Talk:Pictish language

Influence On Gaelic

It looks like from what I'm reading, the Picts were likely a Brittonic ruling class or overclass and the population of the regions they ruled was predominantly Gaelic-speaking. If they fled during the time of Roman occupation, it would explain why Pictish retained archaisms and resisted soundchanges in other Brittonic caused by Latin. It also explains why the Brittonic loanwords into Gaelic are mostly government oriented. And it explains the influence on syntax and such, the Brittonic-speakers adopted the Gaelic language. It would explain the gradual process of Picts adopting the Gaelic language. It would explain why there are so few Pictish placenames in the region. The kind of language shift we're talking about otherwise would simply be unthinkable without mass conquest and genocide of Pictish regions, which archaeogenetics and archaeology and contemporary sources don't seem to document. 92.5.108.62 (talk) 15:02, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

You are right in the last two sentences. Total replacement of Pictish with Gaelic could not have and did not happen. We know that Picts (and their preceding tribes) and Irish Gaels have an interlinked history going back to early Roman times at least, including a great deal of intermarriage over many centuries. The trouble is too many of these writers have no inside view. They don't even understand Gaelic and have no idea how rich a language it is. They ignore the etymology. The use of the term loanword from Pictish to Gaelic is unwarranted because Scottish Gaelic, at least on the Eastern side of the country, descends from "Pictish". It's a pity that the Gaelic of the east is now extinct. That means that they are not loanwords but inherited words. Don't forget that Pict is merely a Roman name given to people of Alba. Bad branding leads to confusion. D MacGill (talk) 16:21, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Really, due to Y DNA we know many modern British, most Irish, and a plurality of Scottish men are descended from one man bearing the Y DNA haplogroup R-L21 and whose descendants nearly replaced the Neolithic male lines in Ireland and Britain circa 2500 BCE. They are close cousins to continental men who would later be identified as Celts by Greeks and Romans.

It's no surprise that the language of these 2500 BCE migrants would be related to continental Celtic in spite of the lack of folk memory of Celtic origins.

It's also no surprise that their language (primarily Gaelic) would be highly diverged from other Indo-European languages (including Welsh) by the time literacy reached Britain and Ireland.

The high probability, thanks to DNA, explanation of Picts is that they were a British speaking overclass ruling over a Gaelic speaking underclass. No sparse, illiterate, decentralized, and rural population, that had resisted Roman occupation and did not become Latin speaking, just switched to Gaelic because some Irish cattle rustlers retraced their ancestors' steps back to Britain. Reality is that it is most likely Gaelic is the Indo-European dialect of the circa 2500 BCE migration to Britain and Ireland. British language became dominant in the South later (probably due to continentals drawn to tin reserves there). The line of demarcation between British Speakers in the South Gaelic speakers in the North (think Hatfields vs. McCoys) became the Borderlands which stopped the Romans, produced the Gallowglass, produced the Scots-Irish, and slowed down English advancement. I think we have historical analogs that allow us to conjecture that British elites married into Eastern and Southern Gaelic elite families thus producing the linguistically mysterious Picts. Gortaleen (talk) 07:24, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Romano-Brythonic would have been carried into Pictish territory by the Romans who also established the Gododdin and Strathclyde kingdoms as buffer states to keep the Scots and Picts at bay. D MacGill (talk) 17:04, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

It is not even known if Pictish was Brythonic, several scholars proposed it as being neither Goidelic nor Brythonic. I also heard position that Pictish was two different languages - Eastern (Brythonic) and Western (Scottish Gaelic, we find no evidence of Gaelic migration) - this can explain why Pictish assimilated so quickly.

Second, Pictish place names aren't few bruh. They are literally everywhere in Eastern Scotland sometimes overthrowing Gaelic ones.

Third, Pictish assimilated more quickly than we think. It likely had a very small influence on Gaelic because these languages never even met - Gaelic came AFTER Pictish elite was gaelisized, and elite language doesn't like borrowings. Although we do have proof that Pictish was spoken till 13th century likely, see Gartnait, Earl of Mar who lived in 1300's, and even if he wasn't connected to Picts directly, we know that the language has a tradition to save its most prestige names for about 100 years after its death (like Norse names in England), which clearly says that Pictish was likely spoken by 1200 AD. From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 10:44, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

The Picts were also in the West - Skye, Ross-shire, Sutherland. Do you know about the Ossianic Cycles? Gaelic poetry going back to the 3rd century? The Fèinne were Cruithnich (Picts). There are Ossianic place names in Antrim, Down, Derry, Mull, Skye, Argyll, Perthshire, Deeside, Angus and Caithness. The deep-time names are Gaelic - all over the north. Seeing as Gaelic was getting replaced by Scots (Inglis) 800 years ago a lot of these names have become mangled and mis-spelled. -it was actually Scots scribes who started writing Abar as Inver - In the 15th Century. Btw Gartnait mac Domhnall is PURE Gaelic. So is Mormaer - Mòr maor - a great judiciary. There is no question that the east is full of what were once Gaelic names - prefixes like ach, kin, kill, carn, tom, lon etc, etc. Brythonic is only a hypothetical ancestor language reverse-engineered from Welsh. Who ever tells you that? If you look for it in Welsh you will find Welsh-Gaelic cognates because the both have celtic roots. No-one ever came out of Pictland speaking Welsh- The Picts were not Britons. After all, according to Historia Brittonum the Britons hired the Anglo-saxons because they were afraid of them taking over. We all know how that panned out! D MacGill (talk) 14:35, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Oh hey, if you answered me: can you tell me what happened? It seems you got into a very long conversation with some other users about... About what? It seems that topic are quite diverse here. I'm a fellow Pictish scholar myself and I really want to know the idea behind all of this haha) From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 17:18, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Basically i am saying that there is not nearly enough evidence to propose Cruithnean language shift and that language change is a much more sensible proposal. No-one appears to want to take the trouble to examine it. D MacGill (talk) 19:32, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

So you're basically proposing that Pictish had slowly become a Goidelic language over time? Yeah that's similar to my theory of Western and Eastern Pictish one of which replaced the other as they were slowly separating from Proto-Pictish aka Late Insular Celtic.

