Scottish Origin

[Ánleifr]

Are the Scotts Celtic? I had always that they were, except for the few Norse who settled in Scotland but I ran across something about the Scotts being Scythian.


In the "The Declaration of Arbroath" it states this pertaining to the Scots:

"Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever."

which is located here:
http://www.giveshare.org/israel/arbroathdeclaration.html

[Beorn]

The tribe called Scotti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti) who settled Scotland are Celts, but Scotland and Scots today are not Celtic.

[Benacer]

The Irish have a similar tale. Many people once claimed to originally come from some far away place, or to be related to important historical people. It's just to seem more prestigious.

[Pyramidologist]

Are the Scotts Celtic? I had always that they were, except for the few Norse who settled in Scotland but I ran across something about the Scotts being Scythian.

The Scottish are predominantly Pictish. The Norse genetic impact was minimal. The Goidelic and Brythonic Celtic languages were imposed onto the Picts from later arriving Celtic speakers from the south (Hen Ogledd) and west (Ireland), however these Celtic speakers were in fact not IE Celtic, but Iberian (who had Celtic imposed onto them) and dark haired, of the swarthy Mediterranoid type, just like the Picts. This is why today, Scotland is mostly dark haired and blondism is the minority.

About the Scythians, there are many legends about Scythians all across Europe. There is evidence of a Scythian/Sarmatian mercenary (horseman) settlement in Scotland, only very small though. Most likely these legends derived from the Sarmatians.

''In 175 AD the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius concluded a treaty with the Sarmatian tribe of the Iazyges (gsl. name from ‘iazik’: language, people, people speaking the same or his own language) by virtue of which 5500 Iazyges cavalrymen were sent to the northern border of Great Britain in groups of 500, because of the difficulties in that region.''

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbornik07/serafimov_newton07.pdf

Some scholars propose the Newton Stone script is Scythic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Stone

[Graham]

The Declaration of Arbroath was an attempt to stop the claims of overlordship. It was an appeal to the pope. The Pope had earlier, recognised England's claim to overlordship. So there's a load of bullshitting involved. Wouldn't take it literally.

[Graham]

The Scottish are predominantly Pictish.


The Kingdom of Scotland was an extension of the Kingdom of Pictland. Kenneth MacAlpin was the last King of Pictland. The House of Alpin ruled Pictland and then, the kingdom of Scotland.

[Pyramidologist]

You also have the foundation myth that Scotland was named after Scota, an ancient Egyptian princess who supposedly traveled to Scotland.

[Libertas]

The tribe called Scotti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti) who settled Scotland are Celts, but Scotland and Scots today are not Celtic.

They are not Germanic either save in speech.

Scotland was born from the union of:

Gaelic-speaking Celtic Dalriada Scots from Ulster who settled in Argyll, the Western Isles and in Galloway. Gaelic brcame the main Scottish language almost everywhere except in English-speaking Lothian around Edinburgh and SE Scotland.

Partly Celtic, partly pre-Celtic Picts in much of the rest of Caledonia above the Central Belt

The Welsh-speaking Celtic Britons of Strathclyde who ruled from Dumbarton to Cumbria but were absorbed in the 11th century by Alba (Pict/Scot union)

The Angles of Lothian, the only Germanic group and the weakest, being easily absorbed by the united kingdom of Picts and Scots.

Gaelic only collapsed in the Highlands after the failure of the Jacobite rebellions, the anti-Gaelic measures that followed, the Highland Clearances that replaced people with sheep and the flood of migration out of the Highlands to industrial growth centres like Glasgow.

In the Lowlands, Gaelic only disappeared from Galloway and Ayrshire in the 17th century.

[Osweo]

Scotland is a Kingdom, uniting several subgroups of people with rather different origins and identities.

At the present, it seems almost a finished process, with Scots from all parts quite happy with being considered as one people.

This wasn't the case not too many generations ago, when the Lowlands/Highlands dichotomy was still more felt. Even when Gaelic gave way to English, the differences in way of life were still appreciable until we entered the Age of Consumerism. Additionally, there was the Northern Isles identity too, which was a bit of a separate appendix to the above duo. People are playing down the Norse influence here, for some reason, but that seems wrong to me.

Digging a little deeper under the Gaelic Highlands and ENglish Lowlands layer, we find divisions in each of these halves that were more prominent centuries ago:
The Highlands ethnogenesis is a fusion of Pict and Gael. The former spoke some sort of para-Welsh, while the latter are themselves a fusion of Norseman and ancient Irish incomers (on a yet deeper Pict-type base).

The Lowlanders have a bit of Gael in them in the very far southwestern Galloway part, and a bit of Pict in the north where we encroach on Fife and Perthshire, but the two chief ingredients here are Angle and Cumbrian. The Cumbrians are the natives of the Strathclyde region (the Clyde basin), and form a substrate in the east too. The Angles called themselves Engle and spoke English. They were the inhabitants of Bernicia, one half of the old English Kingdom of Northumbria, and were absorbed into the Scottish Kingdom after the Danes had smashed Northumbria in two and the Normans hadn't bothered to fight the Scots to unite an England that they weren't too fussed about apart from as a nice cash cow. :p

Gaelic Scots assimilated Picts. Angles swallowed up and assimilated some Cumbrians,while other Cumbrians were dominated by the Gaelo-Pictish Scots. The Scots then absorbed part of the Anglian area. In time, however, the English element assimilated the ruling house of the Gaels, and Northumbrian English became the language of state. Norsemen in the previously Pictish Northern Isles spread around the western seaboard, but were themselves then assimilated into the Gaelic culture and language. Normans then swarmed into the south, invited by the Anglicised Scottish elite, and the Normans ended up even sat on the throne. And things bumbled along for a few centuries with Gaelic language holding its own in the NW, Norn in the far NE, and English dialects in the SE. Cumbrian Welsh faded out of existence. Norn was edged aside by Scotch English speech. Gaelic slowly retreated, and sometimes more rapidly due to disasters like the Jacobite defeats and genocidal Highland Clearances. And then you have modern Scotland, with a tiny percentage of Gaelic speakers in the Western Isles, and a homogenising Anglo society elsewhere.

Did I miss anything out? :p

[Óttar]

In the "The Declaration of Arbroath" it states this pertaining to the Scots:

"Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today.
[/url]
You know this is a load of bollocks because it uses biblical chronology. It's a myth similar to that of the Milesians in Ireland, dreamed up by monks.

