Poking around the Web after reading Michael Smith's posting on
the Picts, I found reliable-looking material at the following
address and related sites:
http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/picts/language.htm
where I learned something new to me:
"Dr Richard Cox, a lecturer in the University of Aberdeen's
Department of Celtic claims that the ogham inscriptions found in
Orkney as well as in other parts of Scotland, were actually written
in Old Norse, the Scandinavian language of the Vikings.
His discovery, published for the first time in 1999 went against the
research community which had long believed the inscriptions to be an
ancient form of Gaelic or a long forgotten Pictish language."
Cox's book, The Language of the Ogam Inscriptions of Scotland.
Richard A V Cox. £12. Dept. of Celtic, Aberdeen University ISBN
0 9523911 3 9, gets a critical but not entirely dismissive review at:
http://www.pictarts.demon.co.uk/reviews/c_brev52.htm
Does anyone here know more about the matter?
Dan Milton