Dwendish: Difference between revisions

The intent of Pictish is to create a non-Celtic language in a sprachbund with the Celtic languages without being Celtic in aesthetics. The main inspiration was Jörg Rhiemeier's article on the British Isles Linguistic Area which can be found in the League of Lost Languages section on Frathwiki. The main part of the phonology was influenced by Valarin Quenya and Láadan. Irish and Breton influenced Pictish initial consonant mutation.

Pictish is an ahistorical, fictional tongue descended from a language spoken alongside Brythonic Pictish by a Thurse people, known in Classical sources as the Picti, before they were largely driven from Caledonia by the invading Scots.

Thurse is the usual term in English for any of the various ethnic groups possessing the European Pygmy phenotype. This phenotype is believed to have originated in the Hercynian forest zone of Central Europe before spreading all over the continent. Their most striking features are short stature and pointed ears. A Scandinavian sub-group of the Thurse also have striped skins. According to genetic testing, it is from this sub-group that the Picts are believed to be descended. Their epidermal stripes were generally attributed by Classical authors to the practice of tattoing hence their Latin sobriquet, Picti, the Painted Ones.

The Thurse speak a variety of languages from a variety of language families, some of which are shared with other Europeans, some of which, such as Pictish, are not. Pictish is a language isolate spoken by some 33 million Picts in Pictland, as well as by a small Pictish minority in Scotland. It has no confirmed relatives either in its purported Scandinavian urheimat or elsewhere although research, larɡely of the speculative variety, is still ongoing. It can, however, be most definitely asserted that Pictish is NOT a relative of Basque, Etruscan, Hunɡarian, Sumerian or Tamil NOR a member of the putative Nostratic or Dene-Caucasian lanɡuaɡe families.