77-594: Dunloe Ogham Stones (CIIC 197–203, 241) is a collection of ogham stones forming a National Monument located in County Kerry , Ireland . Dunloe Ogham Stones are located 1 km south of Beaufort , to the south of the River Laune . The stones were carved in the 5th and 6th centuries AD and served as burial markers. Seven were discovered in 1838 forming the ceiling of a souterrain near Dunloe Castle and were moved to their current site by 1945. Another stone comes from
154-549: A phonemic inventory for the properly attested stages of the language using the names used in the scholastic tradition for each letter of the Ogham alphabet, which are recorded in the Latin alphabet in later manuscripts. There is a certain amount of obscurity in the vowel inventory of Primitive Irish: while the letters Ailm , Onn and Úr are recognized by modern scholars as representing /a(ː)/ , /o(ː)/ and /u(ː)/ respectively, there
231-612: A 6th-century king of Dyfed (originally located in Clynderwen ), is the only ogham stone inscription that bears the name of an identifiable individual. The language of the inscriptions is predominantly Primitive Irish ; the few inscriptions in Scotland, such as the Lunnasting stone , record fragments of what is probably the Pictish language . The more ancient examples are standing stones , where
308-563: A cloth marked out with a pattern, such as Finn's Window , and interpreting the patterns. The meanings assigned in these modern methods are usually based on the tree ogham, with each letter associated with a tree or plant, and meanings derived from these associations. While some use folklore for the meanings, Robert Graves ' book The White Goddess continues to be a major influence on these methods and beliefs. Primitive Irish Primitive Irish or Archaic Irish ( Irish : Gaeilge Ársa, Gaeilge Chianach ), also called Proto-Goidelic ,
385-647: A later time, in an old-fashioned form of the Irish language bearing little similarity to formal Old Irish. The first texts which are widely accepted to have been written in Old Irish date from the 7th century, at the inception of a national textual tradition which was cultivated alongside that of Latin by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and which supplanted the archaic literary traditions. The radical changes that characterize
462-553: A letter for /p/ , show Primitive Irish to be similar in morphology and inflections to Gaulish , Latin , Classical Greek and Sanskrit . Many of the characteristics of modern (and medieval) Irish, such as initial mutations, distinct "broad" and "slender" consonants and consonant clusters , are not yet apparent. More than 300 ogham inscriptions are known in Ireland, including 121 in County Kerry and 81 in County Cork , and more than 75 found outside Ireland in western Britain and
539-457: A new characteristic that Irish would eventually share with all other modern Celtic languages. Old Irish phonetic conditions generated different allophonic mutations over time, and with the diachronic loss of the conditions which caused the mutations, those mutations became the only way to distinguish between different grammatical forms. Thus, the mutations became differentiated phonemes with their own morphosyntactic functions. For example, in
616-443: A shift in literature to a vernacular register which had previously been obscured by the conservative influence of the druidic language. This new phase of the language shows influence from Latin, the latter having been introduced to pre-Christian Ireland , which influence became more pronounced following St Patrick 's ministry. Primitive Irish has a morphology similar to other Indo-European languages , however it did not display
693-456: A warning to Lug , meaning: "your wife will be carried away seven times to the otherworld unless the birch protects her". For this reason, the letter b is said to be named after the birch, and In Lebor Ogaim goes on to tell the tradition that all letters were named after trees, a claim also referred to by the Auraicept as an alternative to the naming after Fenius' disciples. Strictly speaking,
770-545: Is emancholl which means 'twin of hazel' Monumental ogham inscriptions are found in Ireland and Wales , with a few additional specimens found in southwest England ( Devon and Cornwall ), the Isle of Man , and Scotland , including Shetland and a single example from Silchester and another from Coventry in England. They were mainly employed as territorial markers and memorials (grave stones). The stone commemorating Vortiporius ,
847-513: Is a letter for the labiovelar q (ᚊ ceirt ), a phoneme lost in Old Irish. The base alphabet is, therefore, as it were, designed for Proto-Q-Celtic. Of the five forfeda or supplementary letters, only the first, ébad , regularly appears in inscriptions, but mostly with the value K (McManus, § 5.3, 1991), in the word koi (ᚕᚑᚔ "here"). The others, except for emancholl , have at most only one certain 'orthodox' (see below) inscription each. Due to their limited practical use, later ogamists turned
