William Forbes Skene on the Picts

[Auld Chiel]

Originally Posted by SeamusAlba

There was a Germanic tribe called the Cimri. The name could be pre germanic (like Bavarian, coming from the Celtic root for "cow: bo")

I was of the impression though that the word Cymric was a much later invention, from the Christian period, and never used to refer to anyone North of the Forth Clyde area (IE the Scots/Picts) its supposed to mean "our people" and James A Robertson argues that the ethnic difference only occured wth the Romanisation of the Frth Clyde area. Both he and Skene demonstrate the fluidity of the Celtic vocabulary, (like Cathair/caer even today) and leave the door open for the possibility that a form of Gaelic was spoken by the population of Coille Daone.

The jury is still somewhat out on whether the Cimbri were Gallic or Germanic - they lived in what ended up being Germanic territory and may have allied themselves with Germanic tribes, but all the known Cimbri chiefs had Gallic names including, Boiorix (King of the Gallic Boii tribe of Italy and Bohemia), Gaesorix (King of the Gaesatae Gauls of the Rhone Valley; often recorded as Gallic mercenary warriors), and Lugius (after the Gallic god Lugh).

The Gundestrup Cauldron (which depicts Gallic pagan deities), found in Jutland, Denmark, was likely their tribal cauldron mentioned by Strabo who describes a silver ritual cauldron as being the most precious possession of the Cimbri. The Gundestrup Cauldron is thought to be of Thracian craftsmanship, and there were Gallic tribes in Thrace, some of whom went on to settle in Galatia (Anatolia) in the 3rd century BC.

[SeamusAlba]

Originally Posted by Auld Chiel

The jury is still somewhat out on whether the Cimbri were Gallic or Germanic - they lived in what ended up being Germanic territory and may have allied themselves with Germanic tribes, but all the known Cimbri chiefs had Gallic names including, Boiorix (King of the Gallic Boii tribe of Italy and Bohemia), Gaesorix (King of the Gaesatae Gauls of the Rhone Valley; often recorded as Gallic mercenary warriors), and Lugius (after the Gallic god Lugh).

The Gundestrup Cauldron (which depicts Gallic pagan deities), found in Jutland, Denmark, was likely their tribal cauldron mentioned by Strabo who describes a silver ritual cauldron as being the most precious possession of the Cimbri. The Gundestrup Cauldron is thought to be of Thracian craftsmanship, and there were Gallic tribes in Thrace, some of whom went on to settle in Galatia (Anatolia) in the 3rd century BC.

It is fascinating I agree. Linguistically and culturally Celtic society was somewhat of an EU before the Romans came and seized its gold, people and land, but the questions raised by Skene as to the reliability of the markers of P celtic in what we know of Pictish are equally fascinating to me, as they make it clear that at least some dialects of what we think of as the Picts, ad before them the Caeldonians (in the widest sense of those meanings) may have been Gaels. they were certainly referred to as such by Welsh writers in the Triads. Perhaps there was no "Pictish language" as such, but a series of dialects in a preliterate society that nade up a half way point between Goidelic and Brythonic Convergence in closely related preliterate dialects is perfectly possible and modern Scottish Gaelic could therefor be a direct descendant of the language that was being spoken at the time of the the semi-mythical Calgacus of Coille Daoine/Caledonia.