I think I’ve written before about the attempts at using computer-based analysis to determine whether the symbols in the inscriptions left by the Indus civilization were written language or not. That’s not the only collection of artifacts that the method is being applied to and, apparently, one of the other attempts has borne fruit:
The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, carved stones that new research has just determined contain the written language of the Picts, an Iron Age society that existed in Scotland from 300 to 843.
The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland.
The results have been reviewed by some leading students of symbol systems who agree with the reasoning of the study. The frequency and interrelationships of the various symbols mimic the patterns of natural speech rather than other sorts of patterns like random occurrence or systems like basketry or weaving.
The only attestation for the Pictish language we have is in Bede’s 8th century Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. There Bede stated that Britain had four languages: British (Brythonic languages like Cornish and Welsh), Irish (Gaelic), English (Anglo-Saxon), and Pictish. Of these Welsh and Gaelic continue as living languages, Cornish has been dead for several hundred years (although there is an ongoing attempt at reviving it somewhat reminiscent of the revival of Hebrew, and although it’s been dead for a millenium Anglo-Saxon is known through an extensive written corpus. Whatever Pictish was, it died out more than a millenium ago and the only relics that remain are in place names and tribal name like Aberdeen, Lhanbryde, Pitmedden, Pittodrie, Findochty.
Over the years Pictish has been classified as a P-Celtic language (like Welsh or Cornish), a Q-Celtic language (like Gaelic), a Gaulish language, Germanic, a non-Indo-European language related to Basque, or an isolate non-Indo-European language. The orthodox view these days (I think) is that Pictish was related to Cornish or Welsh.
This finding may present opportunities for supporting or rejecting the orthodox view. It would certainly be interesting to compare the patterns identified in the symbology with the patterns observed in any still undeciphered non-Gaelic ogham inscriptions.
The picture above is of a reproduction of one of the Pictish stones, the Hilton of Cadboll.
I believe you are correct tht the P-Celtic language is considered the majority opinion. I believe the minority view, originated by Bede, is that the Picts are Scythians from Scandinavia, and their language is not Celtic.
The recent genetic research is that the Picts and Celts have the same basic genetic origins (migrating from Basque areas into the British isles) and Scandinavian DNA in Scotland is most frequently found in the West of Scotland and the Northern Islands (not the Pictish heartland) and is no doubt from the age of the Vikings. Of course, genetics and culture don’t always follow each other.
The Celtic migrations are themselves an interesting subject. Precisely who was migrating where and when remains obscure. For example, it’s pretty clear that the Bretons in Brittany are closely related to the Cornish in Cornwall and there have been several migrations back and forth. However, the relationship between the Cornish and the Irish is substantially more distant.
I think that “Basque areas” is a bit of an oversimplification. Brittany and Galicia in Spain are clearly areas that were historically Celtic for a very long time. But then the Basque homeland has pretty clearly been Basque for a very long time, too.
Yes, I should have written Iberian peninsula. The genetic finds suggest that the people of Britain have very similar DNA to the Basque, but I think that’s because the Basque also originate from the same Iberian people, but in isolation have maintained the same basic genetic background from thousands of years ago.
I guess the point though is that there doesn’t appear to be genetic evidence of some unique population in the Pictish region of Scotland that would have migrated from the East as Bede and some mythology places it. So that suggests that any language would have been from the Atlantic trade routes (P-Celtic most likely) or a language that preceded and developed independently of Celtic.
My understanding of the recent research is that the dating of the R1b haplotype suggests that it spread from the Celts to the Basques rather than the other way around.
I’ve only read Bryan Sykes, Saxons Vikings and Celts, as well as some of Stephen Oppenheimer’s Origins of the British. I believe these gentlemen are popularizers of genetic theories that I assume are better described elsewhere.
I believe they both adapt archaeologist Barry Cunliffe’s view that PROBABLY the people that came to occupy Britain moved North along the Atlantic during the Mesolithic period, came to adapt some form of Indo-European language with the advance of neolithic technology until Celtic language and culture emerged from Atlantic Coast trade routes during the Bronze Age. I believe he sees the Basque as isolated by the mountains from land and by sandbars along an unused bay from the sea.
None of these people are strong in philology, which is the specific subject of this post. But I don’t understand philology myself.
(Cunliffe is editing a book out later this year that is supposed to presents arguments for and against an Atlantic based Celtic identity from geneticists, archaeologists and philologists, which has great personal appeal, except for the price tag (over $50))
Yeah, as I understand it that’s the old theory. The R1b haplotype has been re-dated to about 12,000 years old, more recent.
Drat, I read the Sykes book after the re-dating. That part actually struck me as the least reliable, since the dates appeared to be calculated based upon projecting a fixed mutation rate backwards.
I’ve googled to learn more about the new information, but I’m running into too many sites with an uncomfortable disposition towards issues of race.
read recently tat a genetic market for pict s-145 gas been isolated wonder if this marker in the basques
Could be. 83% of Basques have paternal haplogroup R1b. The “Pictish marker” is thought only to exist in the British Isles but that might be because it’s the only place they’re looking for it.