heartlands, their strongholds and centers like Fortriu, are overwhelmingly Goidelic root. It seems like a sprinkling of P-Celtic placenames has been used as justification that the Picts were dominated by a culture/language similar to if not Brittonic.

Now we actually do have areas where Brittonic placenames do survive in Scotland in abundance, that is of course the land between Hadrian's and the Antonine Wall. Here despite Goidelic conquest/annexation and linguistic replacement under the Kingdom of Scotland, the Brittonic culture and language which dominated there for centuries prior left a clear mark on the landscape, just like the settlement of the Angles in the southeast did while still not overwhelmingly replacing Brittonic roots, just like Norse did all over northern and western Scotland.

The Gaels clearly don't have a habit of totally eradicating placenames in the places they conquered or where their culture washed over (as can be seen from when Gaelic culture and language swept back over lands the Norse had conquered and held for centuries, most Norse placenames still remained). So why is it taken as acceptable to suggest that there was a wholesale linguistic displacement and near entire obliteration of P-Celtic placenames in all Pictish areas by Gaels from Argyll? Without presumably any support from Ireland as they never mention any participation of Irish tribes in this great Gaelic conquest of the Picts that must have took centuries.

This would have been a massive campaign with countless battles, but not a single Irish contemporary source mentions anything about it? Not a single contemporary Welsh or Anglo-Saxon source mentions it?

And in fact all sources from the time seem to suggest the Picts were the ones pushing into and exerting pressure on Dal Riata, not the other way around. It seems from Irish sources that the Picts actually nearly destroyed the kingdom under Oengus I, and they never seem to reemerge as any kind of regional force after this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.16.225 (talk) 03:42, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

The Irish annals until Aed Find do point to Pictland eventually dominating Dal Riata under Oengus I of the Picts. However the argument can be made that Dal Riata recovered under Aed Find towards the end of the 8th century, and that the defeat of the Picts and the death of their king Uen, and the Dal Riatan king Aed Boanta in 839 against the Vikings may have weakened Pictland more, making a Gaelic conquest more plausible. Bridei921302 (talk) 05:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what you've been reading, but the standard text for place names is Watson, W.J. (1926), The History of the Celtic Place-names of Scotland., Birlinn. Also read Forsyth, K. (1997), Language in Pictland : the case against 'non-Indo-European Pictish (PDF), Utrecht: de Keltische Draak, retrieved 4 February 2010. For the history of Scotland in the time you're talking about read Woolf, Alex (2007), "From Pictland to Alba 789 - 1070", The New Edinburgh History of Scotland, vol. 2, Edinburgh University Press. The notion of an armed conquest of Pictland by the Gaels is not one that is taken seriously by any historian. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:15, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Classifying the origins of the Picts, possible Vasconic element.

https://tied.verbix.com/archive/article7.html. I found this source, which staits that the Picts's origins either remain unclassified or are descendants of the Iberians, definitely, though, the aboriginals of Scotland, they are a pre-Celtic people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.74.84.236 (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the ultimate source of that is but suffice to say it's not correct and is not a reliable source. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 11:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

A Vasconic element, linguistically speaking, would have spoken a language related to Proto-Basque, which in turn may have descended from the extinct Aquitanian language. Basque is recognised as the only currently spoken pre-Indo European language in Europe. The classification of the Iberian language is disputed and may or may not be Vasconic, but it might alternatively have been Celtic. --Bridei921302 (talk) 02:53, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Section for "Linguistic Evidence" or similar?

In other articles handling extinct and ill-attested languages and dialects, such as that on Cumbric, for instance -- sections are normally dedicated to compiling linguistic remnants, principally toponymic evidence, as well as loan-words, personal names, etc (for the purposes of Pictish, the content of inscriptions would also be suitable). I propose that such a section be included in our to collect selected information of this nature, so as to illustrate and deduce origin of Pictish. I am willing to discuss this at length, but if no objections are raised, I will move forward with the amendments. JoeyofScotia (talk) 21:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