[Pyramidologist]

Digging a little deeper under the Gaelic Highlands and ENglish Lowlands layer, we find divisions in each of these halves that were more prominent centuries ago:
The Highlands ethnogenesis is a fusion of Pict and Gael. The former spoke some sort of para-Welsh, while the latter are themselves a fusion of Norseman and ancient Irish incomers (on a yet deeper Pict-type base).

Pictish is pre-Indo-European, not affiliated with Welsh.

[Ánleifr]

Scotland is a Kingdom, uniting several subgroups of people with rather different origins and identities.

At the present, it seems almost a finished process, with Scots from all parts quite happy with being considered as one people.

This wasn't the case not too many generations ago, when the Lowlands/Highlands dichotomy was still more felt. Even when Gaelic gave way to English, the differences in way of life were still appreciable until we entered the Age of Consumerism. Additionally, there was the Northern Isles identity too, which was a bit of a separate appendix to the above duo. People are playing down the Norse influence here, for some reason, but that seems wrong to me.

Digging a little deeper under the Gaelic Highlands and ENglish Lowlands layer, we find divisions in each of these halves that were more prominent centuries ago:
The Highlands ethnogenesis is a fusion of Pict and Gael. The former spoke some sort of para-Welsh, while the latter are themselves a fusion of Norseman and ancient Irish incomers (on a yet deeper Pict-type base).

The Lowlanders have a bit of Gael in them in the very far southwestern Galloway part, and a bit of Pict in the north where we encroach on Fife and Perthshire, but the two chief ingredients here are Angle and Cumbrian. The Cumbrians are the natives of the Strathclyde region (the Clyde basin), and form a substrate in the east too. The Angles called themselves Engle and spoke English. They were the inhabitants of Bernicia, one half of the old English Kingdom of Northumbria, and were absorbed into the Scottish Kingdom after the Danes had smashed Northumbria in two and the Normans hadn't bothered to fight the Scots to unite an England that they weren't too fussed about apart from as a nice cash cow. :p

Gaelic Scots assimilated Picts. Angles swallowed up and assimilated some Cumbrians,while other Cumbrians were dominated by the Gaelo-Pictish Scots. The Scots then absorbed part of the Anglian area. In time, however, the English element assimilated the ruling house of the Gaels, and Northumbrian English became the language of state. Norsemen in the previously Pictish Northern Isles spread around the western seaboard, but were themselves then assimilated into the Gaelic culture and language. Normans then swarmed into the south, invited by the Anglicised Scottish elite, and the Normans ended up even sat on the throne. And things bumbled along for a few centuries with Gaelic language holding its own in the NW, Norn in the far NE, and English dialects in the SE. Cumbrian Welsh faded out of existence. Norn was edged aside by Scotch English speech. Gaelic slowly retreated, and sometimes more rapidly due to disasters like the Jacobite defeats and genocidal Highland Clearances. And then you have modern Scotland, with a tiny percentage of Gaelic speakers in the Western Isles, and a homogenising Anglo society elsewhere.

Did I miss anything out? :p


That was very well put! Thank you.

[Ánleifr]

You know this is a load of bollocks because it uses biblical chronology. It's a myth similar to that of the Milesians in Ireland, dreamed up by monks.

yeah, I've got a guy who actually is a good researcher on our Y-DNA project site and he is convinced that our group (we are R1a-L448) are descendants of the Anglo-Saxon by way of Scandinavian from the Scythians, brahams, Scotts and Saka's. I do not believe this as L448 is 90% Norwegian and L176 are the Norwegian Scots downstream from L448. Anyway, thanks again for all the input!

[Osweo]

Pictish is pre-Indo-European, not affiliated with Welsh.
Nobody has any right to state that idea with a definite 'IS'. :no:

Look on the map.
Aberdeen, Dee, Abercorn, Esk, Perth, Eden, Devon, Leven, Strath- and so on are solidly Welsh.

Look on Ptolemy's map: Deva and Alauna are equally so.

No doubt pre-Celtic languages were spoken in Britain once upon a time, but by that of the Mediaeval Pictish Kingdom, Brythonic was solidly established up there. Hydronymy is often the last place where deep substrate lingers on, and I've just shown you a good handful of solidly Welsh rivernames.

[Osweo]

yeah, I've got a guy who actually is a good researcher on our Y-DNA project site and he is convinced that our group (we are R1a-L448) are descendants of the Anglo-Saxon by way of Scandinavian from the Scythians, brahams, Scotts and Saka's. I do not believe this as L448 is 90% Norwegian and L176 are the Norwegian Scots downstream from L448. Anyway, thanks again for all the input!

Hoho! The internet has made it possible for more stupid people to misunderstand more things than ever in human history! :lol:

Is your surname one of those Gaelicised Norse ones?

Hmm, if you're worried about privacy, put it in a list of twenty, and misspell it a bit. :D

[Argyll]

Are the Scotts Celtic? I had always that they were, except for the few Norse who settled in Scotland but I ran across something about the Scotts being Scythian.


In the "The Declaration of Arbroath" it states this pertaining to the Scots:

"Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever."

which is located here:
http://www.giveshare.org/israel/arbroathdeclaration.html

The Scots are Celtic, many Germanicists will tell you otherwise though. They do have some Germanic blood, but it is extremely minimal at best. :thumbs up

[Libertas]

Osweo covered it all.

Basically English was a language that got very lucky in Scotland's history.

[Osweo]

Osweo covered it all.

Basically English was a language that got very lucky in Scotland's history.

No way! No such thing as luck in this world, you MAKE it! :D

Why are you minimising the English in Scotch history? :cool: Bernicia and Lothian are the richest agricultural land you've got. :wink

The Scots had just ended up in control of all this huge territory, by clever policy and good fighting in the opportunity afforded by fuck ups among their neighbours. Malcolm Canmore needed a way to RULE all this. He was a canny old goat, and married well... ;) He saw the English model as a good way to achieve what he wanted, and his wife and son kept this up...

The naming of their children represented a break with the traditional Scots Regal names such as Malcolm, Cináed and Áed. The point of naming Margaret's sons, Edward after her father Edward the Exile, Edmund for her grandfather Edmund Ironside, Ethelred for her great-grandfather Ethelred the Unready and Edgar for her great-great-grandfather Edgar and her brother, briefly the elected king, Edgar Ætheling, was unlikely to be missed in England, where William of Normandy's grasp on power was far from secure.[39] Whether the adoption of the classical Alexander for the future Alexander I of Scotland (either for Pope Alexander II or for Alexander the Great) and the biblical David for the future David I of Scotland represented a recognition that William of Normandy would not be easily removed, or was due to the repetition of Anglo-Saxon Royal name—another Edmund had preceded Edgar—is not known.[40] Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne.
Aye, that Edgar was KING of Scotland, with that fine English name... ;)

Malcolm knew full well what he was doing, and Edinburgh was chosen as capital with good reason: the Lothian English were a great foundation to build a state on!