Gartnait is a Pictish name and it seems to be the last leftover from Picts that appears in 1100's and 1300's. From toponymyc graphs and mentions we can see that Picts probably etinct somewhere in the area were clan Ogilvy currently lives (btw Ogilvy has Pictish etymology), so it makes sense that the last Pictish-named man lived in the area of Mar.

Also as I can see you absolutely reject that Pictish was Brythythonic, and although I share your ideas I cannot ignore that toponyms in Pictland are indeed very close to Brythonic. But as I mentioned, there are many hydronyms and local toponymy which is Celtic but not Gaelic nor Brythonic, and it is enough for me to see Pictish as a separate branch of Insular Celtic. It also seems to be a popular idea nowadays, as this or this source have similar proposals. From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 10:01, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

I am studying exactly how Pictish interfaces into Gaelic with a different model. Therefore supposed origins are far less important than actual connections. Continuity! Yes Gartnait is Pictish but it continues into Gaelic. Remember - two languages - Gàidhlig - Gaeilge. They are similar but different on a deeper level. D MacGill (talk) 10:16, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

But, if Gartnait an actual name currently used among Scottish Gaelic people? I consider myself pretty much a native Gaelic speaker and I never heard about someone named Gartnait who lived after that Earl of Mar in 1300's. And as I mentioned names from an exstinct language seems to go extinct in about 100 years, not longer. And that implies that Pictish was spoken till at least 1200's. From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 15:09, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

It carried on in medieval Gaelic as Gartnaith and Gartnaidh - Gart - achadh - mar am bi eòlas agad. 'Naid' is Goidelic too. No there was not a word of 'Pictish' heard from anyone after the ninth century when Picts stopped calling themselves Picts and started calling themselves Gaels. Anyone who tells you otherwise is off on one. Gartnait was Gaelic and was Pictish too. Names go out of use all the time. Someone here tried to give Henry of Huntingdon as evidence that Pictish died out. He was an English historian who tried to say the Picts were totally destroyed as a punishment from God. People actually believed that for centuries - obviously some still do! By the way, Fife comes from Gaelic Fiobha, which was one of the old Pictish kingdoms - Fib. D MacGill (talk) 15:46, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

From ninth century?! No, mo caraid, Pictish was definitely not extinct by ninth century, at least because we find mentions of "Albidosorum" and "Nainndisi" later.

But I don't understand what you're trying to say here. "Gartnaith" is a gaelisation of a Pictish name "Gartnait". This name was always exclusively Pictish because it wasn't seen anywhere outside of Scotland, and the last man with that name was Earl of Mar.

Maybe there are some direct sources in your claim? Like "Naid is Gaelic too" - why is it Gaelic? What are the roots or sources, can you tell me? From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 01:48, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

@Celtoi Albisodorum is a latin rendering of an unknown place which is more Goidelic than Brittonic in form - consider Albais. Dor dur could be anything -Roman fort name dor - dorus - door - 'um' is a Roman suffix. Naindissi is also more Q than P - the ending 'dissi' appears in early Irish genealogies and 'nain' is at home too. These are early forms. You need to get familiar with early written forms in Old Irish and Gaelic and see how they correspond. Naid is typical Gaeic ending - Seonaid. "Pett mac Gartnait" actually appears in the 12th century Gaelic notes in the Book of Deer. This is a remarkable piece of evidence for continuity as it is usage appropriate. People of Pictish descent had adopted the Irish writing system. D MacGill (talk) 08:54, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Why do you consider Albidosorum more "Goidelic than Brittonic"? I have all reasons to believe that if Picts were called Cruithne and Pydain, they must have called themselves somewhat connected to Britain also - like Albidosi/Alba-. The best etymology for it is "Albi ("white", "Albion") + Proto-Celtic *gdoynos ("people") = People of the Albion/White people. And nothing tells us that its more "Q-Celtic".

Pett mac Gartnait indeed appears in the Book of Deer. And that doesn't change anythin haha.

I see you're trying to say that Pictish became Gaelic, but its impossible simpl because they both existed at the same time, and Gartnait (a remarkably Pictish name) appears very late into the Middle Ages. It was borrowed for a short time among Gaelisied former Picts, and then disappeared because it still was a Pictish name that wasn't adopted into Gaelic for some reason, From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 11:51, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

"Gartnait" is actually quite good evidence for Pictish as a Brittonic language. The second element is generally agreed to be Proto-Celtic "next-" which in neo-Brittonic became "nait".

So far, the only mention of Naindissi of which I'm aware is from a Russian-language review of the Pictish Chronicle, which is pseudo-historical anyway.

I am open-minded to the possibility of a Q-Celtic language being present in Argyll from a very early date. There's no evidence Argyll was Pictish and seeing as much of its contact was via sea, Goidelic was very possibly a phenomenon that emerged simultaneously (c. 400 AD) in Ireland and Argyll.

But all the pre-Pictish and Pictish-era evidence for Eastern Scotland we have so far shows that their language was P-Celtic. JoeyofScotia (talk) 12:43, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I won't be saying anything, just for basics: Nainndisi isn't a pseudo historical, it is mentioned in Pictish Chronicle primarily at the same time with Malcolm of Scotland. Calling something a pseudo history is a big claim, please be aware of that. From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 16:28, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

NOTE: Please read WP:NOTFORUM. Can we shut this discussion down now? Catfish Jim and the soapdish 15:37, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

@92.5.108.62:. Picts, regardless of status, spoke a Brythonic language. There aren't 'so few' Brythonic place-names in the region, and most Pictish place names are actually farm names, and names of politically unimportant villages, which is hardly indicative of a ruling class.

There are very few unambiguously Brythonic place-names in much of England, nearly all Old English, Norman and Old Norse, but nobody would doubt that they were once Brythonic.

There's no evidence for anything other than P-Celtic in Northern Scotland during the immediately pre-Pictish period, and there is no reason to assume anything different.

No, genocide would not be needed to extinguish the Pictish language. DNA shows a strong Celtic element in Eastern England, yet there are virtually no obvious Celtic place names there, and no trace of Celtic there post-6th century, which suggests that they were assimilated into Anglo-Saxon linguistics and culture. And this was a shift from a Celtic to a non-Celtic language.

