60-589: Pictish is an extinct Brittonic Celtic language spoken by the Picts , the people of eastern and northern Scotland from late antiquity to the Early Middle Ages . Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographical and personal names found on monuments and early medieval records in the area controlled by the kingdoms of the Picts . Such evidence, however, shows
120-607: 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: Most modern scholars agree that the ancestor of the Pictish language, spoken at the time of the Roman conquest , was a branch of the Brittonic language, while a few scholars accept that it was merely "related" to the Brittonic language. Pictish came under increasing influence from
180-424: A corpus of literature or liturgy that remained in widespread use (see corpus language ), as is the case with Old English or Old High German relative to their contemporary descendants, English and German. Some degree of misunderstanding can result from designating languages such as Old English and Old High German as extinct, or Latin dead, while ignoring their evolution as a language or as many languages. This
240-434: A vernacular language . The revival of Hebrew has been largely successful due to extraordinarily favourable conditions, notably the creation of a nation state (modern Israel in 1948) in which it became the official language, as well as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda 's extreme dedication to the revival of the language, by creating new words for the modern terms Hebrew lacked. Revival attempts for minor extinct languages with no status as
300-779: A 10th century poem listing precious gifts) and offered a speculative Pictish reconstruction *kazdet . Etymological investigation of the Scottish Gaelic language, in particular the 1896 efforts of Alexander Macbain , has demonstrated the presence of a corpus of Pictish loanwords in the language. The items most commonly cited as loanwords are bad ("clump"; Breton bod ), bagaid ("cluster, troop"; Welsh bagad ), dail ("meadow"; W dôl ), dìleab ("legacy"), mormaer ("earl"; W mawr + maer ), pailt ("plentiful"; Cornish pals ), peasg ("gash"; W pisg ), peit ("area of ground, part, share"; W peth ), pòr ( Middle Welsh paur ; "grain, crops"), preas ("bush"; W prys ). On
360-547: A BA in 1851. His friend and contemporary Rudolf Thomas Siegfried (1830–1863) became assistant librarian in Trinity College in 1855, and the college's first professor of Sanskrit in 1858. It is likely that Stokes learnt both Sanskrit and comparative philology from Siegfried, thus acquiring a skill-set rare among Celtic scholars in Ireland at the time. Stokes qualified for the bar at Inner Temple . His instructors in
420-451: A Brittonic elite, identified as the Broch -builders, had migrated from the south of Britain into Pictish territory, dominating a pre-Celtic majority. He used this to reconcile the perceived translational difficulties of Ogham with the overwhelming evidence for a P-Celtic Pictish language. Jackson was content to write off Ogham inscriptions as inherently unintelligible. Jackson's model became
480-501: A P-Celtic language was first proposed in 1582 by George Buchanan , who aligned the language with Gaulish . A compatible view was advanced by antiquarian George Chalmers in the early 19th century. Chalmers considered that Pictish and Brittonic were one and the same, basing his argument on P-Celtic orthography in the Pictish king lists and in place names predominant in historically Pictish areas. Although demonstrably Celtic-speaking,
540-524: A Pictish cognate of Old Welsh guract 'he/she made' in *uract . (The only direct continuation in Middle Welsh is 1sg. gwreith < *u̯rakt-ū in the poem known as " Peis Dinogat " in the Book of Aneirin; this form was eventually reformed to gwnaeth .) With the fourth word explained as spirantized Pictish *crocs 'cross' (Welsh croes < Latin crux ) and the corrupted first word
600-414: A foreign lingua franca , largely those of European countries. As of the 2000s, a total of roughly 7,000 natively spoken languages existed worldwide. Most of these are minor languages in danger of extinction; one estimate published in 2004 expected that some 90% of the currently spoken languages will have become extinct by 2050. Normally the transition from a spoken to an extinct language occurs when
660-452: A language is Latin , and comparable cases are found throughout world history due to the universal tendency to retain a historical stage of a language as the liturgical language . In a view that prioritizes written representation over natural language acquisition and evolution, historical languages with living descendants that have undergone significant language change may be considered "extinct", especially in cases where they did not leave
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#1732765216229720-689: A language undergoes language death by being directly replaced by a different one. For example, many Native American languages were replaced by Dutch , English , French , Portuguese , or Spanish as a result of European colonization of the Americas . In contrast to an extinct language, which no longer has any speakers, or any written use, a historical language may remain in use as a literary or liturgical language long after it ceases to be spoken natively. Such languages are sometimes also referred to as "dead languages", but more typically as classical languages . The most prominent Western example of such
