XPost: soc.culture.scottish, soc.culture.irish, ie.general
From: ciaran@ciaran.com
allan connochie wrote:
> "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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Tha gu math !!! Ailean, tapadh leibh :-)
Excellent !!! Allan, thanks :-)
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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