Conversely, Pictish to Gaelic would be a shift between two Celtic languages. When you look at what survives of 6th-10th century Irish and Welsh, the two languages still resemble each other a lot, so its hardly difficult to imagine one language converging into the other. That's what we saw with several Germanic languages of Europe.

We have no idea how the Celtic languages developed in Britain, and it isn't helpful to think of terms like 'Gaelic' in Roman times. Other than the P/Q split, a relatively marginal change, the evidence from the 1st Century AD suggests that all Celtic speakers of Britain and Europe were speaking something extremely similar. It's possible that, with Argyll being isolated geographically from the rest of Britain so much of its immediate contact came from Ireland via sea, that Gaelic was a phenomenon that developed on either side, in Ulster and Argyll, which would partly explain why the nation of Dal Riata appears to have emerged simultaneously in those regions. But it's just one possibility out of a million.

--JoeyofScotia (talk) 08:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

If it isn't helpful to think in terms like 'Gaelic' in Roman times it's far less helpful to think in terms like 'Brythonic'. Gaelic is an attestable language whereas 'Brythonic' is a malleable hypothetical linguistic construct derived mainly from Welsh. The circular reasoning that goes with it gets really out of hand. Meanwhile the Gaelic is hidden in plain sight. There is a basic tenet in language that continuity is assumed unless there is positive evidence of disruption. (Matasović, Trask, Campbell) Similarly, the attestable language is prioritised over the hypothetical. Moreover, a decent knowledge will quickly confirm that the majority of supposedly Pictish forms still exist in Scottish Gaelic. Contact between Scotland and Ireland goes way, way back - the Irish sea was a far safer crossing than between the Forth and Clyde as evidenced by history - even more so for Picts and Scots during the Roman occupation. Are you aware of the Dàl nAraidi of Ulster btw? They were Pictish. The evidence from Bede, Lingua propria, does not differentiate between dialect and language. The current politicised use of 'Brythonic' as a blunt tool to disinherit Scottish Gaelic is unsustainable and won't hold. D MacGill (talk) 16:58, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

@D MacGill: There is no "attestable" Pictish language. Not one document of it survives. We're reliant on its geographic and personal names. For the pre-Pictish (i.e. Caledonians) inhabitants of this region, we have personal names such as Vepogeni, which are transparently P-Celtic. Likewise, the names of recorded Picts also have features characteristic of Brittonic - such as "w"-retention (which became "f" in Goidelic), the retention of "st" (which became "s" in Goidelic) and the development of "-ora-" to "-ara-". The evidence for Pictish having undergone the same phonological developments as Brittonic is overwhelming, and see Alan James for the phonological evidence that Pictish and Cumbric were part of a dialectal continuum.

Scholars of Scottish Gaelic will tell you that it attests numerous features absent from Irish, many of which correspond with attestable Brythonic languages as far back as Old Welsh (c. 800 AD). A good start on this is the "Edinburgh Companion to the Gaelic Language" (page 10).

You seem to be referring to a group called "Cruthin" of Ulster, who had a similar name to the Gaelic name for Picts. Wikipedia has an article on this group, and the general academic consensus is that they had no known relationship with the Picts. So, no they are not "Pictish". It's not uncommon for groups with no known relation to have similar names - see the Pictones of 2nd Century Gaul, for example.

Works like Robertson's "Gaelic Topography of Scotland" are widely considered outdated. His argument rests on one piece of evidence (namely the attempt to show "aber" as a place-name element was not neccesarrily Brittonic); it ignores the large corpus of other evidence, and because it was composed around 160 years ago, it has no engagement with the other items that have been brought into the debate since. Using old, flawed sources - whilst downplaying more contemporary, peer-reviewed sources that engage with evidence in a holistic way - is, as any academic will tell you, poor research and should be avoided.

The use of the term Brythonic is not political, and nobody is trying to disinherit Scottish Gaelic. In fact, most of the work that has proven Pictish to be, beyond any reasonable doubt, was that of native Gaelic speakers themselves (namely William J. Watson and Alexander MacBain). JoeyofScotia (talk) 12:33, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I am a native speaker myself, having learned later in life from my father, who is as fluent as you get. When it comes to Pictish- Macc/Maqq forms ARE attested - just explained away.'General consensus' isn't worth much when it flies in the face of evidence. So, this is what i have done: Seeing there has been no credible academic effort to deal with Robertson - 'widely considered outdated' is worth nothing in evidential terms -i have taken it on myself to test what he says - rigorously. He has more than one argument for sure and it is certain that Abar and peit have complete continuty into Gaelic.That means putting it up against MacBain, Watson, Jackson and everything since - a consecutive law of diminishing returns, circular assumptions and quiet retractions for sure. By the way, if you work too had on separating Cruithin, cruithne, cruithnich or whatever you only undermine Jacksons speculative Cruithin=Pretani folk etymology. That's ok because it's fatally flawed anyway. In the meantime why not take a look at Katherine Forsyth's 95 (i think) paper where she obtains a Gaelic reading on the Buckquoy spindle whorl to see how she uses it and explains it away (Jackson tried and declared it unintelligible before moving away from the Pictish question for good). See how it measures up against modern Archeological, historical and even Genetic evidence. If you want to posit language shift (as opposed to language change)the burden of proof is on you. D MacGill (talk) 17:02, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

As a postscript i should add that many of the points you have made support a model that Gàidhlig developed from a Cruithnean framework, as a carrier - as it were - and Irish as a powerful modifier, which accounts for the uniqueness of Gàidhlig. However, it is fully attested that Pictish was not the language of the Britons (Nennuus, Bede, Irish annals). We also know there was great deal of interaction between the Cruithnich and Mil Espáine - two languages then, two languages now. D MacGill (talk) 17:39, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

@D MacGill: None of this holds to court.

The evidence points to the Pictish patronymic being map, not maqq. Pictish patronymics appear from time to time in the very Irish Annals you mention, such as the 8th century entry in the annals of Ulster, which records the death of a Pict called Tolarggan Map-Han.

Of the Oghams, almost none of them have been given satisfactory transcriptions. Maqq appears in a small handful. Since Medieval Ogham lacks a -p- flex, that -q- was employed as the equivalent is hardly unreasonable to think. Even Rodway, who favours Irish translations for many of the Oghams, acknowledges that many features of them are more easily explainable on Brittonic terms than Goidelic ones.

