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( Brython)
Historically, the Britons (sometimes Brythons or British) were the P-Celtic speaking indigenous peoples inhabiting the island of Great Britain south of the river Forth. They were speakers of the Brythonic languages (also called P-Celtic) and shared common cultural traditions; the surviving P-Celtic languages are Welsh, Cornish and Breton. In terms of language and culture, much of north-western Europe was mainly Celtic during this period. The inhabitants of Ireland, the Isle of Man and Dál Riata were Gaels or Gaelic Celts who spoke Goidelic languages. A number of scholars argue that the unknown Pictish language was Brythonic, but in Sub-Roman Britain the Picts were distinguished as a separate group, as were the Gaels of Dál Riata. Therefore, the term "Briton" traditionally refers to the inhabitants of ancient Britain excluding the Picts, because many Pictish cultural traits (for example their sculpture, pottery and monuments) differ from those of the Britons and because ancient writers clearly distinguish the two peoples. The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Britain seems to come from records of the voyage of Pytheas, a Greek geographer who made a voyage of exploration around the British Isles between 330 and 320 BC. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them. Pytheas called the Britons the Pritani or Pretani,[1][2] and referred to the islands as the Pritanic or Pretanic islands. The term may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who may have used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands.[2][3] The Latin name in the early Roman Empire period was Britanni or Brittanni, following the Roman conquest in 43 BC. The single -t- in modern Briton is from an erroneous Latin form Brito, Britones in medieval manuscript tradition; French Breton derives from the more correct Latin form with double -tt-.[4]
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