What would your source be? Catfish Jim and the soapdish 22:40, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Catfish Jim:, In the case of inscriptions, we already have a sourced discussion of a Pictish stone in Orkney that could be moved to such a section. Toponymic evidence, I would intend to source from Taylor and Markus's "Place Names of Fife" (2006), Watson's "Celtic Place Names of Scotland" (1922), and Driscoll, Geddes, and Hall's "Pictish Progress" (2006). For loan-words into Gaelic, MacBain's "Etymological Dictionary of Scottish-Gaelic" (1896) was intended for use. --JoeyofScotia (talk) 23:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Catfish Jim: I have began work on the proposed section, and will continue to do so over the following days, using the sources that I detailed in my earlier post --JoeyofScotia (talk) 00:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks good so far... needs to be converted to harvnb format references, but I'd be happy to do that once you're finished. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 19:34, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I've only just read your most recent comment. I am unfamiliar with conversions to harvnb, but will let you know when I feel the information on the "Linguistic Evidence" is complete. --JoeyofScotia (talk) 00:49, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Why don't the references follow the structure of other Wikipedia articles? I.e. all citations within the article should be found under "References" (not "Notes") and there shouldn't be a huge list of references that aren't clearly linked to the article. --Danielklein (talk) 13:22, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Danielklein: They are clearly linked to the article, by way of the "Notes". This sfn-citation style provides a way to cite a source multiple times and further specify the page number where the information is found. IMO, this is more exact than quoting the same source over and over again without specifying the exact location of the cited material in the source. But then, WP doesn't have a house style; there are many options, we should just use them consistently (WP:CITESTYLE). –Austronesier (talk) 18:57, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: To what does 'Armit, Ian (1990), Beyond the Brochs: Changing Perspectives on the Atlantic Scottish Iron Age, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press' refer? --Danielklein (talk) 08:19, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
It's the reference for the citation in note 29 (current version[1]). –Austronesier (talk) 08:25, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 24 July 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Calidum 03:09, 31 July 2020 (UTC)


Pictish language → Pictish – Unlike English, Pictish is not ambiguous between language and ethnonym, because Pictish is not an ethnonym, Picts is (cf Gaels and Gaelic languages). Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 08:01, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Being classed as Brittonic

From what I know Pictish is considered in modern times to be most definitely P Celtic but only possibly Brittonic. The semi-hypothetical language that it derives from, Prittenic is considered separate to common Brythonic. Is the classification on the top right from a certain source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.21.244.26 (talk) 16:55, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@86.21.244.26:

Guto Rhys's "Approaching the Pictish language: historiography, early evidence and the question of Pritenic." has concluded that:

  • "the lack of evidence for distinctiveness renders the term ‘Pritenic’ as redundant for the present"
  • "Pictish is not a dialect of Gaulish. Or at least the evidence previously adduced for this view can no longer sustain it."
  • "much of Pictland partook in the ‘Neo-Brittonic revolution’, or at least very significant aspects of it"
  • "most of the supposedly distinguishing features cannot be demonstrated to be restricted to Pictland alone"
  • "proposals [...] that Pictish was diverging from Brittonic [...] are either demonstrably incorrect, most uncertain or of trivial linguistic impact"

--JoeyofScotia (talk) 01:18, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Bit late here, but Brittonic can be thought of as the family of languages that contains Common Brittonic and Pictish. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 13:53, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

This article is too reliant on the work of a single author -- Guto Rhys. It should cite a range of opinions and do that neutrally. It also need to deal with the issue of the inscriptions in a more even handed manner.

New section: "Equivalence with Brittonic" or similar.

As with the Cumbric language, numerous proposals have been made for Pictish in relation to its possible distinguishing features from other closely related languages. At the article for Cumbric, we have a section dealing with these alleged distinctions, and I propose that the same be done for the Pictish language. To go through a list of such distinctions, John Koch raised:

  • /(-)kun-/ > /(-)kon-/
  • Retention of case endings
  • Retention of initial /s-/

Kenneth Jackson raised:

  • Fate of /-j-/
  • Fate of Proto-Celtic /oj/
  • Development of /xs/ > /s/
  • Retention of /o:/ (< /ow/)

Alan James raised:

  • Fate of /-mb-/

My source for these alleged distinctions would chiefly be the PhD thesis from Guto Rhys "Approaching the Pictish language: historiography, early evidence and the question of Pritenic" (2015), which has already been cited a number of times in the article itself and where there are detailed discussions of all but the change raised by Alan James. I would refer to A. James's "Brittonic language in the Old North" (2020) for his proposal.

As per usual, I am willing to discuss this change at length, although if no opposition is raised in a short space of time, I will move forward with these changes JoeyofScotia (talk) 00:50, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

regarding a process of Gaelicisation in 11th cent.

