Picte
See also: Picte (homonymy)
The picte was the spoken language by the Pictes, people of the Lowlands of Scotland, between the 3rd century and the 9th century. The evidence of the existence of this language is limited to place names and people found on monuments and in texts of time. With its apogee, it would seem that she was spoken about the the Shetland to the Fife.
The problem of the classification of the picte was mainly solved in 1582, by the humanistic academic (of language Gaelic in the beginning) George Buchanan, which explained that the picte was a language similar to the Welsh, to the Gallic and the Scottish . Posterior research on this language, was regarded as simple post-scriptums work of Buchanan.
The evidence that constitute the place names and the names of people strongly pleads in favor of the assumption according to which the pictes spoke to a form about Celtic islander related to the brittonic languages of the south although it is often said that the picte would have been nearer to Gallic than brittonic languages. Colomba, a Gaël, needed an interpreter at Pictes, and Bède wrote that they spoke a language different from that about Britons, assertions which do not reveal anything on nature picte. It was said, perhaps with more force than of utility, than one or more not-indo-European languages had survived at Pictes, argument based on a long time widespread theory that the languages and cultures could be spread only by invasions or migrations. Elements pre-indo-Europeans can be found rather frequently in place names of the north of Scotland and a theory wants that certain oghamic inscriptions pictes would also represent examples of this language.
The place names make it possible to deduce the historical hearths from population picte in Scotland. Those which have a prefix in " River mouth-" (mouth), " Lhan-" (cemetery), " Pit-" (portion, left, closes), or " End-" (hill) testify to areas formerly inhabited by Pictes (For example: Aberdeen, Lhanbryde, Pitmedden, Pittodrie, Findochty, etc). However, it is " Pit-" who is the most distinctive element, since " River mouth-" can also be found in places of language cambrienne. Some of the elements pictes, such as " Pit-" , were formed after the era picte and can refer to precedents " comtés". Others also propose the elements of place names like " pert" (hedge, in Welsh perth - Perth, Larbert), " carden" (thicket, in Welsh cardden - Pluscarden, Kincardine), " pevr" (shining, in Welsh pefr - Strathpeffer, Peffery).
The evidence of the place names can also reveal the propagation of Gaelic at Pictes. Thus, Atholl , meaning New Ireland, is attested at the beginning of VIIIe century. Fortriu also has place names suggesting a colony or a Gaelic influence. There are many words borrowed from the picte in the Scottish modern, like beinn , but little survived in Doric.
Apart from the names of people, Bède gives only one place name picte ( HE , I, 12), when it treats Mur of Antonin:
Il begins at a distance from two miles from the monastery from Abercurnig, in the west, in a place named Peanfahel in language picte, Penneltun in English, and is spread out towards the west, finishing close to the town of Alcluith.Peanfahel - today Kinneil, in Bo' born - proves to contain elements of the same family as as brittonic PEN (fine) and Gaelic fal (wall).