Aber and pit are not attested in a language as well-documented as Old Irish, so without special pleading, attempts to classify them as Goidelic are futile. Pit can't possibly be of Goidelic origin, due to the pan-Celtic loss of Indo-European "p" and that "kw" developed to "c-" in Goidelic (vs. "P" in Brit/Gaul). All initial-P words in Old Irish are of non-Goidelic origin (mostly Latin). Pit was a P-Celtic word adopted into early Scottish Gaelic. There have been attempts to connect it with an Old Irish word for "hollow, vulva" ... firstly, this is incompatible with its earliest attestations in records like the Book of Deer. Second, there's no other evidence for the use of this word in toponymy ... and third, the Irish word is of Latin origin, and related to French "puits" ("shaft").

Actually, studies of Pictish benefited considerably from MacBain and Watson. Both, unlike Robertson, were highly qualified in their respective fields. There's no circular reasoning to be found anywhere. Their conclusions are what any highly qualified linguist or toponymist would come to when engaging with evidence holistically. Not that every conclusion they came to was correct, but they were the first to apply firm linguistic analysis to their respective fields.

If we're talking about redactions, then Skene was forced to downplay his theory of Pictish being a Q-Celtic language when overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary.

Bede sets Pictish as being distinct from both Irish and Britonnic. As we have robust evidence for the non-operation of the New Quantity System in Pictish, it's likely that it resisted much of the Latin influence that gave rise to Bede also cites the Pictish name for Kinneil as Peannuahel (manifestly P-Celtic). In the 13th century, Henry of Huntingdon reports that that, although Irish, Brittonic and English remain in use, "the language of the Picts is no-longer spoken" (as an annotation of Bede), robust evidence that it left no direct descendants.

The accounts of Nennius are considered legendary. Suffice to say, he claimed the Picts were from Thrace.

Genetics have nothing to do with language whatsoever. The DNA of an English-speaking inhabitant of East Anglia is as "Celtic" as a Gaelic speaker of the Outer Hebrides. Language shift frequently happen without substantial changes to the genetics of a population. JoeyofScotia (talk) 20:36, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

None of this holds to court? Who's holding court? Are you referring to this entry? "Talorcan m. Uurad rex Pictorum mortuus est." Can i see your source for this alleged use of mapp please - or is it a reconstructed stylisation like "Fortriu"? Mac forms are used consistently and repeatedly. You kick out Nennius on a contemporary observation then drag out Bede's spurious half and half borderlingo name - nul point. Henry of Huntingdon - come on! - he knew precisely nothing of Pictish as by then Pictish had been rebranded. Scottish and Irish elites may started using the Classical Gaelic which died out in the 18th century. How do you account for the Gaelic dialects of East Sutherland, Aberdeenshire and Fife which survived until recent centuries?. How did they arrive full-formed in the 10th century? We need to know! Language shift as a proposition does not work. Abbor as in B.of Deer Abbordoboir is exact expected outcome of Ab + bior and the physical properties of each site match the Gaelic meaning. There is more... ~2025-34928-71 (talk) 22:36, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

You have slipped into the methodological fallacy of assuming that Pictish does not have proto-Celtic or Insular Celtic roots of its own, ( G Rhys has tacitly acknowledged this problem) that it has to be measured on either Old Irish or Welsh (derived, reconstructed)terms. A continuity model sidesteps this and avoids shortcomings in MacBains etymology. Dwellys is superior. MacBain does not even include Abh, Ab, Abar, Abarach, Acbarachd etc, Ain is also present. Still in colloquial use today. Commonly visible as a prefix in known Pictish rivers, with a Gaelic Prefix. 28 pages of words beginning with P - a modest guess - 1400 words 18 pages of words beginning with u. You will be explaining all of them and why your methodology stands in the way of verifiable physical evidence, why speculative linguistics is given the final say. The word in the Book of Deer is 'Peit' which you will also find in Dwelly's dictionary. There is still more. When you try to pass off half-baked understandings as fact it is evidence enough that you are getting nowhere. Meanwhile i am actually verifying dozens - leading to hundreds - of authentic candidate words. Good luck with your assumptions. I do have academic support. D MacGill (talk) 07:30, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

@D MacGill: "Tolarghan Maphan moritur" is found here at U726.

There are forms referring to Picts with Mac used in the Irish records, which anyone would expect from a source composed primarily in Irish; Mac is used in the Irish records' patronymics of Britons, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings too; Olaf Guthfrithson is called Amlaíb mac Gofraid, for example. The portions of the annals in Latin use fillius for Pictish patronymics; are the Picts supposed to have spoken Latin now?

If you're using the annals of Ulster as evidence, they also employ the word "Cruthin" to mean "Briton" as well as "Pict".

"Pictish had been rebranded". There's no evidence for this. Sounds like confirmation bias to me: "I think it's correct, so it must be correct". Your most doubtful "etymologies" for words like aber confirms this; gluing together various bits of unrelated evidence to support a pre-prepared conclusion against a much larger body of evidence that says otherwise is a logical fallacy called "begging the question", and should too be avoided.

The word abar/eabar in Gaelic means "boggy ground", and it does occur in Old Irish and, ironically, the word itself seems to have been borrowed into Old Irish from Brittonic. MacBain also does mention both your abair and abarach. It is exceptionally rare in place-names in Ireland or Scotland. Meanwhile, the use of Aber- in a Brittonic context parralels exactly its use in Pictland; at a confluence. On that basis, which of the two is more likely?

Tha abbor of the Book of Deer is not even slightly consistent with a derivation from ad-bior, because the early Gaelic form of bior was bir, which couldn't possibly give -bor. Furthermore, in early Gaelic, the ad- ("to") prefix generally didn't assimilate either.

There are indeed items with initial P- in Scottish Gaelic. Almost all of which are derived from English, French and Latin. Some are evidently of Brittonic origin. I never said that Pictish couldn't have words with independent Proto-Celtic or Proto-Indo European etymologies that don't occur in Irish or Welsh, in fact it's virtually certain. And it proves Pictish was P-Celtic too, since Gaelic dileab ("legacy") is agreed by most scholars of Gaelic to be a P-Celtic loan derived from a prefixed Indo-European likw.

