Who were the Picts?
Tuesday, September 21st, 2004 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manWho were the Picts? ISTR reading somewhere that the Picts were thought to be non-Celtic, and possibly even non-Indo-European speaking. This made sense, as 2500 years ago there were a variety of language families present in Europe, and the dominance of the continent by Indo-European was not yet complete. In the same way that a thousand years later Angles and Saxons invading from the east gradually drove the Britons further and further west, until eventually they remained only in Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria; I pictured Celts invading from the south driving the aboriginal inhabitants of Britain further and further north, until eventually they remained only in the north of Scotland.
However, I've just had a look at Wikipedia, and it disagrees. (Yes I know; I should really check my Encylopaedia Britannica at home and not take Wikipedia's word for it.) Wikipedia says the consensus opinion is now that the Picts were Brythonic Celts (i.e. ancient Britons). electricscotland.com claims the Picts were a Brythonic aristocracy ruling a non-Celtic population; I'm not sure how much this website is to be trusted, but it's a reasonable hypothesis (cf. England under the Normans).
Wikipedia also says, though, that the word "Pict" (which is Latin, and may have been assimilated somewhat to become identical with the Latin for "painted ones" (my hypothesis)) may be cognate to Welsh "pryd", which would mean that the Picts were the original Pretani after whom Britain is named.
Cooler still, it suggested that the Picts were probably identical with the Celts the Gaels called Cruithne (nicely illustrating the eponymous difference between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages), whom electricscotland.com says claimed descent from Conal Cearnach (which struck me as slightly odd if they were Britons, not Gaels, but no odder really than the English later claiming British descent from the Trojans)*. The name Cruithne is, perhaps, better known to people like me as the name of the Earth-companion ateroid with the weirdest, back-tracking kidney-bean-shaped, orbit imaginable.
So it looks like the coolest asteroid in the Solar System is in fact named after both the Picts and Britain itself. How cool is that!
* Another interesting factoid: the Ancient Lothian website claims Geoffrey of Monmouth was originally called Gruffydd ap Arthur. I have no idea how truthful this is either.
However, I've just had a look at Wikipedia, and it disagrees. (Yes I know; I should really check my Encylopaedia Britannica at home and not take Wikipedia's word for it.) Wikipedia says the consensus opinion is now that the Picts were Brythonic Celts (i.e. ancient Britons). electricscotland.com claims the Picts were a Brythonic aristocracy ruling a non-Celtic population; I'm not sure how much this website is to be trusted, but it's a reasonable hypothesis (cf. England under the Normans).
Wikipedia also says, though, that the word "Pict" (which is Latin, and may have been assimilated somewhat to become identical with the Latin for "painted ones" (my hypothesis)) may be cognate to Welsh "pryd", which would mean that the Picts were the original Pretani after whom Britain is named.
Cooler still, it suggested that the Picts were probably identical with the Celts the Gaels called Cruithne (nicely illustrating the eponymous difference between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages), whom electricscotland.com says claimed descent from Conal Cearnach (which struck me as slightly odd if they were Britons, not Gaels, but no odder really than the English later claiming British descent from the Trojans)*. The name Cruithne is, perhaps, better known to people like me as the name of the Earth-companion ateroid with the weirdest, back-tracking kidney-bean-shaped, orbit imaginable.
So it looks like the coolest asteroid in the Solar System is in fact named after both the Picts and Britain itself. How cool is that!
* Another interesting factoid: the Ancient Lothian website claims Geoffrey of Monmouth was originally called Gruffydd ap Arthur. I have no idea how truthful this is either.