Indeed, it was not until the time of King David I of Scotland that people in the south-east of the kingdom began to think of themselves as 'Scots'. In his own charters (e.g. to St Cuthbert's in Edinburgh), he continued to refer to the men of Lothian as 'English'.
:thumb001:

[Treffie]

Pictish is pre-Indo-European, not affiliated with Welsh.

No, it's considered Brythonic by (most) linguists.

[Argyll]

No, it's considered Brythonic by (most) linguists.

Out of a book I read, Scotland: a History, the Oxford professor who was writing the part for ancient Scotland and early medieval Scotland said that they had found that some of the Pictish names were drawn from a common Brythonic pool. So yes, Treffie is right, it is linked with Welsh because Welsh is a Brythonic language.

[somerled]

The Scottish are predominantly Pictish. The Norse genetic impact was minimal. The Goidelic and Brythonic Celtic languages were imposed onto the Picts from later arriving Celtic speakers from the south (Hen Ogledd) and west (Ireland), however these Celtic speakers were in fact not IE Celtic, but Iberian (who had Celtic imposed onto them) and dark haired, of the swarthy Mediterranoid type, just like the Picts. This is why today, Scotland is mostly dark haired and blondism is the minority.

About the Scythians, there are many legends about Scythians all across Europe. There is evidence of a Scythian/Sarmatian mercenary (horseman) settlement in Scotland, only very small though. Most likely these legends derived from the Sarmatians.

''In 175 AD the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius concluded a treaty with the Sarmatian tribe of the Iazyges (gsl. name from ‘iazik’: language, people, people speaking the same or his own language) by virtue of which 5500 Iazyges cavalrymen were sent to the northern border of Great Britain in groups of 500, because of the difficulties in that region.''

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbornik07/serafimov_newton07.pdf

Some scholars propose the Newton Stone script is Scythic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Stone

The Picts were not swarthy Mediterranean types and the evidence points to their native language being Brythonic Celtic. The kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd never extended beyond the Forth/Clyde line and so never dominated the Northern Picts and it is likely that many of these Hen Ogledd kingdoms were native continuations of the old southern Pictish kingdoms.
The latest Autosomal Genetic distance studies show the Scots (and the British in general) are of Northern European stock and most closely related to the Dutch/Belgians.
In this study the Scots actually overlap the Dutch sample and are quite distant from Iberian populations such as Spain and Portugal.
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/08/genetic-map-of-europe-again.php
The Romans described them as thus (Quoted from Wiki)
Tacitus in his Agricola, chapter XI (c. 98 AD) described the Caledonians as red haired and large limbed, which he considered features of Germanic origin: “The reddish (rutilae) hair and large limbs of the Caledonians proclaim a German origin”. Jordanes in his Getica wrote something similar
:...The inhabitants of Caledonia have reddish hair and large loose-jointed bodies.[4]
Eumenius, the panegyrist of Constantine Chlorus, wrote that both the Picts and Caledonians were red haired (rutilantia).

[Logan]

Diverse people of a particular Keltic culture.

http://www.ourfamilyorigins.com/scotland/dna.htm

[Damião de Góis]

however these Celtic speakers were in fact not IE Celtic, but Iberian (who had Celtic imposed onto them) and dark haired, of the swarthy Mediterranoid type, just like the Picts.

Swarthy britons have nothing to do with iberians. They are swarthy on their own account or for some other reason. Thank god for genetics for putting an end at those stupid theories.

[Osweo]

There is evidence of a Scythian/Sarmatian mercenary (horseman) settlement in Scotland, only very small though. Most likely these legends derived from the Sarmatians.
Oh aye? What settlement is this, then?

The Sarmatians were stationed in Ribchester, in Lancashire not far from where my Great Great Grandad was born. Bow down to your Aryan superior! :p


''In 175 AD the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius concluded a treaty with the Sarmatian tribe of the Iazyges (gsl. name from ‘iazik’: language, people, people speaking the same or his own language)
I aadvise you to take the material from any Eastern European website with a MASSIVE pinch of salt.

Yazyk is Russian for 'tongue', and yazychniki are 'pagans. The other Slavonic languages have similar words. However, in the time of Marcus Aurelius, the root word in question sounded a bit different; *językъ, from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s, from which we get our own 'tongue'. :)

Curiously, Russian wiki says this;
По мнению исследователя Олега Гуцуляка, от зафиксированного европейскими письменными источниками слова «языг» / осетинского (сарматского) слова «гыццыл» — «малый, младший» происходит название гуцулы. :strokebeard:

According to the researcher Oleg Gutsulyak, the ethnonym of the Hutsuls comes from the word attested as 'iazyg' in European written sources cognate with the Osset (Sarmatian) word 'gytstsyl' - 'little, younger'


Some scholars propose the Newton Stone script is Scythic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Stone

Eee, frankly, God help anyone at having a go at THAT old thing!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_S1h0cMy62uE/SzZUx475nVI/AAAAAAAABMo/JaBqH6iTNvM/s400/NewtoneStone.jpg

Every kook under the sun has his own ideas;
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pob/pob_images/pob_fig006.jpg
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pob/pob_images/pob_figp32.jpg
http://lh5.google.com/srivastava.sunil/RwXs6tfVK0I/AAAAAAAAAbM/ILhLUyRdOv0/s800/NewtoneStone_Inscription_Translation.bmp.jpg


As for the ogham, your guess is as good as mine;

AIDDARCUNFEANFORRENNNEAI (or R) (S)IOSSAR

http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pob/pob_images/pob_fig007.jpg

:shrug:


You know... I know piss all about Oriental scripts, but it DOES look a bit like some sort of Syriac, just from a worthless subjective superficial impression! :eek:

[Argyll]

The Picts were not swarthy Mediterranean types and the evidence points to their native language being Brythonic Celtic. The kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd never extended beyond the Forth/Clyde line and so never dominated the Northern Picts and it is likely that many of these Hen Ogledd kingdoms were native continuations of the old southern Pictish kingdoms.
The latest Autosomal Genetic distance studies show the Scots (and the British in general) are of Northern European stock and most closely related to the Dutch/Belgians.
In this study the Scots actually overlap the Dutch sample and are quite distant from Iberian populations such as Spain and Portugal.
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/08/genetic-map-of-europe-again.php
The Romans described them as thus (Quoted from Wiki)
Tacitus in his Agricola, chapter XI (c. 98 AD) described the Caledonians as red haired and large limbed, which he considered features of Germanic origin: “The reddish (rutilae) hair and large limbs of the Caledonians proclaim a German origin”. Jordanes in his Getica wrote something similar
:...The inhabitants of Caledonia have reddish hair and large loose-jointed bodies.[4]
Eumenius, the panegyrist of Constantine Chlorus, wrote that both the Picts and Caledonians were red haired (rutilantia).