Again, there are just too many items of Pictish provenance that can't possibly be of Goidelic origin. For example, we have the recorded Pictish place-name Monit Carno and the P-Celtic loanword monadh in Gaelic (not seen in Irish). These transparently derive from Proto-Celtic moniyos ("mountain, moor"). The suffix -iyos was lost in Goidelic but in Brittonic yielded to -ɨð (Welsh -ydd); hence the personal name Ogmiyos became Oghma in Irish but Oumid in Welsh. If the word monadh were derived directly via Goidelic from Proto-Celtic, why is it a sole exception to a universal rule in Goidelic?

Once again, the accounts of Nennius are legendary. To discredit sources such as Henry of Huntingdon, a highly reputable historian by the standards of the 12th century, yet defend legendary accounts is special pleading in the extreme. JoeyofScotia (talk) 14:04, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely that Tolarghan Maphan was a Pictish King. We do not even know who this character was, only that Tolarghan resembles a Pictish name. If that's your best evidence it's poor. Typical personal names such as MAQI and MAQQ are distinctly Gaelic and actually appear in Pictish inscriptions - at least seven accepted to my knowledge. This is primary evidence. There is a hierarchy. Why is this evidence not considered at face value? The Picts were not Britons. U of Glasgow does not even appear to have a record of the number of Cenn/ceann place names prefixes in Pictland. There are hundreds east and west yet a solitary Pennan gets dragged out with no early attested history. Your argument is circular because you are trapped in the assumption of language shift. You stated that Robertson had only one argument and this is a total misrepresentation. Watson has the linguistic upper hand but Robertson was a brilliant natural detective intuitively understanding this - Initial p- is evidence only of a later p; it is not evidence of a non-Gaelic origin without corroborating semantic and historical context.He went to lengths to point out - in the words of his time - that language shift was impossible. It goes against the uniformitarian default. History and archaeology support this - Gaelicisation is a Black Box theory. It only exists in terms of its described function. What it has produced is a 'Pictish of the Gaps'. Accusing me of begging the question is nigh hilarious. You have to produce evidence for language shift and you do not have anything close. You are stuck with a comparative method that methodologically suspends Pictish between Welsh and Irish. The native successor is disregarded in the process. You are forced to assume because there is no early record of Gaelic that it did not exist, yet it is structurally different language to Irish. If there was no early written record of the Scots language would you think it came from Ireland too because of the LABEL?? Dùisg a' Bhalaich! You give a lecture on Abar based on MacBains restricted etymology. What a mess! Eabar is mud!!! Abar is water retained! Note that there is a separate, homonymous Irish word bior meaning "water; spring, well" which comes from a different Proto-Celtic root, **berus ("spring, source of water"), derived from the PIE **bʰrewh₁- ("to boil, brew").( The context of "spike/point" is more common for the modern word bior, however). For the full scope of Gaelic you need Dwelly's. You do not need an etymological dictionary to prove continuity - only for origins. When you start to use the term 'loans' and 'borrowing' in place of continuity it is again a purely circular assumption. The use is dishonest. These factors, and more, are coming and sooner or later you will have to address them fully, be sure of this. D MacGill (talk) 11:28, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

@D MacGill: These replies become more illogical the more they're trotted out, TBH.

Tolarggan Maphan is generally equated with the saint Talorcan, who is equated in a few place-names in northern Scotland. The fact that Talorggan Maphan's obituary occurs in the middle of several lines relating to Picts is fairly suggestive of his ethnic origin.

MAQQ (MAQI' doesn't, actually) appears in Pictish inscriptions, but this is not "primary evidence" for their linguistic affinity. The letter P doesn't exist in traditional Ogham. A Q- flex would be redundant in a non-Q Celtic language thus, logically, it would be employed for its equivalent (P in this case). That literally is its face value! We notice similar with Mycenaean Greek (Q-Helenic) vs. Ancient Greek (P-Helenic), where inscriptions represent the P or Q with the same character, dependent on the language.

As most any scholar of Ogham will tell you, the vast majority of Oghams are without satisfactory interpretation. The Old Norse word dattr ("daughter") seems to appear in one of them, so by your logic, the Picts may just as well have spoken Old Norse? To uncritically employ Oghams as primary evidence, in view of the numerous issues associated with them (outlined by Guto Rhys (p. 44 of his thesis) is a strange take to say the least

Where/when did I say the "Picts" were "Britons"? I said absolutely nothing of the sort. Why would I conflate two VERY broad ethnonyms which were rarely, if ever, used by the people to which they refer?

Gallicisation is no more a Black Box theory than Celtic language decline in England; we have no record of the loss of Celtic speech in England, no idea of the mechanism by which this took place, whether it was gradual, abrupt, etc, but the evidence we have supports such a theory ...

That language shift is impossible is absolute nonsense (and if Robertson says this, that proves his arguments should be ignored), as the above example proves. If you're incapable of examining these theories in the context of their time (the 19th century), then you really have no business talking about this issue. In the case of Celtic language loss in England, it was assumed at that time that Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century drove the Celts out of much of present-day England, with Germanic speakers put in their place. We know from DNA that this is incorrect, with even East Anglia (by far the largest recipient of Germanic incomers) having a strong Celtic element in the DNA of the local population. Instead, it's evident that a Celtic population adopted a non-Celtic language, and that Celts intermarried with non-Celts.

I don't know why you're bringing "Kin" vs. "Pennan" into this? It's quite a marginal issue. The "Kin" names are already mentioned on articles dealing with Gaelic toponymy. Most of the "Kin" names have no early recordings either ... save for Kinneil which Bede noted was known Cennel in Irish but Peanfahel in Pictish; a diagnostically P-Celtic name.

In a lot of cases south of the Forth, "Kin" would appear to have replaced "Pen" (at Kincaid, Sitrlingshire for one). Since "Kin-" also occurs alongside Brittonic elements in Pictland (i.e. Kinpurney, Kinghorn, Kincardine, Kinrymonth etc), it's likely that similar substitutions underlie some of these names.

