Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

Of the Pi6iijh Language. 45
DISSERTATION. V.
Of the Pi6lifh Language.
WE are told by Bede, that the inhabitants of
Britain in his time, both ftudied and
preached the gofpel in the languages of five dif-
ferent nations, agreeably to the number of thofe
books in which the law of God was written. Thefe
languages were the Saxon, BritiOi, Scottilh, Pic-
tifh,. and Roman *.
From this paiTage of that venerable .author,
fome have concluded, and with fome appearance
of jufticc, that the languages of the Britons, Scots
and Fids, were elfentially different. Bede lived
in the neighbourhood of the Pidifh nation. The
monaftery of Girwy, to which he belonged t,
ftood near the mouth of the Tine. He could not
have been a ftranger to the Eritifh tongue, how-
ever much the Britons and Angles difagreed. He
was perfonally well acquainted with many of the
Irifh Scots, and had a friendly partiality for their
country. Befides, he has given us fome fpecimens
of- his ikill in the Brit il"h, Scottifh, and Pic^ilh
* Bed. Hift. Ecclef. lib. i. cap. i.
t Now J arrow.
languages ;