New Written Language of Ancient Scotland Discovered

Discovery News ^ | Wednesday, March 31, 2010 | Jennifer Viegas

[SunkenCiv]

photo: Rob Knell and Rob Lee

The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, carved stones that new research has just determined contain the written language of the Picts, an Iron Age society that existed in Scotland from 300 to 843. The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland... Rob Lee... a professor in the School of Biosciences at the University of Exeter... and colleagues Philip Jonathan and Pauline Ziman analyzed the engravings, found on the few hundred known Pictish Stones. The researchers used a mathematical process known as Shannon entropy to study the order, direction, randomness and other characteristics of each engraving. The resulting data was compared with that for numerous written languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese texts and written Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Ancient Irish, Old Irish and Old Welsh. While the Pictish Stone engravings did not match any of these, they displayed characteristics of writing based on a spoken language. Lee explained that writing comes in two basic forms: lexigraphic writing that is based on speech and semasiography, which is not based on speech.

[GSP.FAN]

I have the album but never got into it,all other albums up to Echoes are classic and never tire of listening to..

[afraidfortherepublic]

When we were touring there in 2001, our guides told us it was taught in all the schools. Whether I misunderstood, or not, I was on a bus on 9-11-01 between Blarney and Waterford when, suddenly our bus driver and our guide (who had been continuously joking and singing with us) suddenly got very quiet and addressed each other in Gaelic. My husband and I were sitting right behind them and we couldn’t understand a word they said. The guide turned away from the driver, and stepped one row back to us and addressed my husband in hushed tones.

He told us about what had happened earlier that day in NYC. Then he asked my husband, “What do you think I should do?” My husband replied, “Tell them, and then turn on the radio and turn up the volume so we all can hear!”

So, the guide made his way to the back of the bus, criss-crossing the aisle and notifying passengers in groups of 5 or 6. And we listened to Irish radio when the 2nd plane went into the tower, when they announced that another plane had flown into the Pentagon, when yet another crashed into the field in PA. We cheered President Bush’s words of encouragement and steely resolve to the nation.

That moment changed the rest of the trip and changed all of our lives forever. And it all started with a whispered conversation in a foreign country, in a language none of us understood - Gaelic.

[Ditter]

My daughter was in London on 9-11-01 and she said there was a period of silence in downtown London when they got the word. Don’t remember how long she said it was but she said no one moved or spoke.

[afraidfortherepublic]

BTW, on Friday of that week we went to Mass at the Cathedral in Galway. The Mass was in Gaelic. I couldn’t even identify the Our Father, which I usually can in foreign languages — that’s how different Gaelic is to American ears! LOL. The President of Ireland led the procession of dignatories. And the offertory consisted of some equipment for the NY Firefighters from the Irish people. The entire country was shut down that Friday, except for necessities such as a few pharmacies. You couldn’t get fed, or a drink at a pub, unless you were a tourist already booked at a hotel. THe Irish populace had to eat and drink at home.

BTW, the Galway Cathedral is beautiful — all decorated with mosaic pictures in different colored stone from every county in Ireland. I don’t think there was any stained glass — just stone pictures which made it look like you were viewing them through a mist because the colors were so soft.

[afraidfortherepublic]

In Ireland they declared Friday of that week a whole day of mourning (see above). Nothing was open except for places that sold emergency supplies. We did not know if, or when, we could get out and I had brought only the right amount of medecine for our trip. I spent the afternoon in a Galway Pharmacy getting additional Lipitor. The pharmacist was so nice — called my home pharmacy in Wisconsin to work out the right measurement because US pills are in different dosages than the European counterparts. No charge for the long distance call.

The Cathedral was packed with tourists and townspeople. When we came out of Mass, the parking lot was filled with shoulder to shoulder people who could not get in and the priests distributed Communion to all who wanted it.

There were books of condolence that we could sign all over town and at the church too.

[GSP.FAN]

Yeah the older generation speak it especially in Galway ,i think the last gaeltacht is located in Galway,when i was a kid we were camping in Galway i tried to speak Gaelic to a barman he could not understand one word i said and i could not understand him either...
I believe the Gov invests money to keep the language alive,but as newer generations come along,they lose interest in learning it..
That is a very interesting story regarding 911...
Slainte....

[afraidfortherepublic]

Thank you. I cannot stress how accomodating and sympathetic the Irish were to us in the aftermath of 9/11, not that they were unkind before! Total strangers would approach us on the street and offer condolences. It was an odd feeling to be out of our own country at such a time of tragedy, but we were the recipients of Cead mile failte romhat!

[SunkenCiv]

The druids were not really a sect, more like the village shaman / witch doctor; their time had passed, the Romans wiped ‘em out in the parts of Britain they occupied, and Christian missionaries went beyond the frontiers into Ireland and Scotland with a more attractive deal.

[SunkenCiv]

The translation is “giddyap!”

[Sacajaweau]

Who was that masked man??? And there’s an indian...

[SunkenCiv]

Interesting!

[SunkenCiv]

During the simmering uprising that went from warm to hot a number of times, leading up to the Easter Rebellion, there were plenty of people speaking Gaelic, and even more who had grown up in Gaelic-speaking or bilingual homes. There were the treason songs — the English language verses were either comedic or romantic, and the Gaelic verses were about independence, freedom, kicking out the British, etc. One of the last of the Gaelic-only speakers can be seen (oddly enough) in Michael Wood’s “In Search of the Trojan War” documentary from over twenty years ago, a aging fisherman named John Henry.

[SunkenCiv]

Mathematics of ancient carvings reveals lost language
11:24 01 April 2010 by Kate Ravilious
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18725-mathematics-of-ancient-carvings-reveals-lost-language.html

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Update ping — this TOPIC is from 2010, here’s a new story, apparently someone didn’t get the memo eight years ago. :^) Actually, I’ve been a big fan of Owen Jarus for years now.

‘Painted People’ in Scotland Developed Written Language 1,700 Years Ago
By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | October 26, 2018
https://www.livescience.com/63933-picts-developed-written-language.html

[SunkenCiv]

Pictish written language discovered in Scotland
Posted on April 10, 2013 by TermCoord
A new language dating back to the Scottish Iron Age has been identified on carved stones.
https://termcoord.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/pictish-written-language-discovered-in-scotland/

Pictish stone marking site of the Battle of Mons Graupius?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3635398/posts?page=16#16