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.[2]

Here some questions arise regarding Caithness and Sutherland Caithness and Sutherland weren't Gaelic in 1000. There were still Pictish Kats' language spoken together with Norn of Norwegian rulers. Caithness = Kataness ("headland of Catt people") in Norn (Norse dialect) Sutherland = Gallaibh ("among strangers") in Gaelic. In 1196 the tribute to Norwegian king was confirmed. Only starting with the Treaty of Perth in 1296 both counties were incorporated into Scotland, yet Norn (and probably Pictish) was still in use till 15. century. Gaelic and Scots languages followed and replaced gradually old languages with some eastern parishes of Caithness never speaking Gaelic en masse but starting to communicate in Germanic Scots. Marqoz (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Presumably the Treaty of Perth 1266? And 'Germanic Scots' just means 'English'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.242.151 (talk) 14:48, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Marqoz: Rather late here, but Pictish was not still in use until 15th century. Or at least, that contradicts Henry of Huntingdon, who saw the language as being already extinguished while writing in 1129 (see Guto Rhys, 2015), and if it survived the longest in Caithness or Sutherland, Pictish place-names wouldn't be so scarce in those regions (whereas there are 150+ from Fife to Loch Ness). --JoeyofScotia (talk) 11:49, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced claims

An IP is restoring unsourced claims. Time to get the edit reviewed by others. Is it okay or not? The Banner talk 09:15, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Actually, the IP's claims are not totally unsourced, but rely heavily on Rodway (2020). Paradoxically, this exactly what the IP criticized with regards to Rhys (which FWIW is not fully correct, since the main idea of Pictish as IE and Celtic as has long been defended by Forsyth). Most cited works are primary sources for their author's views, so ideally, we should have a secondary source that reviews all proposals. Otherwise it all ends up in a headcount for each proposal, which means we can only say "according to A, B, C...Pictish was i, ii, iii", unless there is overwhelming consensus among scholars in favor of a specific proposal. –Austronesier (talk) 10:40, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
I noticed that one editor about 6 months or so ago completely changed the article to make the relationship with Britonnic a “certainty”. Their edits were almost wholly reliant on Guto Rhys. Certainly, I believe the “traditional” academic consensus was that there was not enough surviving evidence of Pictish to draw any very firm conclusions in any direction (which is what the article for many years essentially said), but this is not an area I have expertise. When I searched who Rhys was it appears he’s a fairly junior lecturer at Glasgow - and that the sourcing is mainly to his 2015 PhD thesis! (Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, I don’t believe how this thesis is used is appropriate.) The naming of Rhys multiple times in the text as though he were a major authority plus phrases such as “Guto Rhys ruled in a 2015 summary of linguistic evidence that Pictish …” (my emphasis) made me suspicious of these edits and they looked WP:UNDUE. I meant to get round to research it further but didn’t manage to do that: but it doesn’t feel right. I think someone with expertise does need to take a look at whether the balance is right and reflects the range of current views, and especially whether this Guto Rhys is too prominent. I had thought, rather like the IP, things were far less certain than the article now presents. DeCausa (talk) 11:47, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the linguistic consensus since the 1950s has been that the Pictish inscriptions are the key evidence for Pictish -- its what you read in all the major linguistics surveys -- but they are very difficult to make sense of. There are 18 inscriptions which is not "virtually no" direct sources in anyone's language -- Forsyth's 1996 PhD from Harvard collects them. Rhys is a former Welsh teacher who got a PhD late in life from Glasgow and has very strong views on the topic, but Simon Rodway is a lecturer in Welsh at Aberystwyth and the editor of the Journal of Celtic Linguistics. Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, a fellow of the British Academy, also still holds that Pictish is a non-undo-European language in his recent article "An Alternative to ‘Celtic from the East’ and ‘Celtic from the West", Cambridge Archaeological Journal 30(3):1-19, on p. 13 (citing Rodway 2020). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.193.148.12 (talk) 14:23, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, dissertations "can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources". In this respect, they are on par with other primary sources such as research articles, such as Rodway (2020). And in this context, the CV of the author of the PhD thesis is of marginal importance. One of Rhys' supervisors was Forsyth, so we are not dealing with fringe research here. However, for due weight, we should not overly rely on Rhys' dissertation, but rather on secondary sources.
A secondary source that supports Forsyth's and Rhys' positions is Robert McColl Millar's A Sociolinguistic History of Scotland, Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Millar writes:

[...] the British (or Cumbric) dialects of southern and central Scotland, along with Pictish, were P-Celtic (or Brittonic) (p. x).

The idea of a non-Celtic origin for Pictish was ended convincingly by Forsyth (1997), however, who definitively demonstrated that all Pictish is a P-Celtic language with close connections to the better-documented British languages to the south. [...] Jackson and a number of other scholars suggested, however, that a distinction should be maintained between (Celtic) Pictish and other P-Celtic varieties spoken on Britain. He designates all of the latter varieties, along with (Celtic) Pictish, Pritenic, but would not include (Celtic) Pictish within the British dialect continuum, whose descendants are Modern Welsh, Cornish and Breton. This suggested distinction has been ruled out through a thorough sifting of the evidence by Rhys (2015) (p. 29).

