5-97-] THE PICTS. 295 



THE PICTS. 



By Rev. Neil MacNish, B.D., LL.D. 



(Readioth April, i8gj). 



The question, Who the Picts were, and what the language was which 

 they spoke, still continues to evoke attentive interest. Mr. Nicholson, 

 Bodley's Librarian in the University of Oxford, published about a year 

 ago, a little book to which he has given the designation : " The Vernac- 

 ular Inscriptions of the Ancient Kingdom of Alban." His aim is to 

 prove, and he has been very successful in establishing his contention, 

 that the Pictish Inscriptions which he has examined and deciphered, 

 indicate that Gaelic was the language of the Picts. He is correct in 

 stating that three theories have been held with regard to the language 

 of the Picts. It has been maintained that that language is closely akin 

 to Irish and Scottish Gaelic It has also been contended that •'- has a 

 strange resemblance to the Cymric branches of the Celtic language. 

 Further, there are those who are of the opinion that the language of the. 

 Picts is neither Celtic nor even Aryan, but that it has a strong likeness 

 to the language of the Basques. It is unfortunate that no literary 

 remains of any description have come down to our time from the period 

 in the history of the Picts which preceded their union with the Scots in 

 844, to form henceforth one kingdom. It is with the sculptured stones 

 of the Picts that Mr. Nicholson concerns himself He avers that there 

 are eighteen Inscriptions, that they are all cut on stones, that several of 

 them are now in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh, and 

 that with three exceptions they are written in Ogam letters. Professor 

 Rhys of Oxford, who has devoted great pains on the decipherments of 

 Pictish Inscriptions, advances the conjecture that the Ogam characters 

 were invented by a " Goidelic native of Siluria or Demetia, who having 

 acquired a knowledge of the Roman alphabet and some practice in a 

 simple system of scoring numbers, elaborated the latter into an alphabet 

 of his own, fitted for cutting on stone and wood." The Ogam alphabet 

 is confined to the British Isles. No Ogam Inscriptions are found else- 

 where. Numerous Inscriptions in that character have been discovered in 

 Ireland, in portions of Scotland, including the Shetland and Orkney 

 Isles, in the Isle of Man, in Wales and in England. In the Book of 

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