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#1732855977682924-527: Is also evidence that ogham may have been used as a system of finger or hand signals. In later centuries when ogham ceased to be used as a practical alphabet, it retained its place in the learning of Gaelic scholars and poets as the basis of grammar and the rules of poetry. Indeed, until modern times the Latin alphabet in Gaelic continued to be taught using letter names borrowed from the Beith-Luis-Nin , along with
1001-471: Is aware that not all names are known tree names: "Now all these are wood names such as are found in the Ogham Book of Woods, and are not derived from men", admitting that "some of these trees are not known today". The Auraicept gives a short phrase or kenning for each letter, known as a Bríatharogam , that traditionally accompanied each letter name, and a further gloss explaining their meanings and identifying
1078-513: Is equivalent to Proto-Celtic *i -stems and *u -stems , while -AS corresponds to *ā -stems . The exact function of -AIS remains unclear. Furthermore, according to Damian McManus, Proto-Celtic nasal , dental, and velar stems also correspond to the Primitive Irish -AS genitive, attested in names such as GLASICONAS , CATTUBUTTAS , and LUGUDECCAS . It is possible, through comparisons with other languages, to reconstruct
1155-402: Is mostly restricted to phonological developments. There are two main schools of thought among scholars as to the motivation for the creation of ogham. Scholars such as Carney and MacNeill have suggested that ogham was first created as a cryptic alphabet, designed by the Irish to hide their meaning from writers of the Latin alphabet. In this school of thought, it is asserted that "the alphabet
1232-554: Is no evidence for Macalister's theory, and it has been discounted by later scholars. There are in fact other explanations for the name Beith-luis-nin . One explanation is that the word nin , which means forked branch , was used to mean letters in general. Beith-luis-nin could therefore mean simply beith-luis letters. Another suggestion is that beith-luis-nin is a contraction of the first five letters, ie, beith-LVS-nin . The ogham alphabet originally consisted of twenty letters, divided into four groups ( Irish : aicme ) according
1309-556: Is possibly mentioned in Tochmarc Étaíne , a tale in the Irish Mythological Cycle , wherein the druid Dalan takes four wands of yew, and writes ogham letters upon them. Then he uses the tools for what some interpret as a form of divination . However, as the tale doesn't explain how the sticks are handled or interpreted, this theory is open to interpretation. A divination method invented by neopagans involves casting sticks upon
1386-454: Is rather within the 1st century BC. Although the use of "classical" ogham in stone inscriptions seems to have flourished in the 5th and 6th centuries around the Irish Sea , from the phonological evidence it is clear that the alphabet predates the 5th century. Indeed, the alphabet has letters representing "archaic" phonemes which were clearly part of the system, but which were no longer spoken by
1463-520: Is some difficulty in reconstructing the values of Edad and Idad . They are poorly attested, and scholars believe the distinction between them might be arbitrary, in the same way as the runes peorð and cweorð in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet , but they are transcribed as E and O , respectively, and probably had the respective pronunciations of /e(ː)/ and /o(ː)/ . There were also two diphthongs, transcribed as AI and OI . In later stages of
1540-456: Is that ogham was invented by the first Christian communities in early Ireland, out of a desire for a unique alphabet to write short messages and inscriptions in Irish. The sounds of Primitive Irish may have been difficult to transcribe into the Latin alphabet, motivating the invention of a separate alphabet. A possible such origin, as suggested by McManus (1991:41), is the early Irish Christian community known from around AD 400 at latest, attested by
1617-524: Is the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages , and the ancestor of all languages within this family. This phase of the language is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the Ogham alphabet in Ireland and western Great Britain between the 4th and the 6th century AD, before the advent of Old Irish . These inscriptions are referred to as Orthodox Ogham , although scholastic use of
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#17328559776821694-523: The Beithe-luis-nuin (the ogham) as a perfected writing system for his languages. The names he gave to the letters were those of his 25 best scholars. Alternatively, the Ogam Tract credits Ogma with the script's invention. Ogma was skilled in speech and poetry, and created the system for the learned, to confound rustics and fools. The first message written in ogam was seven b' s on a birch, sent as