780-509: A liturgical language typically have more modest results. The Cornish language revival has proven at least partially successful: after a century of effort there are 3,500 claimed native speakers, enough for UNESCO to change its classification from "extinct" to "critically endangered". A Livonian language revival movement to promote the use of the Livonian language has managed to train a few hundred people to have some knowledge of it. This
840-630: A man-servant. It also included some notes by Mrs. Mary Stokes. Mary died while the family was still living in India. In 1877, Stokes was appointed legal member of the viceroy's council, and he drafted the codes of civil and criminal procedure and did much other valuable work of the same nature. In 1879 he became president of the commission on Indian law. Nine books by Stokes on Celtic studies were published in India. He returned to settle permanently in London in 1881 and married Elizabeth Temple in 1884. In 1887 he
900-609: A more-or-less unified proto-Celtic language within the British Isles. Divergence between P-Celtic Pictish and Q-Celtic Dalriadan Goidelic was slight enough to allow Picts and Dalriadans to understand each other's language to some degree. Under this scenario, a gradual linguistic convergence is conceivable and even probable given the presence of the Columban Church in Pictland. In 1892, John Rhys proposed that Pictish
960-518: A new generation of native speakers. The optimistic neologism " sleeping beauty languages" has been used to express such a hope, though scholars usually refer to such languages as dormant. In practice, this has only happened on a large scale successfully once: the revival of the Hebrew language . Hebrew had survived for millennia since the Babylonian exile as a liturgical language, but not as
1020-406: A personal name, the inscription may represent a Pictish sentence explaining who carved the cross. The Shetland inscriptions at Cunningsburgh and Lunnasting reading EHTECONMORS and [E]TTECUHETTS have been understood as Brittonic expressions meaning "this is as great" and "this is as far", respectively, messages appropriate for boundary stones . Transliterated as IRATADDOARENS , it
1080-401: A process of revitalisation . Languages that have first-language speakers are known as modern or living languages to contrast them with dead languages, especially in educational contexts. In the modern period , languages have typically become extinct as a result of the process of cultural assimilation leading to language shift , and the gradual abandonment of a native language in favor of
1140-592: A region that encompassed Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Buchanan, looking for a Scythian P-Celtic candidate for the ancestral Pict, settled on the Gaulish-speaking Cotini (which he rendered as Gothuni ), a tribe from the region that is now Slovakia . This was later misunderstood by Robert Sibbald in 1710, who equated Gothuni with the Germanic-speaking Goths . John Pinkerton expanded on this in 1789, claiming that Pictish
1200-550: A substantial corpus of Brittonic loan-words and, moreover, uses a verbal system modelled on the same pattern as Welsh . The traditional Q-Celtic vs P-Celtic model, involving separate migrations of P-Celtic and Q-Celtic speaking settlers into the British Isles, is one of mutual unintelligibility, with the Irish Sea serving as the frontier between the two. However, it is likely that the Insular Celtic languages evolved from
1260-416: A substantial trace as a substrate in the language that replaces it. There have, however, also been cases where the language of higher prestige did not displace the native language but left a superstrate influence. The French language for example shows evidence both of a Celtic substrate and a Frankish superstrate. Institutions such as the education system, as well as (often global) forms of media such as
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#17327652162291320-452: Is a language with no living descendants that no longer has any first-language or second-language speakers. In contrast, a dead language is a language that no longer has any first-language speakers, but does have second-language speakers or is used fluently in written form, such as Latin . A dormant language is a dead language that still serves as a symbol of ethnic identity to an ethnic group ; these languages are often undergoing
1380-424: Is a list of languages reported as having become extinct since 2010. For a more complete list, see Lists of extinct languages . Whitley Stokes (scholar) Whitley Stokes , CSI , CIE , FBA (28 February 1830 – 13 April 1909) was an Irish lawyer and Celtic scholar. He was a son of William Stokes (1804–1878), and a grandson of Whitley Stokes the physician and anti- Malthusian (1763–1845), each of whom
1440-658: Is expressed in the apparent paradox "Latin is a dead language, but Latin never died." A language such as Etruscan , for example, can be said to be both extinct and dead: inscriptions are ill understood even by the most knowledgeable scholars, and the language ceased to be used in any form long ago, so that there have been no speakers, native or non-native, for many centuries. In contrast, Old English, Old High German and Latin never ceased evolving as living languages, thus they did not become extinct as Etruscan did. Through time Latin underwent both common and divergent changes in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, and continues today as
