Pretani

The term Pretani, also spelt Pritani, is an ancient name for the people who inhabited what is now known as the British Isles in pre-Roman times. The Greek historian Herodotus first used the term “Pretani” referring to peoples in the Iberian Peninsula around 450 BC. Some linguists derived this use from the reconstructed proto-Celtic term *kriteni, stemming from: *krito - meaning ‘image, form’, with the suffix *eni indicating ‘people of’. *Kriteni could, therefore, have signified ‘people distinguished by images/form’. This may have referred to the culture of intricate tattoos or body painting.

 

However, a different academic view is that Pretani comes from the proto-Celtic compound word *Priteni. This word is analysed as deriving from two proto-Celtic language elements: *Pre or Pry - A prefix meaning ‘foremost’ or ‘superior’, cognate with Welsh pryd, and tani or teni, derived from the proto-Celtic root *ten- meaning ‘land, territory, tribe’, cognate with Old Irish túath (meaning ‘people’ or ‘tribe’) and Middle Welsh tud (also ‘tribe/people’). The combination of the two elements together could have signified ‘supreme landholders/tribespeople’ or conveyed the sense of the ‘leading tribes of the land’.

 

As previously noted, the earliest known reference to the Pretani can be found in the work of the ancient Greek historian and geographer, Herodotus, who wrote about the peoples of the world in the 5th century BCE. He mentioned a group called the Pretannoi, associated with the inhabitants of Britian. Pytheas of Massalia also wrote about the Pretani in 325 BCE, although his original work does not survive, he was quoted by other classical authors, based on Pytheas' work.

 

Roman writer Avienus referred to the large island as Albion and the smaller, Iuerne. The entire archipelago, he said, was named Prettanike. The Roman historian Diodorus Siculus also mentioned the Pretani in his writings, referring to the people of the northern parts of the British Isles.

 

The term Prettanike was latinised to Britannia and Pretani became Britani, and eventually, Britons. We see a linguistic survival of this in the name of the province of Brittany in northern France. The area was populated by tribes of Pretani migrating from the south-west of Britain in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, the name literally translating as 'Little Britain'.

 

The modern Welsh name for the island is Prydain, suggesting that the original Brittonic form (from which modern Welsh evolved) matched the Pretani of the early historians. The Brittonic term for the Picts in the far north was Priteni. The similarity between all these forms is undeniable.

 

Pretani was believed to have been a broad and general label used by outsiders to refer to the various Celtic and British tribes which populated the British Isles, but some scholars, such as Archaeology Professor Barry Cunliffe, now believe the name was likely of native origin. Pretani therefore predates the Roman conquest of Britain.

 

The people living in Prettanike before Roman rule were part of diverse tribal societies with their own languages, customs, and traditions. Despite the historical references, there is limited direct information available about the Pretani. Most of what is known about them comes from the classical authors, and these references are often brief and sometimes ambiguous. However, they offer tantalising evidence of our pre-Christian identity as distinct from Continental Celts, suggesting, as scholarship is now indicating, that we were a separate culture and people.