From some of the sources I've read, Picts were seen as red headed, fair skinned people. That seems to be a general fact about them.

[Hess]

many of the people on sites like this have an agenda to "germanisize" the Scots, so I would take their opinions with a grain of salt.

I would recommend seeking out some scholarly books on the subject :)

[Anthropologique]

The tribe called Scotti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti) who settled Scotland are Celts, but Scotland and Scots today are not Celtic.

Celticity is cultural and the Scots still maintain a Celtic culture to a significant degree, including language.

[somerled]

many of the people on sites like this have an agenda to "germanisize" the Scots, so I would take their opinions with a grain of salt.

I would recommend seeking out some scholarly books on the subject :)

They're opinions with sound support from the evidence to date.
On the other hand you've provided absolutely no evidence to back your opinion.
If you dispute these facts then at least have the good grace to do so rather throw around unsupported accusations of hidden agendas.

[Osweo]

Celticity is cultural and the Scots still maintain a Celtic culture to a significant degree, including language.


92,400 people aged three and over (1.9 per cent of the population) had some Gaelic language ability in 2001.
- Scotland's Census 2001 - Gaelic Report, 10 October 2005

Probably some of them were exaggerating, too. :(

Anthy, tell me about the 'Celtic' culture of Haddingtonshire, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire and Orkney...

[Beorn]

Celticity is cultural and the Scots still maintain a Celtic culture to a significant degree, including language.

Yes, just like Dyfnaint or Dewnens or whatever. :coffee:

Next you'll be telling me bagpipes are celtic. :)

[Libertas]

No way! No such thing as luck in this world, you MAKE it! :D

Why are you minimising the English in Scotch history? :cool: Bernicia and Lothian are the richest agricultural land you've got. :wink

The Scots had just ended up in control of all this huge territory, by clever policy and good fighting in the opportunity afforded by fuck ups among their neighbours. Malcolm Canmore needed a way to RULE all this. He was a canny old goat, and married well... ;) He saw the English model as a good way to achieve what he wanted, and his wife and son kept this up...

Aye, that Edgar was KING of Scotland, with that fine English name... ;)

Malcolm knew full well what he was doing, and Edinburgh was chosen as capital with good reason: the Lothian English were a great foundation to build a state on!

:thumb001:

Edinburgh did not become Scotland's official capital till 1437, although its fine site made it a popular spot for the kings.

Before that the capital was Perth for a time, in the heart of old Pictish territory as was Scone, site of the Stone of Destiny where Alba's kings were crowned.

English spread from the little royal burghs into the Gaelic-speaking countryside of the north, centre and west.
The burghs were full of English, Flemish, Scandinavian merchants and artisans for whom the Northumbrian English (not the East Midlands English of London) of Edinburgh became a lingua franca.

[Pyramidologist]

The Picts were not swarthy Mediterranean types and the evidence points to their native language being Brythonic Celtic.

They were swarthy dwarfs, ''In physical type, the Picts, according to general tradition, were dark " Iberian ," small-statured and even pygmy'' (Waddell, 1924). Pecht in Scottish is synonymous with dwarf. The Historia Norwegiæ describes the Picts as little exceeding ''Pigmies'' (Pygmies) in height who hid themselves in little houses under the ground. There are also the origin of fairies in British folklore. See following sources -

MacRitchie, Testimony of Tradition, London, 1890.
MacRitchie, Fians, Fairies, and Picts, Trübner & Co, 1893.
Mackenzie, 'The Picts and Pets', The Antiquary, London, May 1906.
Elizabeth Andrews, ' Ulster Fairies, Danes, and Pechts ', ib. Aug. 1906.
Traditions of Dwarfs in Ireland and in Switzerland', ib. Oct. 1909.

The Picts in phenotype were also swarthy skinned, Claudian describes them as Mauros ''dark'': ''Mauros, nee falso nomine Pictos'' (De III. con. Honorii. 54) and they were affiliated with the Iberians.


The Romans described them as thus (Quoted from Wiki)
Tacitus in his Agricola, chapter XI (c. 98 AD) described the Caledonians as red haired and large limbed, which he considered features of Germanic origin: “The reddish (rutilae) hair and large limbs of the Caledonians proclaim a German origin”. Jordanes in his Getica wrote something similar
:...The inhabitants of Caledonia have reddish hair and large loose-jointed bodies.[4]
Eumenius, the panegyrist of Constantine Chlorus, wrote that both the Picts and Caledonians were red haired (rutilantia).

The red-haired Caledonians were not Picts. Tacitus in his Agricola, implies they were Germanic settlers, he describes them as tall (large limbed) and red haired ''pointing to a Germanic origin''. They moved into Scotland and lived among the indigenous Pictish tribes there who in contrast were shorter and darker, hence Eumenius and the later Roman writers counted the Caledonians as being Pictish, however it is made clear from Tacitus they were Germanic.

[Benacer]

They were swarthy dwarfs, ''In physical type, the Picts, according to general tradition, were dark " Iberian ," small-statured and even pygmy'' (Waddell, 1924). Pecht in Scottish is synonymous with dwarf. The Historia Norwegiæ describes the Picts as little exceeding ''Pigmies'' (Pygmies) in height who hid themselves in little houses under the ground. There are also the origin of fairies in British folklore. See following sources -

MacRitchie, Testimony of Tradition, London, 1890.
MacRitchie, Fians, Fairies, and Picts, Trübner & Co, 1893.
Mackenzie, 'The Picts and Pets', The Antiquary, London, May 1906.
Elizabeth Andrews, ' Ulster Fairies, Danes, and Pechts ', ib. Aug. 1906.
Traditions of Dwarfs in Ireland and in Switzerland', ib. Oct. 1909.

The Picts in phenotype were also swarthy skinned, Claudian describes them as Mauros ''dark'': ''Mauros, nee falso nomine Pictos'' (De III. con. Honorii. 54) and they were affiliated with the Iberians.