It is tempting at times to see the proposed Pictish against British split being, beyond a few dialectal distinctions, essentially political (possibly cultural) rather than linguistic (p. 30)

Another secondary source in favor of a (P-)Celtic nature of Pictish is William Nicolaisen's entry "Pictish" in the Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, Elsevier, 2008:

[...] Katherine Forsyth (1997), a specialist in Ogham inscriptions, mustered some very persuasive arguments against Jackson’s construct and, although it is always risky to call anything 'definitive,' her conclusion that the Picts were "as fully Celtic as their Irish and British neighbors" is difficult to dispute [...]

Of course, Millar and Nicolaisen follow their own preferences here, and Nicolaisen himself has contributed to this research topic. But clearly, the challenge to the long-held view of Pictish being "not Celtic and probably not Indo-European (Roger D. Woodard, Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, 2002)" is going mainstream.
That said, I think the current shape of the article is generally ok, but needs to be toned down in some respects, ideally with citing secondary sources such as Millar (2020) and Nicolaisen (2008). Of course, secondary and primary sources criticizing Forsyth's and Rhys' classification of Pictish as Brittonic (or at least as the closest sibling of core Brittonic) are also needed, and should be included with due weight. But FWIW it's quite WP:UNDUE to add to every paragraph that discusses Forsyth's readings "but Rodway says it's wrong". The different interpretations should be discussed separately. –Austronesier (talk) 17:55, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

As a linguist, I just want to see the page reflect the scholarship, not just take one side. Some people like Professor Millar think that the 1997 paper by Forsyth is convincing, but many others don't. Woodward's book is a standard reference work and Sims-Williams is a major figure in medieval Celtic studies -- Forsyth's work is just controversial. Rodway's paper was written to dispute Forsyth's views; however you guys think it should be added is fine with me, but Rodway's paper is the most important thing written on the topic recently. I suspect in the long run most people will end up agreeing with Rodway and the acceptance of Forsyth's views is generally restricted to academics who don't have a background in comparative linguistics. At any rate, I think the page should be re-written to not just follow Forsyth and Rhys on everything, but rather to admit that the question of the linguistic affiliation of Pictish is still a matter of debate.

Rodway's article maybe will prove to be the breakthrough game changer—or maybe not; time will tell. So far, mainstream consensus appears to be on Forsyth's side. This is what I gather from looking up in various secondary sources. Fraser (2009) is already cited in the article, but here's a verbatim quote:

The totality of the evidence demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that a British dialect was spoken in Pictland throughout our period [...] It seems there were real idiosyncrasies in Pictish British, but these may have been comparatively minor (p. 52–53).

Another one (Julianna Grigg, The Picts Re-Imagined, Amsterdam University Press, 2018):

Recent studies have made a strong case for identifying the name Pict with the early Welsh name for Pictland, Prydyn; a term from the same origin as “Britain”. The Gaelic word for Pict, Cruithne (which included the Gaelic speaking Dál nAraidi people of north- eastern Ireland), was also derived from Prydyn. This accords with philological and placename research which has established extensive linguistic correlations between Pictish and early Welsh indicating that they both spoke a P- Celtic/ Brythonic language (whereas Gaelic is Q- Celtic/ Goedelic). It also puts to rest the proposition that the Picts spoke a non-Indo-European (i.e. non-Celtic) language which, in any case, was unlikely given the dominance of Celtic languages across the British Isles.

For the sake of balance, I won't quote The Oxford Companion to Scottish History, where Forsyth herself is given space to write about the linguistic affiliation of Pictish.
So for many scholars, the matter is settled, and not a matter of debate anymore. I don't say that they are right (which is not ours to judge here; in fact, even though I am specialized in historical linguistics, I haven't even bothered to look at the evidence for this discussion), but this appears to be the broad consensus as of now. Of course we can mention that the consensus is challenged, but not by creating WP:false balance. –Austronesier (talk) 10:38, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I haven't touched this article in a long while and have been dismayed to see what's happened to it. If my arithmetic is correct, there are 73 references to an unpublished PhD thesis. One or two references would be acceptable; what we have has seriously unbalanced the article.