1500-896: Is possible that the Brandsbutt Stone inscription attests a Pictish form cognate with Old Breton irha- , "he lies", in IRA- , occurring at the Lomarec inscription in Brittany . Pictish toponyms occur in Scotland north of the River Forth . Distributed from Fife to the Isle of Skye , they are relatively abundant south of the Dornoch Firth but rare in the extreme north. Many principal settlements and geographical features of
1560-409: Is required in the interpretation of such inscriptions because crucial information, such as the orthographic key, the linguistic context in which they were composed and the extent of literacy in Pictland, remains unknown. An Ogham inscription at the Broch of Burrian , Orkney has been transliterated as I[-]IRANNURRACTX EVVCXRROCCS . Broken up as I[-]irann uract cheuc chrocs , this may reveal
1620-707: The Irische Texte series. In 1876 Stokes's translation of Vita tripartita Sancti Patricii , along with a written introduction, was published. In 1862 he was awarded the Cunningham Gold Medal by the Royal Irish Academy. Stokes died at his London home, 15 Grenville Place, Kensington, in 1909 and is buried in Paddington Old Cemetery, Willesden Lane, where his grave is marked by a Celtic cross. Another Celtic cross
1680-501: The "kill the Indian, save the man" policy of American Indian boarding schools and other measures was to prevent Native Americans from transmitting their native language to the next generation and to punish children who spoke the language of their culture of origin. The French vergonha policy likewise had the aim of eradicating minority languages. Language revival is the attempt to re-introduce an extinct language in everyday use by
1740-779: The 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become fully Gaelicised Scots, and the Pictish identity was forgotten. The existence of a distinct Pictish language during the Early Middle Ages is attested clearly in Bede 's early eighth-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People , which names Pictish as a language distinct from those spoken by the Britons , the Irish , and the English . Bede states that Columba ,
1800-561: The Goidelic language spoken in Dál Riata from the eighth century until its eventual replacement. Pictish is thought to have influenced the development of modern Scottish Gaelic. This is perhaps most obvious in the contribution of loan words, but, more importantly, Pictish is thought to have influenced the syntax of Scottish Gaelic, which is more similar to Brittonic languages than to Irish. Some commentators have noted that, in light of
1860-468: The Internet, television, and print media play a significant role in the process of language loss. For example, when people migrate to a new country, their children attend school in the country, and the schools are likely to teach them in the majority language of the country rather than their parents' native language. Language death can also be the explicit goal of government policy. For example, part of
Pictish language - Misplaced Pages Continue
1920-417: The Pictish period. During the reign of Donald II of Scotland (889–900), outsiders began to refer to the region as the kingdom of Alba rather than the kingdom of the Picts . However, the Pictish language did not disappear suddenly. A process of Gaelicisation (which may have begun generations earlier) was clearly under way during the reigns of Donald II and his successors. By a certain point, probably during
1980-436: The assumption that, if it is shewn to be a Celtic dialect, it must of necessity be absolutely identic in all its features either with Welsh or with Gaelic. But this necessity does not really exist; and the result I come to is, that it is not Welsh, neither is it Gaelic; but it is a Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh forms. The Picts were under increasing political, social, and linguistic influence from Dál Riata from around
2040-561: The basis of a number of the loans attesting shorter vowels than other British cognates, linguist Guto Rhys proposed Pictish resisted some Latin-influenced sound changes of the 6th century. Rhys has also noted the potentially "fiscal" profile of several of the loans, and hypothesized that they could have entered Gaelic as a package in a governmental context. Several Gaelic nouns have meanings more closely matching their Brittonic cognates than those in Irish, indicating that Pictish may have influenced
2100-420: The disparate nature of the surviving evidence and large geographical area in which it was spoken, that Pictish may have represented not a single language, but rather a number of discrete Brittonic varieties. The evidence of place names and personal names demonstrates that an insular Celtic language related to the more southerly Brittonic languages was formerly spoken in the Pictish area. The view of Pictish as
2160-496: The dominant lingua francas of world commerce: English, Mandarin Chinese , Spanish, and French. In their study of contact-induced language change, American linguists Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman (1991) stated that in situations of cultural pressure (where populations are forced to speak a dominant language), three linguistic outcomes may occur: first – and most commonly – a subordinate population may shift abruptly to
2220-453: The dominant language, leaving the native language to a sudden linguistic death. Second, the more gradual process of language death may occur over several generations. The third and most rare outcome is for the pressured group to maintain as much of its native language as possible, while borrowing elements of the dominant language's grammar (replacing all, or portions of, the grammar of the original language). A now disappeared language may leave