1771-470: The Corcu Duibne , a people of County Kerry known from Old Irish sources, are memorialised on a number of stones in their territory as DOVINIAS . Old Irish filed , "poet (gen.)", appears in ogham as VELITAS . In each case the development of Primitive to Old Irish shows the loss of unstressed syllables and certain consonant changes. Gradually, the grammaticalization of consonant mutations introduced
1848-570: The Isle of Man , including more than 40 in Wales , where Irish colonists settled in the 3rd century, and about 30 in Scotland , although some of these are in Pictish . Many of the British inscriptions are bilingual in Irish and Latin; however, none show any sign of the influence of Christianity or Christian epigraphic tradition, suggesting they date from before 391, when Christianity became the official religion of
1925-587: The Old Irish language ( scholastic ogham , 6th to 9th centuries). There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain, the bulk of which are in southern Munster . The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire , Wales. The vast majority of the inscriptions consist of personal names. According to the High Medieval Bríatharogam ,
2002-419: The Old Irish period (say, 10th century), but it postdates the Primitive Irish period, or at least the time when the letters were originally named. Its origin is probably due to the letters themselves being called feda "trees", or nin "forking branches" due to their shape. Since a few of the letters were, in fact, named after trees, the interpretation arose that they were called feda because of that. Some of
2079-538: The Roman Empire . Only about a dozen of the Irish inscriptions show any such sign. There is speculation about the orthodoxy of one inscription in Hampshire and two in Scotland, but there is no academic consensus on the matter. The majority of ogham inscriptions are memorials , consisting of the name of the deceased in the genitive case , followed by MAQI, MAQQI , "[the stone] of the son" ( Modern Irish mic ), and
2156-443: The foilceasta , also presented particular difficulties due to apparently being a silent letter . It was probably pronounced as /j/ in an early stage of Primitive Irish, disappearing before the transition to Old Irish. Consonant lenition and palatalisation, which feature heavily in later stages of the language , may already have existed in an allophonic form, i.e., they were not phonemically contrastive yet. McManus describes
2233-520: The 11th-century Lebor Gabála Érenn , the 14th-century Auraicept na n-Éces , and other Medieval Irish folklore , ogham was first invented soon after the fall of the Tower of Babel , along with the Gaelic language , by the legendary Scythian king, Fenius Farsa . According to the Auraicept, Fenius journeyed from Scythia together with Goídel mac Ethéoir, Íar mac Nema and a retinue of 72 scholars. They came to
2310-544: The 16th century. A modern ogham inscription is found on a gravestone dating to 1802 in Ahenny, County Tipperary . In Scotland, a number of inscriptions using the ogham writing system are known, but their language is still the subject of debate. It has been argued by Richard Cox in The Language of Ogham Inscriptions in Scotland (1999) that the language of these is Old Norse, but others remain unconvinced by this analysis, and regard
2387-399: The 5th century and never appear in inscriptions, suggesting an extended period of ogham writing on wood or other perishable material prior to the preserved monumental inscriptions. They are: úath ("H") and straif ("Z" in the manuscript tradition, but probably "F" from "SW"), and gétal (velar nasal "NG" in the manuscript tradition, but etymologically probably "GW"). It appears that
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2464-465: The Irish were themselves invading western Britain, the desire to keep communications secret from Romans or Romanised Britons would still have provided an incentive. With bilingual ogham and Latin inscriptions in Wales, however, one would suppose that the ogham could easily be decoded by at least an educated few in the post-Roman world. The second main school of thought, put forward by scholars such as McManus,
2541-686: The Medieval association of each letter with a different tree. Ogham was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. The spelling of the names given is a standardisation dating to 1997, used in Unicode Standard and in Irish Standard 434:1999 . The Unicode block for ogham is U+1680–U+169F. Modern New Age and Neopagan approaches to ogham largely derive from
2618-662: The Moon goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument is extremely complex, but in essence, he argues that the Hebrews, Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in the Aegean, called ' the people of the sea ' by the Egyptians, who spread out around Europe in the 2nd millennium BC, taking their religious beliefs with them. He posits that at some early stage these teachings were encoded in alphabet form by poets to pass on their worship of