Aside from a century old sources, do you actually have any archaelogical proof about this? If picts were pygmies, surely many of those small skeletons had been found there dating to ancient times. Also the Iberians were not pygmies last time I checked.

[Argyll]

Picts are pygmies? What?

[Ánleifr]

another guy in the project rebutted what the guy said about the Scythians by saying to him that no way this could have happened as for no other reason than the fact that Stonehenge predates those who brought horses to the Isles.

[Pyramidologist]

Picts are pygmies? What?

The ancestral Picts were dwarfish in size. Pygmy means any population under 4 ft 9 (145 cm) or in more recent anthropological literature under 4 ft 11 (150 cm). Its most probable though that some were slightly larger, around 5 ft. The term ''Pygmoid'' is probably more appropiate here. By Pygmy i mean by anthropological size, obviously no relation to the Black Pygmies of the Congo. There are Pygmies across many different countries outside of Africa. The term just refers to people (of any race) who are very small.

The Old Norse texts describe the Picts as pygmies or dwarfs. They must have been then very small compared to the Vikings, as i said 5ft or under.

[Benacer]

The ancestral Picts were dwarfish in size. Pygmy means any population under 4 ft 9 (145 cm) or in more recent anthropological literature under 4 ft 11 (150 cm). Its most probable though that some were slightly larger, around 5 ft. The term ''Pygmoid'' is probably more appropiate here. By Pygmy i mean by anthropological size, obviously no relation to the Black Pygmies of the Congo. There are Pygmies across many different countries outside of Africa. The term just refers to people (of any race) who are very small.

The Old Norse texts describe the Picts as pygmies or dwarfs. They must have been then very small compared to the Vikings, as i said 5ft or under.

Your ideas are based solely on the writings of some anonymous Norwegian author about the people of Orkney. The Romans described them much differently.


[edit]Physical appearance

Tacitus in his Agricola, chapter XI (c. 98 AD) described the Caledonians as red haired and large limbed, which he considered features of Germanic origin: “The reddish (rutilae) hair and large limbs of the Caledonians proclaim a German origin”. Jordanes in his Getica wrote something similar:
...The inhabitants of Caledonia have reddish hair and large loose-jointed bodies.[4]
Eumenius, the panegyrist of Constantine Chlorus, wrote that both the Picts and Caledonians were red haired (rutilantia).[5] Scholars such as William Forbes Skene noted that this description matches Tacitus' description of the Caledonians as red haired in his Agricola.[6]

Moreover, McRitchie attempts to link Picts with the Sami/Eskimos, not Iberians. His ideas are not at all taken seriously nowadays.

The more recent research conducted by Bryan Sykes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Sykes) from the University of Oxford found no evidence of a genetically distinct element in Scotland that could indicate that the Picts had an origin any different from the other Celts of the British Isles.

[Libertas]

The red-haired Caledonians were not Picts. Tacitus in his Agricola, implies they were Germanic settlers, he describes them as tall (large limbed) and red haired ''pointing to a Germanic origin''. They moved into Scotland and lived among the indigenous Pictish tribes there who in contrast were shorter and darker, hence Eumenius and the later Roman writers counted the Caledonians as being Pictish, however it is made clear from Tacitus they were Germanic.

Please!

Tacitus is completely unreliable a source in this specific matter.

He was not a physical anthropologist nor an expert on linguistics.

Also how did those big rufous Caledonians turn into what you called "pygmy" Picts?
Be consistent!

[Benacer]

Please!

Tacitus is completely unreliable a source in this specific matter.

He was not a physical anthropologist nor an expert on linguistics.

Also how did those big rufous Caledonians turn into what you called "pygmy" Picts?
Be consistent!

It seems that Tacitus merely linked them to Germanic peoples for thinking they had similar features (tall, possibly light-skinned, etc). Assuming that they were Germanic just because of that statement is a bit ludicrous, just as assuming that Picts were dwarves just because someone said so is. The Spanish also claimed that the Canarians were blond, when in truth only a few were. As I said in a previous thread, ancient descriptions should be taken with a grain of salt. Taking that the Picts were pygmy-like is quite an extraordinary claim that requires much more supporting evidence than the words of an anonymous Norwegian writer about the people of a tiny island north of Scotland.

[cilicia]

The ancestral Picts were dwarfish in size. Pygmy means any population under 4 ft 9 (145 cm) or in more recent anthropological literature under 4 ft 11 (150 cm). Its most probable though that some were slightly larger, around 5 ft. The term ''Pygmoid'' is probably more appropiate here. By Pygmy i mean by anthropological size, obviously no relation to the Black Pygmies of the Congo. There are Pygmies across many different countries outside of Africa. The term just refers to people (of any race) who are very small.

The Old Norse texts describe the Picts as pygmies or dwarfs. They must have been then very small compared to the Vikings, as i said 5ft or under.

I know they have been described as more swarthy and known for painting themselves, but I have never heard them being described as dwarves. :confused:

From Wiki :

"The name the Picts called themselves is unknown.[4] The Latin word Picti first occurs in a panegyric written by Eumenius in AD 297 and is taken to mean "painted or tattooed people" (from Latin pingere "to paint",;[5] pictus, "painted", cf. Greek "πυκτίς" - puktis, "picture").[6] "

[Pyramidologist]

Your ideas are based solely on the writings of some anonymous Norwegian author about the people of Orkney. The Romans described them much differently.

I'm working on a large essay with the evidences. There are many more sources describing the Picts as very short statured, for example Adam of Bremen and Eustathius' commentary on Homer (ad Hom. p. 372). The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in a people who were pygmy in size dwelled in the neighbourhood of Thule (Shetland or Orkney).

Is there any archaeological evidence? There have been findings of dwarves or Pygmies all across Europe. Pygmy skeletons were discovered at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, and described by Virchow and Kollmann.

Pygmies in Europe, J. Kollmann, The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 25, 1896, pp. 117-122
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2842391

See also -

How a race of pygmies was found in North Africa and Spain: with comments of Professors Virchow, Sayce, and Starr, The London Times, and Spectator. And papers on other subjects, Robert Grant Haliburton. Printed for private circulation by the Arbuthnot bros. company, limited, 1897.

Have any of these been found in Britain? I'm still searching. I believe these very small people gave birth to the legends of fairies. Folklorists such as MacRitchie and Macculloch argued that the fairies were Picts, a folk memory of an aboriginal short statured people.