2280-412: The eighth century. The Picts were steadily gaelicised through the latter centuries of the Pictish kingdom, and by the time of the merging of the Pictish and Dál Riatan kingdoms, the Picts were essentially a Gaelic-speaking people. Forsyth speculates that a period of bilingualism may have outlasted the Pictish kingdom in peripheral areas by several generations. Scottish Gaelic , unlike Irish , maintains
2340-552: The exact linguistic affinity of the Roman-era predecessors to the Picts is difficult to securely establish. The personal name Vepogeni , recorded c. 230 AD, implies that P-Celtic was spoken by at least the Caledonians . Celtic scholar Whitley Stokes , in a philological study of the Irish annals , concluded that Pictish was closely related to Welsh. This conclusion was supported by philologist Alexander MacBain 's analysis of
2400-476: The hundred years since his death he has continued to be a central figure in Celtic scholarship. Many of his editions have not been superseded in that time and his total output in Celtic studies comes to over 15,000 pages. He was a correspondent and close friend of Kuno Meyer from 1881 onwards. With Meyer he established the journal Archiv für celtische Lexicographie and was the co-editor, with Ernst Windisch , of
2460-548: The language in question must be conceptualized as frozen in time at a particular state of its history. This is accomplished by periodizing English and German as Old; for Latin, an apt clarifying adjective is Classical, which also normally includes designation of high or formal register . Minor languages are endangered mostly due to economic and cultural globalization , cultural assimilation, and development. With increasing economic integration on national and regional scales, people find it easier to communicate and conduct business in
Pictish language - Misplaced Pages Continue
2520-468: The language to be an Insular Celtic language related to the Brittonic language then spoken in most of the rest of Britain. The prevailing view in the second half of the 20th century was that Pictish was a non- Indo-European language isolate , or that a non-Indo-European Pictish and Brittonic Pictish language coexisted. Pictish was replaced by – or subsumed into – Gaelic in the latter centuries of
2580-461: The law were Arthur Cayley , Hugh McCalmont Hughes , and Thomas Chitty . Stokes became an English barrister on 17 November 1855, practicing in London before going to India in 1862, where he filled several official positions. In 1865 he married Mary Bazely by whom he had four sons and two daughters. One of his daughters, Maïve, compiled a book of Indian Fairy Tales in 1879 (she was 12 years old) based on stories told to her by her Indian ayahs and
2640-450: The names of Picts. These include *jʉð , "lord" (> Ciniod ) and *res , "ardor" (> Resad ; cf. Welsh Rhys ). The 9th century work Sanas Cormaic (or Cormac's Gloassary), an etymological glossary of Irish, noted a word catait ("Pictish brooch") (also spelled cartait and catit ) as being of Pictish origin. Isaac (2005) compared the word with Old Welsh cathet (of uncertain meaning but thought to mean "brooch" and appearing in
2700-420: The native language of hundreds of millions of people, renamed as different Romance languages and dialects (French, Italian, Spanish, Corsican , Asturian , Ladin , etc.). Similarly, Old English and Old High German never died, but developed into various forms of modern English and German, as well as other related tongues still spoken (e.g. Scots from Old English and Yiddish from Old High German). With regard to
2760-487: The only one that may be ranked with the most famous of continental savants". A conference entitled "Ireland, India, London: The Tripartite Life of Whitley Stokes" took place at the University of Cambridge from 18 to 19 September 2009. The event was organised to mark the centenary of Stokes's death. A volume of essays based on the papers delivered at this conference, The Tripartite Life of Whitley Stokes (1830–1909) ,
2820-402: The orthodox position for the latter half of the 20th century. However, it became progressively undermined by advances in understanding of late Iron Age archaeology. Celtic interpretations have been suggested for a number of Ogham inscriptions in recent years, though this remains a matter of debate. Traditional accounts (now rejected) claimed that the Picts had migrated to Scotland from Scythia ,
2880-480: The place and tribe names in Ptolemy's second-century Geographia . Toponymist William Watson's exhaustive review of Scottish place names demonstrated convincingly the existence of a dominant P-Celtic language in historically Pictish areas, concluding that the Pictish language was a northern extension of British and that Gaelic was a later introduction from Ireland. William Forbes Skene argued in 1837 that Pictish
2940-573: The region bear names of Pictish origin, including: Several Pictish elements occur multiple times in the region. This table lists selected instances according to the Welsh equivalent. Some Pictish names have been succeeded by Gaelic forms, and in certain instances the earlier forms appear on historical record. Pictish personal names, as acquired from documents such as the Poppleton manuscript , show significant diagnostically Brittonic features including