When did I say that Scottish Gaelic didn't exist because it wasn't recorded? Absolutely did not say that. Scottish Gaelic is one of three modern realisations of Old Irish; even by the end of the 15th century, Scots language speakers referred to the language as "Erse" (i.e. "Irish"). The onomastic evidence overwhelmingly supports the linguistic consensus; that a non-Goidelic language was spoken in north-east Scotland between the 5th-11th centuries. For much of the primary evidence for In the centuries prior to this, there is no evidence for Q-Celtic speech in this region but, unsurprisingly, a fair bit for P-Celtic.

Nobody said Scottish Gaelic came from Ireland. I did say: "It's possible that, with Argyll being isolated geographically from the rest of Britain so much of its immediate contact came from Ireland via sea, that Gaelic was a phenomenon that developed on either side, in Ulster and Argyll, which would partly explain why the polity of Dal Riata appears to have emerged simultaneously in those regions", this introduced vs. indigenous debate which you're fostering is much too simple. JoeyofScotia (talk) 15:02, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Why have you not tested for continuity and why is this discouraged? Guto Rhys acknowledged that this area had not been properly studied. You don't have anything conclusive here at all. All i ever see is evidence selectively interpreted to suit a consensus. You must be able to see that to do so is a fallacy and is not conducive to discovery. Is this a face-saving exercise? It's seventy years since Jackson and it's not weathering well at all. Continuity does not exclude early potentially Brythonic elements - You look for the evidence in Gaelic itself. This is language change - not shift. Some you have quoted are wrong - Kincardine Fife for example is early attested Kincarne. Don't waste time on south of the Forth examples. You have totally missed the point on my critique of the method - maybe reread it. There is just too much more and you are wielding the same old tired arguments. I am getting results and i could give examples all night. Enough. Pictish territory is not confined to the East. I am sitting right here in the west on Pictish -not Dalriadan - ground. Your final sentence makes no sense whatsoever... D MacGill (talk) 22:01, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

...just to deal with your other claims - you keep gluing wings to a brick in the hope that it will fly. Proof that Robertson should be ignored when you haven't read read him? Come on! I already told you i have been taking them into a modern context -impartially testing them because as a Gaelic speaker i was astonished at some of his findings, based on access to early documents and skilful cross-referencing. Otherwise i would not be here. You chose a very poor excuse with your example of Celtic England with its clear conquest history and you have undermined your earlier argument by citing DNA evidence. Yet in England the deep-time evidence is still there - e.g. Pennines, Celtic river names. This does not occur in Pictavia - we see clear Gaelic naming - beinn, càrn, loch etc etc and in the rivers 'an' and 'ain'- these were named by the descendents of the eponymous Cruithne mac Cing, not Mil Espáine. (Your Dalriada claim is reasonable enough and standard but it does not explain Pictavia). Your onomastic 'evidence' from the east has to be weighed up against 1. Pre-pictish era Romano-brythonic contact from invasion and 2. Early replacement of Gaelic with Scots (followed by English ordinance survey interpretations) over many centuries producing heavy distortions 3. Not to mention Norse (also in north and west) which Gaels did not trouble to rename - yet deep-time evidence is still there. You are demanding an exceptional mechanism for Gaelicisation which is not evidenced by the history. Monastic influence - yes. Dynastic and administrative - yes. Colloquial - How in the world???? The burden of proof is on you! It is a black box (It doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis, let alone a theory). Pictavia was MUCH bigger than Dalriada. You completely put your foot in it when citing 'Erse' as this is a known political rebranding from 'Scottis', applying the name 'Scots' to what had previously been known as 'Inglis', making my argument for me while at the same time not taking in the point i tried to make previously. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. You cannot distinguish between contemporary and legendary accounts and you do not appear to understand the cultural significance of mythology when it comes to identity etc... D MacGill (talk) 08:30, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

@D MacGill: I really don't have much time for these exceptionally bad arguments. You don't understand historical linguistics. If you did, much of your so-called "evidence" would fall apart.

The "continuity" theory is completely incompatible with the contemporary evidence we have for Pictish. How, for example, did the Pictish name "Wrgust" become "Feargas"? The change from -w- to -f- was already complete in Goidelic by the 5th-6th century.

"Cruithne mac Cinge" and "Mil Espáine" are pseudohistorical. Once again, obtained from Nennius, who claimed that the Picts migrated from Thrace. It's worthless as evidence.

Again, the Cruithne appears in Irish records to refer not just to Picts, but to Britons living in Ireland in the early middle ages too.

Yes, mythology is important when it comes to identity, but means absolutely squat when it comes to history and linguistics.

If you're using river-names as evidence, then this absolutely does occur in Pictavia. Many times ... and they're demonstrably P-Celtic in origin! For example, River Ythan is derived from Proto-Celtic yext- ("language"; fig. "talkative one"), which gives icht- in Goidelic but jeiθ in Brittonic, exactly as attested in Ythan (exactly as in Eithon). There is also River Nethy, from Proto-Celtic *nicto, which gave Goidelic necht but Brittonic nejth. The River Spey has been consistently spelled Spé in Goidelic for its entire recorded history, and as it is probably derived from *skwej-, showing the defining characteristic of P -Celtic with -kw- becoming -p-. The river-names of Pictland are actually well-paralleled by those in the Brittonic regions the "Almond" and "Calder" groups especially.

Pictland actually has significantly more diagnostically P-Celtic place- and river-names surviving into the present day than England!

Can you actually gives some examples of rivers with these words to which you refer? How do you know they were named by Picts?

Pictish and Dalriadan territory no longer exist. They're in Scotland now. Have you actually read any of the history of how the Kingdom of Alba came into being?