The predominant view is indeed that Pictish was Celtic, but Rodway's work should be cited in relation to the ogham scripts. They are not, however, the most important evidence for Pictish... that would be placenames and personal names. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:11, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the entire section "Equivalance with Neo Britonnic" should be deleted. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:15, 2 November 2021 (UTC)r

The problem is that there are many non-linguists who think Forsyth's work has resolved things. Julianna Grigg is a historian, but Patrick Sims-Williams is a leading linguist and a leading expert on both inscriptions and the period. The page is very far from achieving any kind of balance at the moment. It pretends that "Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain" which is clearly wrong. It had also not mentioned the linguist Rodway's criticisms of the historian Forsyth's translations in the text, making it look as if Forsyth's translations were authoritative. Some editing is required and I can't see why my very minor edits were a problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.193.148.12 (talk) 02:08, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@194.193.148.12: When the onomastic (i.e place- and given-names) evidence for Pictish shows undeniably Celtic characteristics - i.e the distribution of Aber- place-names in Pictland, at river estuaries and confluences, much like those in Wales, or indeed most Pictish given names being paralleled in other Celtic languages (those being two of hundreds of items) - as does much of such evidence for the Roman-era inhabitants of what would become Pictland (the given name Vepogenus, for example), the notion that Pictish was anything other than Celtic simply fails to stand up to rational inquiry.

Also, Guto Rhys (2015) makes clear the danger of drawing conclusions according to incriptions, especially Ogham ones. Unlike place- and given- names, inscriptions present numerous challenges:

  • the orthographic key is unknown (consider ghoti as a spelling for "fish")
  • the linguistic context is unknown; how literate were the Picts
  • we cannot ascertain the linguistic or orthographic competency of the inscriber

JoeyofScotia (talk) 00:04, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Just to add to discussion above: Far too much of this article reads as a summary of the Guto Rhys dissertation, the views in which are not necessarily widely accepted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.60.240.151 (talk) 15:18, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Possible deletion of section

@Catfish Jim and the soapdish: Hi, I've noticed you've suggested a deletion of the section "Equivalence with Neo-Brittonic". This section was my idea (and much of the info there was contributed by me), and I wanted to say that if you feel this section is unnecessary then I am okay with it being removed - although it should be noted that I simply based this section on a similar one in the article on Cumbric. If you would like to debate this subject with me further, then I am okay with that too. JoeyofScotia (talk) 23:37, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

I've deleted that section and have further related comments below. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:05, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Over-reliance on a PhD thesis

We still have 26 citations of Guto Rhys' PhD thesis. This needs to be pared down considerably. PhD theses are to some extent regarded as semi-reliable sources but need to be treated with care as per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. One or two references to it would be more appropriate. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:05, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Date range

The infobox makes an untenable claim:

"Era: c. 6th to 9th century, extinct by c. 1100 AD"

This contradicts "Most modern scholars agree that Pictish was, at the time of the Roman conquest, a branch of the Brittonic language ..." (i.e. in 43 AD), and we know that the Picts date to at least Late Antiquity (though pre-Conquest writers used more specific tribal names for the people of this area: Caledonii, Verturiones, Taexali, Venicones).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:52, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Yep, that's a tad messy. The first mention of Picts is at the end of the third century CE as a racial slur by a Roman commentator. Prior to this, as you say, Roman writers mostly called them Caledonii, with the Maiati in the central lowlands. Vacomagi, Taexali and Venicones, etc. are known only from a single map made by Ptolemy and never made it into any commentaries. Verturiones are first mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus in the 4th century and are thought to be the same people that became the kingdom of Fortriu.
The Pictish period has been traditionally seen as the time between their first mention (297 CE) to the first half of the 10th century in the reign of Constantine II of Scotland, when Scotland/Alba was first used in its modern sense, give or take a few changes in the border since then. Gaelicisation of the country started in the 9th century and some of the later picts would have been Gaelic speakers (or rather Goidelic/Middle Gaelic). The distinction between late Pictish and Middle Gaelic would have been considerably less than the difference between modern Welsh and Gaelic.
To add to the complexity of the situation, there's been a move in the last 15 years or so to regard the Pictish period as being much shorter, dating only from the late 7th century to the 10th century. Pictishness as a concept of self-identity may have arisen as a neat political trick to justify the unification of the seven provinces of the Picts, or to put it more cynically, a justification by the Verturiones to annex the other six states (liberate from Northumbrian rule in some cases). There has been some push back against this but I think it's broadly correct.
So where does this leave us? Can we call the language that was being spoken in 43 CE "Pictish"? Would the Caledonians of 43 and Picts of 685 have been able to understand each other? Probably not. We could change the statement you quoted to, "Most modern scholars agree that the ancestor of Pictish, spoken at the time of the Roman conquest, was a branch of the Brittonic languages ..."
I would change the era to c. 4th to 10th century, extinct by c. 1100 AD Catfish Jim and the soapdish 21:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
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