3000-438: The retention of final -st and initial w- (cf. P. Uurgust vs. Goidelic Fergus ) as well as development of -ora- to -ara- (cf. P. Taran vs G. torann ). Several Pictish names are directly parallel to names and nouns in other Brittonic languages. Several Pictish names are listed below according to their equivalents in Brittonic and other Celtic languages. Several elements common in forming Brittonic names also appear in
3060-767: The sense and usage of these words as a substrate . Srath (> Strath- ) is recorded to have meant "grassland" in Old Irish , whereas the modern Gaelic realization means "broad valley", exactly as in its Brittonic cognates (cf. Welsh ystrad ). Dùn , foithir , lios , ràth and tom may, by the same token, attest a substrate influence from Pictish. Greene noted that the verbal system inherited in Gaelic from Old Irish had been brought "into complete conformity with that of modern spoken Welsh", and consequently Guto Rhys adjudged that Pictish may have modified Gaelic verbal syntax. Extinct language An extinct language
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#17327652162293120-492: The written language, skills in reading or writing Etruscan are all but non-existent, but trained people can understand and write Old English, Old High German, and Latin. Latin differs from the Germanic counterparts in that an approximation of its ancient form is still employed to some extent liturgically. This last observation illustrates that for Latin, Old English, or Old High German to be described accurately as dead or extinct,
3180-553: Was Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity College Dublin . His sister Margaret Stokes was a writer and archaeologist. He was born at 5 Merrion Square , Dublin and educated at St Columba's College where he was taught Irish by Denis Coffey, author of a Primer of the Irish Language . Through his father he came to know the Irish antiquaries Samuel Ferguson , Eugene O'Curry , John O'Donovan and George Petrie . He entered Trinity College Dublin in 1846 and graduated with
3240-652: Was a Goidelic language, the ancestor of modern Scottish Gaelic . He suggested that Columba's use of an interpreter reflected his preaching to the Picts in Latin , rather than any difference between the Irish and Pictish languages. This view, involving independent settlement of Ireland and Scotland by Goidelic people, obviated an Irish influence in the development of Gaelic Scotland and enjoyed wide popular acceptance in 19th-century Scotland. Skene later revised his view of Pictish, noting that it appeared to share elements of both Goidelic and Brittonic: It has been too much narrowed by
3300-413: Was a non- Indo-European language. This opinion was based on the apparently unintelligible ogham inscriptions found in historically Pictish areas (compare Ogham inscription § Scholastic inscriptions ). A similar position was taken by Heinrich Zimmer , who argued that the Picts' supposedly exotic cultural practices (tattooing and matriliny) were equally non-Indo-European, and a pre-Indo-European model
3360-541: Was erected as a memorial to him at St Fintan's, Sutton, Dublin. The Gaelic League paper An Claidheamh Soluis called Stokes "the greatest of the Celtologists" and expressed pride that an Irishman should have excelled in a field which was at that time dominated by continental scholars. In 1929 the Canadian scholar James F. Kenney described Stokes as "the greatest scholar in philology that Ireland has produced, and
3420-754: Was made a CSI , and two years later a CIE He was an original fellow of the British Academy , an honorary fellow of Jesus College, Oxford and foreign associate of the Institut de France . Whitley Stokes is perhaps most famous as a Celtic scholar, and in this field he worked both in India and in England. He studied Irish, Breton and Cornish texts. His chief interest in Irish was as a source of material for comparative philology . Despite his learning in Old Irish and Middle Irish , he never acquired Irish pronunciation and never mastered Modern Irish . In
3480-401: Was maintained by some well into the 20th century. A modified version of this theory was advanced in an influential 1955 review of Pictish by Kenneth Jackson , who proposed a two-language model: while Pictish was undoubtedly P-Celtic, it may have had a non-Celtic substratum and a second language may have been used for inscriptions. Jackson's hypothesis was framed in the then-current model that
3540-720: Was published by Four Courts Press in autumn 2011. In 2010 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín published Whitley Stokes (1830–1909): The Lost Celtic Notebooks Rediscovered , a volume based on the scholarship in Stokes's 150 notebooks which had been resting unnoticed at the University Library, Leipzig since 1919. In 1910 Stokes' daughters presented University College London with their father's library. The collection spans c.2000 books, many of which contain autograph letters between Stokes and Kuno Meyer , and from other philologists. Stokes' archive also resides at University College London;
3600-465: Was the predecessor to modern Scots . Pinkerton's arguments were often rambling, bizarre and clearly motivated by his belief that Celts were an inferior people. The theory of a Germanic Pictish language is no longer considered credible. Although the interpretation of over 40 Ogham inscriptions remains uncertain, several have been acknowledged to contain Brittonic forms, although Rodway (2020) has disputed this. Guto Rhys (2015) notes that significant caution
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