THE LANGUAGE OF THE PICTS
It is desirable to think of the speech which the Picts used, the speech in which Christianity was taught to them. All the scholars who have a practical acquaintance with the topographical names of Pictland are now agreed that the speech of the Picts was a dialect of Celtic, that it differed considerably from Scottish Gaelic and other Celtic dialects of the Gaidhealic group; but, on the other hand, that it agreed closely with the Celtic speech of the Britons, now represented by Welsh. Professor Watson puts it thus:* ‘ Linguistic evidence goes to show that the Pictish language was Celtic, and belonged to the Cymric branch represented now by Welsh and Breton, and until recent times by Cornish.’ As stated by Dr. Macbain f the main difference between Pictish, or other Britonic tongues, and the dialects of the Gaidhealic group is that Aryan q, when labialized by association with u or w, making qu, becomes in Pictish, or other Britonic speech, a simple p; but in the Gaidhealic dialects it becomes c, qu, or k. The standing illustration is the word for the number ‘five,’ which in Welsh is pump, in Cornish pymp, in Breton pemp, in Gaulish pempe; but in Scottish Gaelic it is coig in Manx queig, and in Irish cuig
Venerable Bede stated that besides Latin there were four ‘languages’ in Britain, namely, English, British, Scottish, and Pictish. Bede was quite untravelled* and his work shows that he had little personal knowledge of the Celts, and was not in a position to distinguish between a dialect and a language. Nevertheless, he has been much relied on by those who, as Dr. Macbain expressed it, with ‘wasted ingenuity’ theorized that Pictish was non- Aryan and pre-Celtic.
We have seen that the ‘Cruitin'(Pict) and the Briton were one in name; it would have been contrary to expectation if they had differed in speech otherwise than dialectically. Nevertheless, however similar the dialects of the British tribes, including the Picts, were at the time of the Roman occupation; it is well not to forget that between the days of the Roman colony and the eighth century, when Bede wrote, the speech of the conquered Britons would, owing to the influence of the Gaulish Legions and Latin culture, diverge markedly from the speech of the unconquered Britons or Picts which for a long time was preserved from foreign influences.
On the other hand, the expulsion of the Brigantes to the north of Antonine’s Wall, A.D. 139, before the legions of Lollius Urbicus, would only intensify the Britonic nature of Pictish speech. These Brigantes were the most numerous and powerful people among the Britons. They occupied the country from the H umber and Mersey line to the Firth of Forth, that is, all the ground that became the province “Maxima Caesariensis” and the eastern half of Valentia and with their relatives the Manapian Picts they also occupied the south-eastern coasts of Ireland. Pausanias tells us that the Brigantes were deprived of their lands.* Julius Capitolinus adds to this that they were expelled from the province by Lollius, thatis, driven with the Otadinoi north of the Forth and Clyde line, behind the new Wall which the Roman general had made; and, as we have already noticed, penned up in Pictland among the southern Vakomagoi and the Vernikones making a mixture of peoples that unite and emerge later as Miathi, Midlanders, out of whom, still later, emerge the Verturtones or Men of Fortrenn. The expulsion of these Brigantes, not to mention the Otadinoi from their far-stretching territories, and their withdrawal behind the Wall before the Roman drive must have turned Pictland into a ‘ Congested District’ for the first time in history. This event must also have increased the Britonic characteristics of the Picts, if that were possible, and accentuated the Brittonic features of Pictish speech to an extent that ought to have enlightened the sceptics who doubted the close original affinity of the Cruitin (Pict) and the Briton.
The close affinity between the speech of Pict and Briton is further indicated in the ease and speed with which the British Christians occupied the mission-fields of Pictland. Hardly had S. Ninian, a Briton, completed the foundation of Candida Casa in Galloway as a centre of the Christian religion when he set out with a number of his community to found Churches, and to place ministers all along the east coast of Pictland. f From the then border-town of Glasgow the line of his Churches extended to S. Ninian’s Isle in Shetland. Ailred, who drew his facts about Ninian from the Old Life, states that thesaint taught the Picts ‘the truth of the Gospel and the purity of the Christian faith, God working with him and “confirming the Word with signs following. “‘J There is not the slightest hint that either S. Ninian or his helpers had the least difficulty with the language. Even Bede lays stressonS. Ninian’s preaching^ as the means by which he converted the Picts of the East coast.
In the beginning of the sixth century S. Finbar (Uinniau) of Maghbile (Movilla) and Dornoch, a pupil at Candida Casa but an Irish Pict by birth, took up and * between A. D. 400 and 432 continued S. Ninian’s work in Sutherland, Ross, and elsewhere. He, of course, would have no difficulty with the Pictish tongue.
About the same time S. Drostan, another Briton, established a missionary-base at Deer in the lowlands of Aberdeenshire, from which he worked with the members of his community and strengthened the Faith in Buchan and Caithness.
Later, in the same century, S. Kentigern, another Briton, with his base at Glasgow, led a mission to the uplands of Aberdeenshire, and sent members of his community ‘towards the Orkneys.’f Joceline, his biographer, who also drewhis facts from an old Celtic Life, emphasizes the effect of his preaching, ‘the Lord working with him, and giving power to the voice of his preaching.’ Again, there is no suggestion that preaching to the Picts was other than easy to a Briton.
About the same time that S. Kentigern was in the Pictish mission-field S. Comgall the Great, J another Irish Pict, friend of S. Finbar and neighbour to him, was teaching the Western Picts; S. Cainnech of Achadh-Bo, also a Pict, was teaching the Picts of Fife; and S. Moluag, yet another Pict, a relative of S. Comgall, was joining up his missionary community at Lismore in Argyll with his other community at Rosemarkie in Ross, and linking this in turn to the missionary-communities of the Britons in Aberdeenshire. Here, once more, we have no sign that the Britons were divided from the Picts by any difficulties of language.
The first outstanding Celtic ecclesiastic who appears in history as having difficulties with the speech of Pictland was a Gaidheal; and he, none other than S. Columba of Hy. He stands in history, written too by a Gaidheal, to confirm all that philologists and historians have discovered in the way of indicating that the speech of Pictland though closely akin to the speech of the Britons was decidedly different from the Celtic dialect spoken by the Gaidheals or Scots.
Thrice we hear of S. Columba depending on interpreters in his conversations with the Picts. When he went to Brude Mac Maelchon to seek Permission to settle in Hy, or lona, for his work among the Gaidhealic colonists, he required to attach himself to the company of two Picts, S.Comgall the Great and S. Cainnech.