![]() ![]() These are collectively known as the Brythonic languages. ![]() By the sixth century AD, scholars of early Insular history often begin to talk about four geographically separate forms of British: Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and the now extinct Cumbric language. It is a form of Insular Celtic, which is descended from Proto-Celtic, the hypothetical parent language that many linguistics belief had already begun to diverge into separate dialects or languages in the first half of the first millennium BC. Celtic languages īritish or Brythonic was an ancient P-Celtic language spoken in Britain. This proposal was originally made by the German linguist Theo Vennemann, but has been rejected by other linguists.Ī small number of island names may contain elements of such an early Celtic or pre-Celtic language, but no certain knowledge of any pre- Pictish language exists anywhere in Scotland. Proponents of the controversial Vasconic substratum theory suggest that many western European languages contain remnants of an even older language family of "Vasconic languages", of which Basque is the only surviving member. Proto-Celtic is the presumed ancestor language of all the known Celtic languages. Main languages Early languages Rodney's stoneĪs humans have lived on the islands of Scotland since at least Mesolithic times, it is clear that pre-modern languages must have been used, and by extension names for the islands, that have been lost to history. ![]() Later writers such as Adomnán and the authors of the Irish annals also contributed to our understanding of these early toponyms. Many of the names for larger islands show some continuity although few of the names they identified for the smaller ones are cognate with the modern ones. The earliest written references to Scottish islands were made by authors in Classical antiquity. There are also clusters of islands in the Firth of Clyde, Firth of Forth, and Solway Firth, and numerous small islands within the many bodies of fresh water in Scotland including Loch Lomond and Loch Maree. Scotland has over 790 offshore islands, most of which are to be found in four main groups: Shetland, Orkney, and the Hebrides, sub-divided into the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides. These islands have all been occupied by the speakers of at least three and in many cases four or more languages since the Iron Age, and many of the names of these islands have more than one possible meaning as a result. There are also some island place names that originate from three other influences, including a limited number that are essentially English language names, a few that are of Brittonic origin and some of an unknown origin that may represent a pre-Celtic language. In the Northern Isles most place names have a Norse origin. There are many names that derive from the Scottish Gaelic language in the Hebrides and Firth of Clyde. The modern names of Scottish islands stem from two main influences. Undeciphered ogham inscription on the Lunnasting stone found near Vidlin, Shetland ![]()
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