Pictish language
| Pictish | |
|---|---|
| Region | Scotland, north of the Forth-Clyde line |
| Extinct | by ca. 1100 AD |
|
Indo-European?
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
|
Linguist list
|
xpi |
| Glottolog | pict1238 |
Pictish is the extinct language, or dialect, spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. There is virtually no direct attestation of Pictish, short of a limited number of geographical and personal names found on monuments and the contemporary records in the area controlled by the Kingdom of the Picts. Such evidence, however, points to the language being closely related to the Brittonic language spoken prior to Anglo-Saxon settlement in what is now southern Scotland, England and Wales. A minority view held by a few scholars claims that Pictish was at least partially non-Indo-European or that a non-Indo-European and Brittonic language coexisted.
Pictish was replaced by Gaelic in the latter centuries of the Pictish period. During the reign of Caustantín mac Áeda (900–943), outsiders began to refer to the region as the kingdom of Alba rather than the kingdom of the Picts. However, though the Pictish language did not disappear suddenly, a process of Gaelicisation (which may have begun generations earlier) was clearly underway during the reigns of Caustantín and his successors. By a certain point, probably during the 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become fully Gaelicised Scots, and Pictish identity was forgotten.
The existence of a distinct Pictish language during the Early Middle Ages is attested clearly in Bede's early 8th century Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, which names Pictish as a language distinct from that 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:
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