[Graham]

Please!

Tacitus is completely unreliable a source in this specific matter.

He was not a physical anthropologist nor an expert on linguistics.

Also how did those big rufous Caledonians turn into what you called "pygmy" Picts?
Be consistent!

The part of Scotland, that was least invaded. Was the Pictish North East Lowlands, and Eastern Highlands. You'd expect some traits to survive at least.

[Pyramidologist]

The part of Scotland, that was least invaded. Was the Pictish North East Lowlands, and Eastern Highlands. You'd expect some traits to survive at least.

Scotland is predominantly dark or medium brown haired, not blonde. The bulk population is of Pictish/Iberian racial extraction and brunette. There is only a minority of blondes (mainly blondism was introduced by the Norse). Petty much the same for eye colour, most Scottish are hazel or mixed eyed, not true light blue. In fact dark brown eyes are far more common that blue in Scotland.

[Libertas]

Scotland is predominantly dark or medium brown haired, not blonde. The bulk population is of Pictish/Iberian racial extraction and brunette. There is only a minority of blondes (mainly blondism was introduced by the Norse). Petty much the same for eye colour, most Scottish are hazel or mixed eyed, not true light blue. In fact dark brown eyes are far more common that blue in Scotland.

Do you KNOW the Scots?:confused:

Most Scots have light or mixed eyes. Brown eyes are mostly concentrated around Glasgow with its strong Paleo-Atlantid element.

The east tends to be lighter-haired than the west as in England.

[Osweo]

Edinburgh did not become Scotland's official capital till 1437, although its fine site made it a popular spot for the kings.

Before that the capital was Perth for a time, in the heart of old Pictish territory as was Scone, site of the Stone of Destiny where Alba's kings were crowned.
Aye, and Canberra and Washington are the most important cities of their respective states too... ;)

English spread from the little royal burghs into the Gaelic-speaking countryside of the north, centre and west.
Why mention only the Gaelic? How was the solidly populated Cumbrian speaking SW converted to English? Your model doesn't work so well there.


The burghs were full of English, Flemish, Scandinavian merchants and artisans for whom the Northumbrian English (not the East Midlands English of London) of Edinburgh became a lingua franca.
Sounds a bit too much like an effort on your behalf to minimise the real demic impact of the Bernician Angles, here... ;) The Flemings and so on were important (and in Wales too), but they came into an already English type proto-urban society.


The part of Scotland, that was least invaded. Was the Pictish North East Lowlands, and Eastern Highlands. You'd expect some traits to survive at least.
Aye, and the people are big strapping lads up there, as far as I could see when I was touring the place.


Do you KNOW the Scots?:confused:
Course he does! He read all about them in a book from 1824. ;)


It's funny, as I was reading about McRitchie today, in a new 'Lancashire's Sacred Landscapes' book that came in the post. He was very typical of a certain sort in his generation, anxious to find euhemerising in ALL folklore he encountered. Real life doesn't work like that, though.

He sees a fairy story, and insists that it must just be garbled history. Why can't it just be supernatural story telling, though? We can see many times in history where names of real things were applied to pre-existing folklore, however. Look at the way the real historical Arthur ended up standing in for millennia old gods and heroes. All that there is of history in much of the stories there is his name alone! Same goes for the late folkloric incarnation of the Picts as Pixies (or the Cruithen as Creenies - a similar case from Galloway). The subject matter of the folklore is old, but the name changes, and semi-forgotten historical reality gets grafted onto the age old mythology. Stories of little people are based on nothing more than the purely supernatural.

And if the Norsemen mocked the earlier Orcadians' height, it needn't have been SO different to have been noticeable. I laughed about the Shrewsbury people's height, but there were no dwarves there. It's just subjective, and perhaps there were vitamin deficiencies due to bad harvests and so on.

[somerled]

Scotland is predominantly dark or medium brown haired, not blonde. The bulk population is of Pictish/Iberian racial extraction and brunette. There is only a minority of blondes (mainly blondism was introduced by the Norse). Petty much the same for eye colour, most Scottish are hazel or mixed eyed, not true light blue. In fact dark brown eyes are far more common that blue in Scotland.

As I've already mentioned Autosomal genetic studies show the Scots are not closely related to Iberians but instead to other the North West Europeans i.e. Dutch, Belgians, North Germans, North French, Norwegians.

[Argyll]

I know they have been described as more swarthy and known for painting themselves, but I have never heard them being described as dwarves. :confused:

From Wiki :

"The name the Picts called themselves is unknown.[4] The Latin word Picti first occurs in a panegyric written by Eumenius in AD 297 and is taken to mean "painted or tattooed people" (from Latin pingere "to paint",;[5] pictus, "painted", cf. Greek "πυκτίς" - puktis, "picture").[6] "

I've never heard of the Picts as being swarthy.

[Wulfhere]

I've never heard of the Picts as being swarthy.

What I have always assumed to be a Pictish phenotype is still very evident amongst Scots, and I would suspect it's geographically concentrated too. Thick bodied, heavy-set, dark featured with dark or black hair. Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond are very good examples.

[Libertas]

What I have always assumed to be a Pictish phenotype is still very evident amongst Scots, and I would suspect it's geographically concentrated too. Thick bodied, heavy-set, dark featured with dark or black hair. Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond are very good examples.

Ah well. So much for Tacitus' red-haired Caledonians.:D:D:D

[Wulfhere]

Ah well. So much for Tacitus' red-haired Caledonians.:D:D:D

There are many red-headed Scots too, but they are clearly of different origins.

[Libertas]

There are many red-headed Scots too, but they are clearly of different origins.

I was being facetious.

The Scottish Crown encouraged the influx of Norman families which included many Flemings including the Bruces.

Ironically, exiled Anglo-Saxons also arrived and there was surprisingly little friction with the Normans in Scotland.

The humble followers of these military nobles brought in a form of English heavily influenced by the speech patterns of the former Danelaw which had a bigger influence on the English spoken in Scotland than the speech of the Lothian Angles.

Gaelic dominated in the Highlands till the disastrous oppression following the unsuccessful Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745-46.

Gaelic speech also dominated part of the western Lowlands in Galloway and South Ayrshire till the 17th century.

[Wulfhere]

I was being facetious.

I know.