2695-597: The Ogham alphabet was modelled on another script, and some even consider it a mere cipher of its template script (Düwel 1968: points out similarity with ciphers of Germanic runes ). The largest number of scholars favour the Latin alphabet as this template, although the Elder Futhark and even the Greek alphabet have their supporters. Runic origin would elegantly explain the presence of "H" and "Z" letters unused in Irish, as well as
2772-487: The Primitive Irish of the early centuries AD. The supposed links with the form of the Greek alphabet that Macalister proposed can also be disproved. A fourth hypothesis, proposed by the scholars Rudolf Thurneysen and Joseph Vendryes , is that the forms of the letters derive from a numerical tally-mark counting system of the time, based around the numbers five and twenty, which was then adapted into an alphabet. According to
2849-399: The Primitive Irish phrase SINDHI MAQQI ("of the son", SINDHI being a form of the definite article ), originally pronounced ˈsɪndiː ˈmakʷiː , the initial M would have lenited to /β̃/ due to the influence of the -I ending of the preceding word. The variation in the pronunciation of the word would not have caused a difference in meaning; it would be allophonic. In a later stage of
2926-642: The ancient scholastic Oghamists as foilceasta (questions) due to the obsolescence of their original pronunciations: the first two, /kʷ/ and /ɡʷ/ , had merged with plain velars in Old Irish, and the third, probably /st/ , merged with /s/ . However, evidence of the original distinction between straif and sail was still present into the Old Irish period, as the séimhiú ( lenition ) of /s/ produced /f/ (< Primitive Irish /w/ ) for lexemes originally represented by Straif but /h/ for lexemes originally represented by Sail . The letter Úath or hÚath (transliterated as H ), although not counted among
3003-576: The evidence from early Irish sagas and legends indicate that ogham was used for short messages on wood or metal, either to relay messages or to denote ownership of the object inscribed. Some of these messages seem to have been cryptic in nature and some were also for magical purposes. In addition, there is evidence from sources such as In Lebor Ogaim , or the Ogham Tract , that ogham may have been used to keep records or lists, such as genealogies and numerical tallies of property and business transactions. There
3080-513: The exception of a few inscriptions in the singular dative case , two in the plural genitive case and one in the singular nominative case , most known inscriptions of nouns in orthodox Ogham are found in the singular genitive, so it is difficult to fully describe their morphology. The German philologist Sabine Ziegler, however, drawing parallels with reconstructions of the Proto-Celtic language 's morphology (whose nouns are classified according to
3157-411: The fact that the inscriptions are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript sources, instead of being continuations of the original monument tradition. Unlike orthodox ogham, some medieval inscriptions feature all five Forfeda . Scholastic inscriptions are written on stemlines cut into the face of the stone, instead of along its edge. Ogham was also occasionally used for notes in manuscripts down to
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3234-548: The following sound shifts from Proto-Celtic as being attested in the earliest Primitive Irish inscriptions: Old Irish , written in the Latin alphabet , has its earliest recorded texts possibly in the late 6th century; this is the traditional date of composition for the Amra Coluim Chille , a poetic elegy to St Columba of Iona by St Dallán Forgaill, the first identifiable author in the Irish language. This work, however, survives only in heavily annotated manuscripts from
3311-697: The goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) in a secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, via the druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets of early Ireland and Wales. Graves, therefore, looked at the Tree Alphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the tree folklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of the letters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic". Although his theories have been discredited and discarded by modern scholars (including Macalister himself, with whom Graves corresponded), they were taken up with enthusiasm by some adherents of
3388-531: The international contacts that led to the existence of some of these stones. A third hypothesis, put forward by the noted ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister was influential at one time, but finds little favour with scholars today. He believed – because ogham consists of four groups of five letters with a sequence of strokes from one to five – that ogham was first invented as a secret system of finger signals in Cisalpine Gaul around 600 BC by Gaulish druids, and
