From: guto rhys
Message: 25062
Date: 2003-08-14
> So, either Gaulish could have been a dialect of Brittonic, Brittonic
> a dialect of Gaulish or they both were branches of a common
> Gallo-Brittonic?
Well, Celtic speech must have been initially introduced into Britain
from the Continent, though it might have been a very early form of
Celtic. Close relationships between coastal Britain and Gaul - via
trade, political alliance, intermarriage, etc, would have
strengthened the linguistic sies, so that coastal Britain and Gaul
would have shared linguistic developments - but limited migrations of
Gauls (such as the Belgic settlements in Southern Britain) would have
introduced more of a Gallic influence on certain Britons.
>> I really doubt there is any connection between the Picts of
>> Britain and the Pictones of Gaul -
>
> And yet there are strong reason to consider that they were.
> First of all, the Picts in Alba were also known as Pictones.
Who called them Pictones? Are you sure about that? I am not.
> Regarding this, we see some Belgic tribes from W. Gaul in Britain
> and Ireland (the Menapii, Parisii, etc.), as they had closer
> contact with Britain, and the Pictones lived in this area in Gaul
> among Belgic tribes, so it is very possible
> tht they settled in Britain from this area, as did the Belgic
> tribes that did so (Menapii, Parisii,
> etc.).
The Pictones lived in what is now Poitou, which is south of Brittany,
and a good distance from Gallia Belgica.
> Secondly, Gerald of Wales wrote (this is also mentioned in the
> Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is probably where Gerald got this):
>
> "....found at the Orkney Islands a fleet which had brought
> Basclenses there from Spain. .......They were urgent in their
> request that he should give them some land to inhabit.
> Eventually the king...gave them that island that is now called
> Ireland.....Secondly, the city of Bayonne is on
> the boundary of Gascony, and belongs to it.
> It is also the capital of Basclonia, whence the Hibernienses
> came. And now Gascony and all Aquitaine rejoices in the
> same rule as Britain."
I believe this comes ultimately from Geoffrey of Monmouth, and you
simply cannot trust this as real history (Geoffrey quite often
invented his own fantastic version of history) - Geoffrey also
believed that the Welsh were descended from Trojans and originally
spoke Greek, which had become corrupted and produced the Welsh
language. Roman authors (such as Tacitus) speculated that certain
people in Britain were descended from Iberians because they were dark
and short like Iberians - I suspect that something like this may be
the source of the Basclenses legend.
In addition, come Roman authors speculated that the name Hibernia
(Ireland) was derived from Iberia (which it certainly wasn't), giving
rise to stories that Hibernia was founded by Spaniards - this was
eventually accepted by Irishmen, but only after the introduction of
Christianity and Latin literature (and the loss of native origin
myths). Seeing that Geoffrey mentions Partholoim as the leader of the
Basclenses, it is clear that he was working from an early version of
the Irish Lebor Gabala Erenn - but in the Irish LGE, Partholon is
from Greece, while a separate group of Gaels come from Spain -
Geoffrey has simply conflated the two traditions, and converted
Spaniards into Basques (well, a number of Basques _do_ live in what
is now Spain).
> This sounds similar to the Medieval account of the Picts. And the
> Pictones were an Aquatanian tribe, so that might explain the
Basclenes
> connection mentioned by Gerald and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Geoffrey may have been trying to make that connection, but that
doesn't mean it is correct - Geoffrey is much closer in time to us
than he is to time period when he imagined these migrations taking
place, and he did not have the benefit of modern anthropology,
archaeology, or linguistics to aid him in his work.
> > first of all, the Picts of Britain were
> > even originally styled as such, and it seems most
> > likely that they were called Picti "Painted ones"
> > by Romans (or Romanized Britons) of
> > the south because the northern Britons kept up
> > native British tatooing traditions, which were
> > not favored by Roman citizens and
> > seen as a sign of barbarism. Pictones seems to
> > me to be a genuine Gaulish tribal name
> > ("the Audacious/Strong ones"
>
> I wasn't even aware that this etymological connection
> to the Latin 'pictus' was even considered anymore, and
> is probably a false etymological method.
> It is an unlikely connection because of the following:
>
> 1. The Romans had encountered tatooed peoples before, and so
> wouldn't have needed come up with a new name for a tatooed tribe.
The Picts weren't a single tribe - they were a people made up of
several different tribes. Secondly, we have examples of Picti being
used to describe other non-Celtic tatooed people - for example, the
Picti Geloni and Picti Agathyrsi mentioned by Vergil (they are
Scythians - Ammianus also speaks of these two tribes dying themselves
blue). Incidentally, it is Vergil's mention of these Scythian Picti
that ultimately gave rise to the notion that the Scotti were
descended from Scythians.
> 2. Pictum is never used by Romans to describe Celtic tatooes.
So what? We know that Picti was used by Roman authors to describe
tribes that tatooed themselves, so that's good enough for me.
> 3. The Romans used the term 'Picti' as a tribal name and in Old
> Norse it is 'Pettr', in Old English it is 'Poehta' and in Old Scots
> Gaelic Pecht,and these all seem to be variations on a tribal name.
Yeah, and they are all likely borrowed from the Latin - though it is
possible that the Picts eventually accepted this foreign ethnic name
(as the Cymry have accepted "Welsh"), and the Norse, English and Sc.
Gaelic words are derived from a Pictish form of Latin Picti (perhaps
*Pecti). If they were Brittonic speakers, as seems likely, they might
have identified Latin Picti with their own native root *pec-
"audacious/strong", folk-etymologizing *Pecti as "The Strengthened
Ones", or something like that.
- Chris Gwinn
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