Ironically, citing beinn and carn weakens your argument because they present quite a good case for a Brythonic substrate on Scottish Gaelic (i.e. carn is not used in hill-names in any other Goidelic language, but is in Scottish Gaelic and Brittonic). Besides, how do you know these place-names were named by Picts? JoeyofScotia (talk) 13:23, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Consider: Carrain, Dèain, Dòmhain, Crosain, Ria(bh)chain, Alain, Spèain, Feòrain (Pheofharain) etc - all can be linked to Cruithnean. Of course i know how Alba came into being!! What i was saying is that large parts of the West were Cruithnean. Likewise i am making the subtle point that although the eponymous names are pseudohistrical to us they were significant to the people in question and how they identified as people. D MacGill (talk) 09:36, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

p.s. Have you thought about Urchard or Urchadan? My great grandfather's middle name btw. Urquhart. Uamh, uasal, uaine, uilebhèist and about 1000 other common Gaelic words to consider in Dwelly's. D MacGill (talk) 10:23, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Seeing this sour back and forth discussion, I start to get worried about the reliability of this article. The Banner talk 13:45, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

And I have requested more eyes and input on this article and the discussion. The Banner talk 14:03, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

What i have already submitted is probably enough for the time being - there is plenty there already to consider. Hope to get back at some point, especially if there is opportunity for productive discussion. D MacGill (talk) 10:09, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

The article more or less represents the current academic position as far as I'm aware. I haven't really been paying much attention to any recent developments but it's not a subject that moves particularly fast.

The above is a bit TLDR. Could someone summarise what the issue it? I wouldn't want to mischaracterise anyone's points but it looks to me like D MacGill is disagreeing with the academic position... there may well be merit in that view but without published sources we cannot present it. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 16:05, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

@Catfish Jim and the soapdish: D MacGill was expressing an opinion that Pictish was Q-Celtic and Scottish Gaelic was the direct descendant of it. This simply doesn't stand up to the standards of 21st century linguistic scrutiny, and much of the "evidence" attributed was 19th century works which did little to engage with contemporary records of Pictish (nor were the writers, even by the standards of the day, really qualified to make sweeping linguistic statements), and legendary accounts by the likes of Nennius; neither of are considered reliable. JoeyofScotia (talk) 17:30, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Okay, well I'm afraid that's not supported by any reliable source. Whether the current academic consensus (which is that Pictish was an insular Celtic language related to P-Celtic forms, not withstanding the non-IE thing that refuses to die) is correct is neither here nor there. What matters here is that we are bound by WP:V and WP:NOR. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 17:44, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I think if you examine the whole thread you will get a better idea of what i am saying . Basically, i'm a fairly fluent native Gaelic speaker who came across an 1869 book by James A Robertson called 'The Gaelic Topography of Scotland and what it Proves, Explained...', which no-one seemed to have heard of. This man was no eccentric, he was right on point, consistent with the orthodoxy of his time, a Perthshire Gaelic speaker of the Robertson family of Lude. He was the last of his line and from him were left two of the three oldest harps in Scotland to the National Museum. He knew his history - he was an intellectual with a keen eye and full access to all the old records in Edinburgh. He ridicules and demolishes Chalmers and also deals with fringe arguments which had previously been used to take down Skene (Peanfahel etc). These self- same arguments are STILL being used today. However, he did not have the subsequent linguistic training of Watson as he was of an earlier generation. On these grounds he is dismissed. I was naturally fairly astounded by what he had been saying and, not wanting to take it at face value, decided to start testing what he was saying. I have a full life as it is - this is taking a lot of time so it had to be a big deal in the first place to take it on. Basically i have found that a lot (not all) of what he said holds water but the important stuff DOES -very much. I have thoroughly examined the prevailing orthodoxy which has in the background been pulling itself apart but will NOT budge from the idea of language SHIFT - the idea that Cruithnean was replaced by Gaelic. No-one appears to have tested for continuty i.e. Language CHANGE -that Gaelic evolved with Cruthnean as a carrier and Dalriadan as a modifier. If it's in Gaelic it IS Gaelic. You don't need to resort to a copy of MacBains dictionary for this. It is too limited. If i had come to a dead end i would have stopped but doors keep opening. The thread has stagnated asJoeyofScotiadefends the status quo while i insist that i have already dealt with the points he raises. He doesn't want to read Robertson as, from what i gather, he feels it is too old-fashioned or that it doesn't merit attention. I am not a linguist but i am fortunate to be having some very adept support in this and i am learning fast. So, this is not an outlying issue but a challenge. If i have achieved anything it is to bring this to your attention. Slàinte. D MacGill (talk) 09:09, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

It's a 156 year old publication by an amateur historian. That is, in essence, the reason he's not taken seriously by contemporary academics. They're certainly aware of him. Wilhelm Nicolaisen, for example, cites Robertson's work as the probable source of an unfortunate error in Johnston's third edition of Place-Names of Scotland.

Simon Taylor sums up the academic consensus well in his 2010 paper Pictish Place-Names Revisited: "I certainly believe, with Watson (1926), Jackson (1955), Nicolaisen (1976), Koch (1983) and Forsyth (1997), that the peoples north of the Forth spoke a P-Celtic language or languages before they spoke Q-Celtic."

As further indication of the level of consensus this has, the paper was reviewed prior to publication by Dauvit Broun, Thomas Clancy, Katherine Forsyth, Mark Hall, Alan James, Gilbert Márkus, Guto Rhys, John Wilkinson and Alex Woolf.

• Taylor, Simon (2010), Driscoll, Stephen T.; Geddes, Jane; Hall, Mark A. (eds.), "Pictish Place-Names Reivisted", Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Middle Ages, Brill, pp. 67–118

There is no debate to be settled here. The notion that Pictish could have been a Q-Celtic language has long been rejected. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:48, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

You are referring to consensus. Presumably by mistake, Bill Nicolaisen (2007, p.4) characterises Robertson as “…dividing the word Aber into two Gaelic elements, ath ‘ford’ and bior ‘water’, so that the whole manufactured compound can be claimed to mean ‘waterford’”. This was not what Robertson said at all and it heightens the ambiguity that Nicholaisen has substituted for abh the word ath, which does not mean water (He would have meant àth, a ford). Then, without tackling the issue, beyond eabar, he refers us back to the “real masters”  - Jackson and Watson - who have left us with “no doubt…that Aber- is the same as in Wales”. An explanation is withheld in favour of a descent into a non-specific defensive argument which begs the question ‘why’? As if it needs reminding, the word Robertson gave was abh and he suggested nothing at all to do with a ford in the context of Abar. Guto Rhys (2015) has partially restated this error when making a passing mention of Robertson in his thesis, though he does acknowledge abh as a word for water. D MacGill (talk) 14:33, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Consensus is key... and the current academic consensus, held for at least the past 70 years, is that Pictish (ignoring the possibility of a second, non-Indo-European language) was a P-Celtic language and not a Q-Celtic language. There is no counter-argument or dissent being voiced in academia. None. It is not for us to evaluate the merits of academic consensus, we are only here to report it from a dispassionate, neutral point of view. And neutral does not mean voicing every possible view. Per WP:UNDUE we don't report on viewpoints held by extremely small minorities. And, per WP:AGE MATTERS we don't give equal voice to sources that have long been superseded. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 15:17, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