3465-399: The language of the monumental stone inscriptions is termed Primitive Irish . The transition to Old Irish , the language of the earliest sources in the Latin alphabet, takes place in about the 6th century. Since ogham inscriptions consist almost exclusively of personal names and marks possibly indicating land ownership, linguistic information that may be gleaned from the Primitive Irish period
3542-489: The language used by druids in their ceremonies and teachings. Koch believed that with the decline of paganism and the corresponding loss of influence by the druids, the language of the Irish Christian nobility would have supplanted the ancient Primitive Irish register of the pagan priests, eclipsing it completely in the 7th century. This would give the impression of rapid linguistic development, while actually representing
3619-468: The language, scholastic Oghamist traditions incorporated five new letters for vowels, called forfeda (supplementary), corresponding to digraphs of the orthodox spelling, but these no longer corresponded to Primitive Irish sounds. The consonant inventory of Primitive Irish is reconstructed by Celticist Damian McManus as follows: The letters Cért , Gétal and Straif , transliterated as Q , NG (or GG ) and Z , respectively, were known by
3696-434: The language, the Primitive Irish word SINDHI became Old Irish in , losing the final vowel which caused the lenition. However, in the Old Irish phrase in maicc ("of the son"), the m is still lenited, so the pronunciation would be /ɪn β̃ak/ . The lenition was 'reinterpreted' as being caused by the fact that maicc follows the definite article in , a rule of morphosyntax (grammar) rather than phonology . What
3773-488: The letters are named after various trees. For this reason, Ogham is sometimes known as the Celtic tree alphabet . The etymology of the word ogam or ogham remains unclear. One possible origin is from the Irish og-úaim 'point-seam', referring to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon. It is generally thought that the earliest inscriptions in Ogham date to about the 4th century AD, but James Carney believed its origin
3850-439: The loss of grammatical suffixes , the introduction of the letter p through loanwords and proper names, the simplification of the inflectional system, the alteration of some short vowels through vowel harmony , and, most notably, vowel elisions which resulted in distinctive consonant clusters. This last phenomenon, especially marked in the genesis of Old Irish proper, began with an application of secondary stress to
3927-437: The middle of the 6th century, respectively. This loss of vowels caused consonant clusters to develop. As an example, a 5th-century king of Leinster , whose name is recorded in Old Irish king-lists and annals as Mac Caírthinn Uí Enechglaiss , is memorialised on an Ogham stone near where he died. This gives the late Primitive Irish version of his name (in the genitive case ), as MAQI CAIRATINI AVI INEQAGLAS . Similarly,
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#17328559776824004-444: The mission of Palladius by Pope Celestine I in AD 431. A variation is the idea that this alphabet was first invented, for whatever reason, in 4th-century Irish settlements in west Wales after contact and intermarriage with Romanised Britons with knowledge of the Latin alphabet. In fact, several ogham stones in Wales are bilingual, containing both Irish and British Latin , testifying to
4081-406: The most distinctive characteristics of other phases of the language including velarized ("broad") and palatalized ("slender") consonants (such consonant alterations may have existed, but they would have been allophonic ), initial mutations , some loss of inflectional endings , but not of case marking , and consonant clusters . Old Irish does carry with these distinctive features, as well as
4158-475: The name idad is probably an artificial form of iubhar "yew", as the kennings support that meaning, and concedes that ailm may possibly mean "pine tree," as it appears to be used to mean that in an 8th-century poem. Thus out of twenty letter names, only eight at most are the names of trees. The other names have a variety of meanings. Of the forfeda , four are glossed by the Auraicept: The fifth letter
4235-412: The name of his father, or AVI, AVVI , "[the stone] of the grandson", (Modern Irish uí ) and the name of his grandfather, e.g. DALAGNI MAQI DALI , "[the stone] of Dalagnos son of Dalos". Sometimes the phrase MAQQI MUCOI , "of the son of the tribe", is used to show tribal affiliation. Inscriptions demonstrating additional information are rare, such as QRIMTIR RON[A]NN MAQ COMOGANN , "[the stone] of