[somerled]

They were swarthy dwarfs, ''In physical type, the Picts, according to general tradition, were dark " Iberian ," small-statured and even pygmy'' (Waddell, 1924). Pecht in Scottish is synonymous with dwarf. The Historia Norwegiæ describes the Picts as little exceeding ''Pigmies'' (Pygmies) in height who hid themselves in little houses under the ground. There are also the origin of fairies in British folklore. See following sources -

MacRitchie, Testimony of Tradition, London, 1890.
MacRitchie, Fians, Fairies, and Picts, Trübner & Co, 1893.
Mackenzie, 'The Picts and Pets', The Antiquary, London, May 1906.
Elizabeth Andrews, ' Ulster Fairies, Danes, and Pechts ', ib. Aug. 1906.
Traditions of Dwarfs in Ireland and in Switzerland', ib. Oct. 1909.

The Picts in phenotype were also swarthy skinned, Claudian describes them as Mauros ''dark'': ''Mauros, nee falso nomine Pictos'' (De III. con. Honorii. 54) and they were affiliated with the Iberians.



The red-haired Caledonians were not Picts. Tacitus in his Agricola, implies they were Germanic settlers, he describes them as tall (large limbed) and red haired ''pointing to a Germanic origin''. They moved into Scotland and lived among the indigenous Pictish tribes there who in contrast were shorter and darker, hence Eumenius and the later Roman writers counted the Caledonians as being Pictish, however it is made clear from Tacitus they were Germanic.

The general consensus among academia is that the Picts are the descendants of the Caledonians. The Caledonians were the dominant tribe in earlier Roman times and Picts were the dominant people in later Roman and early Dark Age times. Where would such a dominate confederation have appeared from if not descending from the pre-existing peoples? There is no evidence of mass invasions and Tacitus never implies they were Germanic settlers, he simply notes they resembled Germans. Also consider that the Roman term Caledonian pre-existed the name Pict by several centuries. On your train of logic the Caledonians would be the indigenous peoples not the Picts.
I've no doubt there were swarthy, shorter tribes inhabiting Scotland that may have constituted a pre-existing non-indo European population (there are a few historical references to such). But there is no evidence that these obscure and small tribes equate to the powerful and numerous historical Picts and that they ever formed the majority of North Scotland’s population.

[Argyll]

Britain during the "Dark Ages" was just fascinating.

[Osweo]

There are many red-headed Scots too, but they are clearly of different origins.
Why must we assume that an ancient people were only of ONE type? That's idiotic. Why is our present variation not permitted to have been in existence in this not so distant past? What prevented geneflow back then? This is a fundamentally wrong headed approach.

The humble followers of these military nobles brought in a form of English heavily influenced by the speech patterns of the former Danelaw which had a bigger influence on the English spoken in Scotland than the speech of the Lothian Angles.
Curious. Got owt to support that, and examples? Is Glaswegian genetically closer to Yorkshire speech than that of Melrose or Morpeth?!

[Wulfhere]

Why must we assume that an ancient people were only of ONE type? That's idiotic. Why is our present variation not permitted to have been in existence in this not so distant past? What prevented geneflow back then? This is a fundamentally wrong headed approach.

That's true indeed, but the red-headed types I was thinking of have other features very different to the thick-set dark ones, implying at least some sort of separate development in ancient times. The west coast of Scotland always had much more in common with Ireland than the east coast, with the mountainous barrier between.

[Hong Key]

bump

[Óttar]

The Irish have a similar tale. Many people once claimed to originally come from some far away place, or to be related to important historical people. It's just to seem more prestigious.
Up until the 1800s, and even beyond that, historians vigorously debated the historical veracity of Noah's flood and other Biblical myths along with a biblical chronology of world history. The Scythian origin of the Scots, as well as the Egyptian origins of the Scotii tribe are mythological. Plain and simple.

[Anglojew]

http://www.amazon.com/When-Scotland-Was-Jewish-Archeology/dp/0786477091

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NE-72ZXux-g/TIFbpZcPJzI/AAAAAAAAPAA/7CMR8m0zc_4/s400/515E2UEi48L__SL500_AA300_.jpg

[Grace O'Malley]

The myth of Scota was from the Irish. Queen Scota was the Pharoah's daughter and is supposed to be buried in Co Kerry in Glenn Scoithin, "Vale of the little flower". In the origin myth the Irish are supposed to be descended from Fénius, a prince of Scythia. His son Nel weds Scota a daughter of the Pharoah and they have a son named Goídel Glas. The Goídels eventually leave Egypt and settle in Scythia. They leave there and wander the Earth for 440 years where eventually they reach Iberia and conquer it. A Goídel descendant called Breogán founds a city called Brigantia and builds a tower where he sees Ireland. They eventually go to Ireland. This is the story in brief. Anyway you can see the parallels with the Bible. The story has no basis in fact and was created by Irish monks to give the Irish an origin myth like the Jewish people.

[Smaug]

The myth of Scota was from the Irish. Queen Scota was the Pharoah's daughter and is supposed to be buried in Co Kerry in Glenn Scoithin, "Vale of the little flower". In the origin myth the Irish are supposed to be descended from Fénius, a prince of Scythia. His son Nel weds Scota a daughter of the Pharoah and they have a son named Goídel Glas. The Goídels eventually leave Egypt and settle in Scythia. They leave there and wander the Earth for 440 years where eventually they reach Iberia and conquer it. A Goídel descendant called Breogán founds a city called Brigantia and builds a tower where he sees Ireland. They eventually go to Ireland. This is the story in brief. Anyway you can see the parallels with the Bible. The story has no basis in fact and was created by Irish monks to give the Irish an origin myth like the Jewish people.

There is also a parallel with real life, since Q-Celtic languages such as Goidelic probably originated in Iberia and spread to Ireland and Dál Riata from there.

[Vandalsson]

http://www.amazon.com/When-Scotland-Was-Jewish-Archeology/dp/0786477091

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NE-72ZXux-g/TIFbpZcPJzI/AAAAAAAAPAA/7CMR8m0zc_4/s400/515E2UEi48L__SL500_AA300_.jpg


:rolleyes: :picard2: :picard1:

[Grace O'Malley]

There is also a parallel with real life, since Q-Celtic languages such as Goidelic probably originated in Iberia and spread to Ireland and Dál Riata from there.

Primitive Irish is related to Gaulish. The oldest written Goidelic language is Primitive Irish, which is attested in Ogham inscriptions from about the 4th century. The forms of this speech are very close, and often identical, to the forms of Gaulish recorded before and during the Roman Empire.

