XPost: soc.culture.scottish, soc.culture.irish, ie.general
From: allan@EASYNET.CO.UK
"Ciaran" wrote in message
news:455E9F8B.9020903@ciaran.com...
> allan connochie wrote:
> > "Ciaran" wrote in message
> > news:s9h6h.64485$rP1.8080@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> >> Some form of Q-Celtic Gaelic may have been used by the Picts as on the
> >> inscription in the Gaelic Ogham alphabet cited below. Note that
> >> "mac"/"mic" means "son" in both Scottish Gaelic (Gaidhlig) and Irish
> >> Gaelic (Gaeilge) - if you pronounce the Pictish incription "meqq" it
> >> sounds much closer to the Gaelic version than to the P-Celtic Brythonic
> >> version "mab"/"map" which means "son" in both Welsh (Cymraeg) and
Breton
> >> (Brezhoneg).
> >
> >
> > This is nothing new though. It is generally accepted that the 'meqq'
could
> > mean son of. It could be Gaelic - which would be no surprise as the
Picts
> > became Gaelicised, at first probably just influenced by, then probably
> > bi-lingual, then Gaelic speakers. However that is not the same as the
> > Pictish language itself being Gaelic. Likewise 'meqq' could simply be
their
> > way of putting 'map' to print. It is also possible that 'meqq' has
nothing
> > to do with son of - I'd doubt that myself by the fact is we don't know.
> > Likewise some have suggested that the inscriptions don't actually mean
> > anything - though again I'd doubt that.
> >
> > What is true though is that the suggestion that 'meqq' could be the
original
> > Pictish 'map' Gaelicised has been public knowledge ever since people
started
> > looking at the inscriptions. Little things like that are what pushed
some
> > scholars in the 19thC to suggest that Pictish may have been Q-Celtic.
> > However these views have ben roundly debunked for a century or so and
> > opinion amongst those who study the subject is just about unanimous. It
is
> > generally accepted that the Pictish language was P-Celtic.
> >
> > Allan
> >
> >
> Sorry, No, VERY UNLIKELY - the Ogham letter Ceirt (5 horizontal strokes
> to the left of the line) which is transliterated as "q" represents a
> hard "K" sound as in "Mack". There are other Ogham letters for "b/p"
> which they would have used instead. "MAQ" is also used extensively on
> definite Gaelic Ogham inscriptions everywhere Ogham is found.
What is very unlikely? The whole post? I've given several possible reasons
which have been put forward. It is all by the by anyway. Even if it is a
representation of Mac actually in Gaelic, which I said would be no surprise,
it makes no difference to the argument. No-one is denying that Gaelic didn't
spread into Pictland, influence Pictish and eventually replace it - what is
being said is that the Pictish language itself was P-Celtic.
I take it your point is about the 'meqq' possibly being the Pictish attempt
at puting 'map' to print? This is not my idea. I was simply giving one of
the possible reasons. Talking about the said subject Elizabeth Sutherland in
her book "In Search of the Picts" quotes Niall Robertson............."when
the Picts wrote their Ogam inscriptions in P-Celtic they might have used the
'fid' for 'q' to represent 'p', so that inscriptions using MEQQ or MAQQ
would have been read as MAP or MAPP"
She then goes on to explain "Ogam inscriptions in the other P-Celtic areas
such as Wales and the old district of Dumnonia used the 'cert' for 'q' if
they used it at all, but these inscriptions are written in Irish and don't
attempt to represent local language as the Pictish Ogams seem to do"
Again I have no wish to personally put forward this particular theory. It
was just one of the various theories around.
Sutherland by the way was responsible for establishing the museum at Groam
House in Rosemarkie as a Pictish centre. I think she knows a thing or two
about the Picts as she has dedicated a good part of her life to studying
them. She doesn't herself come to any conclusion about the MEQQ question,
which is possibly sensible, as it couldn't be proved one way or the other.
Whatever the answer is though it doesn't itself affect the overall
acceptance of Pictish being P-Celtic and she says "the opinion generally
held by Celtic scholars from the beginning of the 20thC is that Picts spoke
a P-Celtic language"
I could of course quote from stacks of volumes written by respected
historians but I thought this one would do to make a point. You suggested
that it wasn't you who has an agenda here, rather it is myself and the
entire Scottish community of historians who have the bias. These are two
quotes from William Ferguson's "The Identity of the Scottish Nation"
"Indeed about the one fact that modern scholarship has established with
certainty is that the Picts were P-Celts"
Now according to you scholars like Ferguson are pushing this idea to forward
their own agendas. The only problem is he makes repeated statements
throughout the book like this
"It was the Scots of Dalriada, an Irish tribe who settled in Argyll in the
sixth century AD and gradually extended their sway over most of Scotland
north of the Forth, who gave their name to the country; and more than their
name, for they contributed to and, to a large extent, shaped the subsequent
Kingdom of Scotland. For many centuries, and those the most formative, their
language, Gaelic, was the lingua scotica of the regnum scotica"
In other words your suggestion that people claim the Picts were P-Celts in
order to knock Gaelic is utter codswallop. The Gaelic language is important
enough that you don't need to reshape history in order to make it more so.
Allan
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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