4312-459: The neopagan movement. In addition, Graves followed the BLNFS order of ogham letters put forward by Macalister (see above), with the result taken up by many New Age and Neopagan writers as the 'correct' order of the letters, despite its rejection by scholars. The main use of ogham by adherents of Neo-druidism and other forms of Neopaganism is for the purpose of divination. Divination with ogham symbols
4389-509: The now-discredited theories of Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess . In this work, Graves took his inspiration from the theories of the ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister (see above) and elaborated on them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham alphabet encoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle East in Stone Age times, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship of
4466-410: The number of known inscriptions in the contemporary Elder Futhark ), of which the highest concentration by far is found in the southwestern Irish province of Munster . Over one-third of the total are found in County Kerry alone, most densely in the former kingdom of the Corcu Duibne . Later inscriptions are known as " scholastic ", and are post 6th century in date. The term 'scholastic' derives from
4543-453: The old church of Kilbonane. The Kilbonane stone is in the centre (CIIC 241) and the others are arranged around it. Ogham Ogham ( / ˈ ɒ ɡ əm / OG -əm , Modern Irish : [ˈoː(ə)mˠ] ; Middle Irish : ogum, ogom , later ogam [ˈɔɣəmˠ] ) is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions , 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later
4620-477: The orthodox written tradition is older than the surviving inscriptions. The latest inscriptions of the orthodox tradition appear to come from the 6th century. The scholastic use of Ogham continued until the early 19th century, the last inscription being found on the tomb of Mary Dempsey at Ahenny in County Tipperary , which is written in both Irish and English. Transcribed Ogham inscriptions , which lack
4697-522: The other letter names had fallen out of use as independent words, and were thus free to be claimed as "Old Gaelic" tree names, while others (such as ruis , úath or gort ) were more or less forcefully reinterpreted as epithets of trees by the medieval glossators. McManus (1991, §3.15) discusses possible etymologies of all the letter names, and as well as the five mentioned above, he adds one other definite tree name: onn "ash" (the Auraicept wrongly has "furze"). McManus (1988, p. 164) also believes that
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#17328559776824774-634: The plain of Shinar to study the confused languages at Nimrod 's tower (the Tower of Babel ). Finding that they had already been dispersed, Fenius sent his scholars to study them, staying at the tower, coordinating the effort. After ten years, the investigations were complete, and Fenius created in Bérla tóbaide "the selected language", taking the best of each of the confused tongues, which he called Goídelc , Goidelic , after Goídel mac Ethéoir. He also created extensions of Goídelc , called Bérla Féne , after himself, Íarmberla , after Íar mac Nema, and others, and
4851-422: The presence of vocalic and consonantal variants "U" vs. "W", unknown to Latin writing and lost in Greek (cf. digamma ). The Latin alphabet is the primary contender mainly because its influence at the required period (4th century) is most easily established, being widely used in neighbouring Roman Britannia , while runes in the 4th century were not very widespread even in continental Europe . In Ireland and Wales,
4928-483: The priest Ronán son of Comgán". Some inscriptions appear to be border markers. The brevity of most orthodox ogham inscriptions makes it difficult to analyse the archaic Irish language in depth, but it is possible to understand the basis of its phonology and the rudiments of its nominal morphology . Surviving Ogham inscriptions are written exclusively with nouns. It is possible to deduce some morphological features of Primitive Irish nouns from these inscriptions. With
5005-411: The script continued residually until the early 19th century. Primitive Irish is the oldest recorded form of the Goidelic languages . It was written in the Ogham alphabet, the usage of which can be divided into two phases, Orthodox Ogham and Scholastic Ogham . The former represents the original Druidic tradition of memorials, whereas the latter resulted from a tradition of scholarly restoration of
5082-449: The script was carved into the edge ( droim or faobhar ) of the stone, which formed the stemline against which individual characters are cut. The text of these "Orthodox Ogham" inscriptions is read beginning from the bottom left-hand side of a stone, continuing upward along the edge, across the top and down the right-hand side (in the case of long inscriptions). Roughly 380 inscriptions are known in total (a number, incidentally, very close to