Ireland retained the Q Celtic most likely due to isolation. Britain being closer to the continent and not as isolated became P Celtic. Some P Celtic did make it to Ireland but due to social pressures it never replaced Q Celtic. Q Celtic is just an older form of Insular Celtic. I really think the continental connection to Ireland is France. That's where the L21 appears to come from and also there does appear to be a lot of connections to Northern France genetically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goidelic_languages

In the People of the British Isles Project Wales and Southern England have a genetic connection to Northern France.

[LightHouse89]

Primitive Irish is related to Gaulish. The oldest written Goidelic language is Primitive Irish, which is attested in Ogham inscriptions from about the 4th century. The forms of this speech are very close, and often identical, to the forms of Gaulish recorded before and during the Roman Empire.

Ireland retained the Q Celtic most likely due to isolation. Britain being closer to the continent and not as isolated became P Celtic. Some P Celtic did make it to Ireland but due to social pressures it never replaced Q Celtic. Q Celtic is just an older form of Insular Celtic. I really think the continental connection to Ireland is France. That's where the L21 appears to come from and also there does appear to be a lot of connections to Northern France genetically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goidelic_languages

In the People of the British Isles Project Wales and Southern England have a genetic connection to Northern France.

I believe Irish has more in common with Gaullish than Iberian.

[Smaug]

Primitive Irish is related to Gaulish. The oldest written Goidelic language is Primitive Irish, which is attested in Ogham inscriptions from about the 4th century. The forms of this speech are very close, and often identical, to the forms of Gaulish recorded before and during the Roman Empire.

Ireland retained the Q Celtic most likely due to isolation. Britain being closer to the continent and not as isolated became P Celtic. Some P Celtic did make it to Ireland but due to social pressures it never replaced Q Celtic. Q Celtic is just an older form of Insular Celtic. I really think the continental connection to Ireland is France. That's where the L21 appears to come from and also there does appear to be a lot of connections to Northern France genetically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goidelic_languages

In the People of the British Isles Project Wales and Southern England have a genetic connection to Northern France.

The Brythonic branch is related to Gaulish, both are P-Celtic. Goidelic and Hispanoceltic are Q-Celtic.

[Smaug]

I believe Irish has more in common with Gaullish than Iberian.

What you belive or not is of few importance.

[Grace O'Malley]

I believe Irish has more in common with Gaullish than Iberian.

I just think the weight of evidence appears to support this. As I said in my previous post even looking at y dna a lot of it appears to go back to France. L21 is quite common in Brittany and Normandy and also a lot of Northern French are quite close genetically.

[LightHouse89]

I just think the weight of evidence appears to support this. As I said in my previous post even looking at y dna a lot of it appears to go back to France. L21 is quite common in Brittany and Normandy and also a lot of Northern French are quite close genetically.

I think many Iberian languages had alot in common with Gaullish..... why both Gaullish and Iberian came from the same source. [Except non celtic Iberian languages]. La Tene culture had a major impact on Iberia and British Islands.

[Grace O'Malley]

The Brythonic branch is related to Gaulish, both are P-Celtic. Goidelic and Hispanoceltic are Q-Celtic.

There are a lot more similarities between Insular Celtic languages than just the shift to P. Also Q Celtic is an earlier form of Celtic and the reason why Ireland missed out on the shift to P Celtic has been thought to be due to isolation at the time. Anyway there are various arguments about this.

The interpretation of this and further evidence is still quite contested, and the main argument in favour of Insular Celtic is connected with the development of the verbal morphology and the syntax in Irish and British Celtic, which Schumacher regards as convincing, while he considers the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic division unimportant and treats Gallo-Brittonic as an outdated hypothesis.[36] Stifter affirms that the Gallo-Brittonic view is "out of favour" in the scholarly community as of 2008 and the Insular Celtic hypothesis "widely accepted".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages

The "Insular Celtic hypothesis" is a theory that the Brythonic and Goidelic languages evolved together in those islands, having a common ancestor more recent than any shared with the Continental Celtic languages such as Celtiberian, Gaulish, Galatian and Lepontic, among others, all of which are long extinct.

The proponents of the Insular Celtic hypothesis (such as Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; and Schrijver 1995) point to shared innovations among Insular Celtic languages, including inflected prepositions, shared use of certain verbal particles, VSO word order, and the differentiation of absolute and conjunct verb endings as found extensively in Old Irish and to a small extent in Middle Welsh (see Morphology of the Proto-Celtic language). They assert that a partition that lumps the Brythonic languages and Gaulish (P-Celtic) on one side and the Goidelic languages with Celtiberian (Q-Celtic) on the other may be a superficial one (i.e. owing to a language contact phenomenon), as the identical sound shift (/kʷ/ to /p/) could have occurred independently in the predecessors of Gaulish and Brythonic, or have spread through language contact between those two groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_Celtic_languages#Insular_Celtic_hypothesis

Whatever the origins of the languages what can't be disputed is the close genetic connections with the Irish, Scots, Welsh (and also the English) but also the genetic links with Northern France and other neighbouring countries. It also makes sense when you look at where countries are located.

http://www.atlasdigitalmaps.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/r/britishisles4mmain1.jpg

[Grace O'Malley]

I think many Iberian languages had alot in common with Gaullish..... why both Gaullish and Iberian came from the same source. [Except non celtic Iberian languages]. La Tene culture had a major impact on Iberia and British Islands.

My paternal y-dna is M222 which is the Niall of the Nine Hostages type. In her book Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe the author Jean Manco thinks it might be a signal of La Tene movement.

"The La Tène Culture of the Central European Celts spread into Britain in the late Iron Age. It arrived in North-Eastern Ireland from northern Britain around 200 BC and spread across the island north of a Dublin-Galway line. Along with it came the first rotary querns in Ireland. These were a particular type of beehive quern known also in northern England and southern Scotland. Although the humble quern tends not to be found on the same sites as high-status La Tène objects, they are part of the same picture. Three have been found with ornament of La Tène type. The rotary quern was a technological leap forward from the saddle quern which had been in use since Neolithic times. For millennia grinding corn was back-breaking work, using a hand stone to crush the grain on the large, concave saddle stone. Rotary querns took some of the labour out of grinding before the invention of the water-mill. The Y-DNA haplogroup R1b-M222 is found in Northern Ireland, Lowland Scotland and Northern England and may reflect the arrival of La Tène in Ireland (see Uí Néill). The swirling La Tène style continued to develop in Ireland after the Continental heartlands of La Tène and most of Britain were absorbed into the Roman sphere. As Ireland emerged from its centuries-long, climate-induced depression and embraced Christianity, the La Tène style blossomed in such masterpieces as the Book of Kells."

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/celtictribes.shtml