You realise that what i have just posted clearly and unambiguously illustrates a consensual error. Therefore it is for the consensus to deal with. If consensus is key, have it your way but the problem becomes yours as part of that consensus. If this statement has passed peer review then that error has transmitted all the way to the current consensus. As a native Gaelic speaker i certainly am of a very, very small minority - my motive is to get to the truth rather than to verify the 70 year consensus. As Robertson has been engaged with and misquoted by academia then that's something that has to be dealt with for the sake of the credibility of all above. Abh and its male counterpart Ab (Am Faclair Beag) are two mighty faces of a small but very important word. D MacGill (talk) 15:58, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

You've hit on an issue that many (myself included) run into when they're new to the project. As frustrating as it may seem, we don't deal in "truth", it's all about "verifiability". There's a handy essay on it at WP:NOTTRUTH. I like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quote: "Where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate."

I have my own pet theories on the position of Pictish vs Gaelic. They're a lot more complicated than P-Celtic being replaced by Q-Celtic. You might like them... They might even be "true". However, we have to abide by Wikipedia policy and content guidelines. WP:NOR is non-negotiable. And (I confess I tend to forget this too often) there is also WP:NOTFORUM. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 16:42, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

No worries at all. I am stress-testing these ideas with representatives of the consensus because they need to be robust. Happy to hear your ideas and those of anyone else. Everyone has a glimpse of the picture but it's shaping up that the continuity model has the best chance of resolving the issue for good; the previous thread at least illustrates that there are too many flaws and systemic biases (unintended i'm sure)in the prevailing model to sustain indefinitely. We shall see... D MacGill (talk) 17:22, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

There is one more thing i should highlight before leaving you in peace. Speaking of impartiality - There is a measure of bias on the page which ought to be corrected. The graph of Pictish kings focuses on names from the King list which look Brythonic (but are best described as pan-Celtic). It ought to be made clear that it is weighted - it omits King names which are overtly Gaelic such as Bridei (Brìde), Nechtan, Ciniod (Cináed), Óengus and Domnall. Most of these even appear in subsequent clan names. The same weighting is seen with the graph of places names. Some linguists are getting too carried away - a bit high on the capabilities of their methodology and i suspect their ability with Gaelic. Will leave it with you. D MacGill (talk) 20:08, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Remembered that "consensus is key" was built into my original argument. Language shift can be summarised in this way according to the overall historical linguistic consensus; “Language shift is a prolonged process involving widespread bilingualism; structural interference in the recipient language is the inevitable result. Sudden or total replacement without trace is virtually unknown”.  (Thomason and Kaufman, 1988, p.115 ) So, the argument was that the Black box consensus on Pictish/Gaelic language shift breaches an established consensus in Historical Linguistics. The considerable evidence for the Uniformitarian principle (linguistics) default, Language change has not been tested in a modern context therefore what we are prioritising in Pictish language is the consensual Dogma which @JoeyofScotia chose to defend. Food for thought. D MacGill (talk) 13:42, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

This is utterly exhausting. Nobody said that the language shift from Pictish to Gaelic was abrupt - the evidence we have shows that this took place over multiple centuries - and there was no sudden replacement without trace. Nothing about the consensus on Pictish contradicts the consensus on language shift.

And your theories on Pictish personal names needs some work. No Bridei is not Gaelic; it's phonologically incompatible with derivation from Brigid, and has been etymologised in Brittonic already. Oengus and Domnall occur only in the later parts of the King lists, their non-Gaelic equivalents Unust and Donuel are used earlier. The majority of names and epithets in the King lists, by the standards of the time, would've been manifestly Brittonic, not "pan-Celtic". JoeyofScotia (talk) 14:24, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the point i raised and is primarily indicative of language change. You need evidence. Also, you have to give due considerations to all the versions of the kings list - not Poppleton or the one you like best. D MacGill (talk) 14:56, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

A paper is under way. D MacGill (talk) 10:03, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

There is evidence for a non P-Celtic language in Eastern Scotland, see local hydronyms and places like Udny, Fife or Meigle which are definitely not P-Celtic and neither Q-Celtic, and seem to be closer to Proto-form.

Eastern England has a strong Celtic heritage btw. See Eastern England in Celtic Britons article. Picts just likely got assimilated from-top-to-bottom, starting with Pictish elite somewhere in 700's and ending with Pictish farmers somewhere in 1200's. And Irish and Welsh don't resemble each other in 6-10th century, they are too different. Although, if we consider Pictish Celtic but neither Brythonic nor Gaelic but a separate branch of Insular Celtic, we can easily see why it got assimilated so easily, because Picts were assimilated indeed, not genocided as we can see from genetics.

Gaels probably never even entered Argyll. Since we find no evidence of migration, and we find strange archaic words in Eastern Scotland for no reason, I can easily see that Pictish originally was a later version of Insular Celtic, that got split into P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages one of which will later become Scottish Gaelic and another will become extinct. This can also explain some archaisms in Gaelic like "ite" instead of "ette", which is very similar to river Ituos found in Ptolemaic map of Scotland in Western part of it. From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 10:54, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

And now further?

Unfortunately, I noticed that there is no real progress made in this discussion. Just more back and forth. What I get from it is that there multiple lines of "ancestry" possible and that there is disagreement over what is the true ancestry. The Banner talk 17:50, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion is outside of the remit of Wikipedia. While it's undoubtedly a fascinating topic, there is no debate as to what the orthodox position is or whether there is any academic dissention to it. This was agreed eleven days ago. It is time to shut this discussion down... if participants want to continue this debate, they should take it off-wiki. It serves no purpose here. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:17, 6 December 2025 (UTC)