Dear Chris,
I don't personally believe in "Atlantic Picts" or see any compelling
reasons for regarding them as anything but Brythonic. Needless to
say, Vennemann's arguments are not generally persuasive. They are
based on the analysis of individual Pictish words that he thinks
look "Semitidic" (I haven't got any of his articles at hand just now
but I can provide more detail later on). I even think the 'boy' word
is one of them -- an alleged Atlantic loanword in Celtic. I suppose
Vennemann needs the Picts as a sort of tangible Atlantic element in
case anyone should ask what particular KNOWN people could be called
Atlantic (for Vasconic, he has the Basques).
Piotr
--- In cybalist@egroups.com, "Christopher Gwinn" <sonno3@...> wrote:
> I really don't understand why people insist that Pictish was pre-
Indo
> European. There is absolutely nothing that I have seen in the
pitifully few
> Pictish words that we have (such as Pictish maphan "boy" = Old
Welsh map) to
> suggest that the language was anything other than a P-Celtic
Brythonic
> language with an odd orthography.
>
> Why does Venemann believe Pictish is Pre-PIE - what is his actual
evidence?
>
> -C. Gwinn