This article is about the ethnic group called "Britons". For the modern inhabitants of the United Kingdom, see British people.

Brython and Brythonic are terms which refer to indigenous, pre-Roman, Celtic speaking inhabitants of most of the island of Great Britain, and their culture and language, the Brythonic languages. This ethnic group is also referred to as the British tribes, the ancient Britons, ethnic Britons, or simply Britons. These terms specifically refer to the culture of speakers of the P Celtic branch of the Celtic languages as against speakers of Q Celtic, who are usually referred to as Gaels or Goidelic Celts.

It is presently not known (and perhaps unknowable) as to whether the whole population of Great Britain was brythonic. A number of scholars argue that the unknown language of the Picts was P Celtic, but by sub-Roman times the Picts were being distinguished as a separate group, as were the Gaels of Dál Riata. The terms "Brython" and "Briton" are traditionally used to mean inhabitants of ancient Britain excluding the Picts, because other cultural features of the Picts, for example their sculpture, pottery and monumental remains differ from those of the Brythons.

Etymology

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The word Brython was borrowed from the Welsh language to differentiate between this purely ethno-linguistic meaning and the word Briton. Its source comes from the terms Bruthin or Priteni used in classical times for inhabitants of the British Isles.

Language of the Brythons

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The Brythonic languages which have survived to the present day are Welsh, Breton and Cornish. The Brythonic language was also the ancestor to the now extinct Cumbric language.

Extent of Brythonic territory

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The extent of territory of the Brythons or Britons in pre-Roman times is unclear. The Pictish language is unknown and its study is based on very little information, mainly place and personal names. Probably a majority of those studying it favour it being a P Celtic (Brythonic) dialect, but other conjectures include a pre Celtic remnant language or a mixture of the two.

The territory of the Picts was bounded on the south east by the Votadini (later called the Gododdin), a Brythonic tribe whose territory included an area around Stirling and the lands south of the River Forth / Firth of Forth. To their west the Brythonic Kingdom of Strathclyde extended as far north as Arrochar, then to the west of Loch Long the Epidii, who may have been Brythonic, inhabited Argyll and Kintyre.

By post-Roman times the Picts were seen as a separate group, and the territory of the Epidii had become the Goidelic Celtic territory of Dál Riata. The Venerable Bede claimed that by 642 Oswald, king of Northumbria, had "brought under his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four languages, to wit, those of the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the English."

References

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1. The Birth of Nations: SCOTLAND. Stephen.J.Murray. From Dot to Domesday: A History of Britain, from its creation by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age, to the first great survey of its land and people, the Domesday Book.

See also

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• Albion
• Roman Britain
• Briton (disambiguation page)
• British
• Alternative words for British
• British Isles
• British Isles (terminology)
• Cornish people
• History of Britain
• Welsh people
• Scottish people
• Picts
• Caledonia
• English people
• Anglo-Saxons
• Irish people
• Hibernia
• Gododdin
• Dumbarton

External links

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• Kessler Associates:
  • Map of Post Roman Britain
  • The History Files
• BBC - History - Native Tribes of Britain
• DNA from ethnic Britons found in Ireland

Ancient Britons | British archaeology | Celts | Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom | Iron Age Britain | Roman Britain

Brythoniaid | Britanni | Бритты