The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. IV] OF SCOTLAND 47-
preceding chapter, in discussing the extent of the Pictish territories,
that the inhabitants of Skye must at that time have been
Picts, and consequently it will follow of necessity from this
passage that they used the Gaelic language.
It may be proper here to notice an argument which has been
frequently drawn from Adomnan, that the Picts and Scots must
have spoken languages very different from each other. It has
been urged as a conclusive argument by those who assert the
language of the Picts to have been a Teutonic dialect, that
on several occasions when Columba, who was an Irish Scot,
addressed the Picts, he is described by Adomnan as using an
intei'preter. Now, although Columba is very frequently mentioned
as conversing with the Picts, there are but two occasions
on which any such expression is used,i and in both passages the
expression of Adomnan is exactly the same, viz. :— " Verbo Dei
per interpretatorem recepto." It will be remarked, that
Adomnan does not say that Columba used an interpreter in
conversing with the Picts, but merely that he interpreted or
explained the word of God, that is, the Bible, which being
written in Latin, would doubtless require
them and the ; very distinction which is
to be interpreted to
made by Adomnan,
who never uses this expression when Columba addresses the
Picts, but only when he reads the word of God to them, proves
clearly that they must have understood each other without
difficulty, and that there could have been but little difference
of language between the two nations of Picts and Scots.
Topography
ofthecoun.
The third proof which I shall adduce to show
that the Picts spoke a Gaelic dialect, and perhaps
the strongest of all, is derived from the topography
of the country. The territories of the Picts, as we have shewn
in a preceding chapter, consisted of the whole of Scotland north
of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, with the exception of the
southern parts of Argyll. It has never been disputed that
the names of the places in general throughout this territory can
admit of being derived from some Celtic dialect only, and that
those in the Highlands are exclusively Gaelic ; even Pinkerton
has confessedly failed altogether in his attempt to discover
^
Adomnan, b. 2, c. 33, 12.