5159-618: The stones as being Pictish in origin. However, due to the lack of knowledge about the Picts, the inscriptions remain undeciphered, their language possibly being non- Indo-European . The Pictish inscriptions are scholastic, and are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript tradition brought into Scotland by Gaelic settlers . A rare example of a Christianised (cross-inscribed) Ogham stone can be seen in St. Mary's Collegiate Church Gowran , County Kilkenny . As well as its use for monumental inscriptions,
5236-467: The stroke angle and direction. The groups were Five additional letters were later introduced (mainly in the manuscript tradition), the so-called forfeda . A letter for p is conspicuously absent, since the phoneme was lost in Proto-Celtic , and the gap was not filled in Q-Celtic , and no sign was needed before loanwords from Latin containing p appeared in Irish ( e.g. , Patrick). Conversely, there
5313-665: The supplementary letters into a series of diphthongs , changing completely the values for pín and emancholl . This meant that the alphabet was once again without a letter for the 'P' sound, forcing the invention of the letter peithboc (soft 'B'), which appears in the manuscripts only. The letter names are interpreted as names of trees or shrubs in manuscript tradition, both in Auraicept na n-Éces ('The Scholars' Primer') and In Lebor Ogaim ('The Ogam Tract'). They were first discussed in modern times by Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1685), who took them at face value. The Auraicept itself
5390-403: The third syllable of most words with four or more syllables, and also to the fifth syllable of words with six or more, in addition to the primary stress , which fell on the first syllable, as is typical of Celtic languages . This caused apocope of (final) syllables, syncope of stressless (internal) syllables, and the shortening of all long vowels in non-initial syllables, around 500 AD and
5467-420: The transition from Primitive Irish to Old Irish are not uncommon in the development of other languages, but appear to have occurred rapidly in the case of Irish. John T. Koch , an American Celticist , theorized that these changes coincide with the conversion of the island to Christianity and the introduction of Latin as a literary language. The Irish language would then have derogated from the formal register of
5544-413: The tree or plant linked to each letter. Only five of the twenty primary letters have tree names that the Auraicept considers comprehensible without further glosses, namely beith "birch", fearn "alder", saille "willow", duir "oak" and coll "hazel". All the other names have to be glossed or "translated". According to the leading modern ogham scholar, Damian McManus, the "Tree Alphabet" idea dates to
5621-417: The vowels that characterize their endings ), limited the archaic Irish endings of the singular genitive case to -I , -AS , -OS and -AIS . The first ending, -I , is found in words equivalent to the so-called Proto-Celtic category of *o -stem nouns . This category was also recorded in the dative case using -U , with an inscription possibly in the nominative case also using -U . -OS , in turn,
5698-483: The word ogham means letters , while the alphabet is called beith-luis-nin after the letter names of the first letters (in the same way that the modern word "alphabet" derives from the Greek letters alpha and beta ). The order of the first five letters, BLFSN, led the scholar Macalister to propose that a link between a form of the Greek alphabet used in Northern Italy in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. However, there
5775-404: The writing system as part of the development of a Celtic style of Catholic art, in parallel with the use of the Latin alphabet in ordinary writing. Primitive Irish is known only from Ogham fragments, usually personal names, the earliest being dated by academics to the 4th century, although some estimates for the earliest inscriptions range between the 1st and 5th centuries. Scholars agree that
5852-466: Was created by Irish scholars or druids for political, military or religious reasons to provide a secret means of communication in opposition to the authorities of Roman Britain." The serious threat of invasion by the Roman Empire, which then ruled over neighbouring southern Britain, may have spurred the creation of the alphabet. Alternatively, in later centuries when the threat of invasion had receded and
5929-434: Was inspired by a form of the Greek alphabet current in Northern Italy at the time. According to this idea, the alphabet was transmitted in oral form or on wood only, until it was finally put into a permanent form on stone inscriptions in early Christian Ireland. Later scholars are largely united in rejecting this hypothesis, however, primarily because a detailed study of the letters shows that they were created specifically for
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