In Conclusion
Although I haven't gone into extensive detail of why exactly most scholars believe Pictish to be (P-)Celtic, I hope I have tweaked your interest enough to get you to look into it for yourself. For most of us, the biggest problem with it is that we are dealing with a language 1000 years extinct, so it falls in the realm of historical linguistics, which is a pretty advanced field, and difficult. But not impossible. So look at the bibliography below and see what you can find at the library.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I took a course in Pictish history at the University of Glasgow in 1999, with Stephen T Driscoll and Dauvit Broun. All of my knowledge on the Picts comes from that class, and I have worked from sources I became familiar with in the class for this article. If you are interested in pursuing Pictish studies at all, be very careful of which authors you read! There are still historians perpetuating the not-historically-justified tales. You can write me if you want a more extensive bibliography, as they gave us a 3-page one for the class.
Paul Dunbavin. Picts and Ancient Britons: An Exploration of Pictish Origins. Nottingham, Third Millennium, 1998.
David Henry, ed. The Worm, the Germ and the Thorn: Pictish and Related Studies Presented to Isabel Henderson. Balgavies, Forfar, Scotland: Pinkfoot Press, 1997. Especially: Barbara E. Crawford, "Are the Dark Ages Still Dark?", pp. 1-4; Sally M. Foster, "The Picts: Quite the Darkest of the Peoples of Dark Age Britain?", pp. 5-17; Katherine Forsyth, "Some Thoughts on Pictish Symbols as a Formal Writing System", pp. 85-98.
Katherine Forsyth. Language in Pictland: The Case against 'Non-Indo-European Pictish'. Utrecht: de Keltische Draak, 1997.
Sally M. Foster. Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland. London: B. T. Batsford/Historic Scotland, 1996.
