Ogham

Ogham
**᚛ᚑᚌᚐᚋ᚜**
Ogham ; ᚛ᚑᚌᚐᚋ᚜;
	An inscription found in 1975 in Ratass Church, Tralee, County Kerry
Script type	Alphabet
Period	c. 4th–10th centuries
Direction	Bottom-to-top, left-to-right
Languages	Primitive Irish;; Old Irish; Pictish
Related scripts
Parent systems	Unknown (possibly a cipher of Latin script; see #Origins) Ogham ; ᚛ᚑᚌᚐᚋ᚜;
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Ogam (212), Ogham
Unicode
Unicode alias	Ogham
Unicode range	U+1680–U+169F

This article contains Ogham text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ogham letters.

Ogham (also ogam and ogom,^[4] /ˈɒɡəm/ OG-əm,^[5] Modern Irish: [ˈoː(ə)mˠ]; Middle Irish: ogum, ogom, later ogam [ˈɔɣəmˠ]^[6]^[7]) is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions, 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later 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 areas of the Irish province of Munster.^[8] The Munster counties of Cork and Kerry contain 60% of all Irish ogham stones.^[9] The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire, Wales.^[10]

The inscriptions usually consist of personal names written in a set formula.^[11]

Many of the High Medieval Bríatharogaim (kennings for the ogham letters) are understood to reference various trees and plants. This interpretation was popularized by Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess; 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.^[12]

^ "Ogham alphabet".
^ "BabelStone: The Ogham Stones of Scotland". 8 June 2013. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
^ Padel, Oliver J. (1972). Inscriptions of Pictland (M.Litt). University of Edinburgh.
^ Dark, Britain and the End of the Roman Empire, p. 40
^ "ogham". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
^ ogum, ogom in Quin, E. G.; et al., eds. (2007) [1913–1975]. Dictionary of the Irish Language, Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials. Dublin: RIA. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
^ Thurneysen, R. A Grammar of Old Irish page 9: "Older as a rule even than the above archaic material are the sepulchral inscriptions in a special alphabet called ogom or ogum in Middle Irish, ogham in Modern Irish."
^ McManus (1991) is aware of a total of 382 orthodox inscriptions. The later scholastic inscriptions have no definite endpoint and continue into the Middle Irish and even Modern Irish periods, and record also names in other languages, such as Old Norse, (Old) Welsh, Latin and possibly Pictish. See Forsyth, K.; "Abstract: The Three Writing Systems of the Picts." in Black et al. Celtic Connections: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Vol. 1. East Linton: Tuckwell Press (1999), p. 508; Richard A. V. Cox, The Language of the Ogam Inscriptions of Scotland, Dept. of Celtic, Aberdeen University ISBN 0-9523911-3-9 [1]; See also The New Companion to the Literature of Wales, by Meic Stephens, p. 540.
^ De Breffny, Brian (1983). Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 172.
^ O'Kelly, Michael J., Early Ireland, an Introduction to Irish Prehistory, p. 251, Cambridge University Press, 1989
^ De Breffny, pg. 172.
^ (MacManus, §8.6)

[1] "Ogham alphabet".

[2] "BabelStone: The Ogham Stones of Scotland". 8 June 2013. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 12 September 2018.

[3] Padel, Oliver J. (1972). Inscriptions of Pictland (M.Litt). University of Edinburgh.

[4] Dark, Britain and the End of the Roman Empire, p. 40

[5] "ogham". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

[6] ogum, ogom in Quin, E. G.; et al., eds. (2007) [1913–1975]. Dictionary of the Irish Language, Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials. Dublin: RIA. Retrieved 3 December 2021.

[7] Thurneysen, R. A Grammar of Old Irish page 9: "Older as a rule even than the above archaic material are the sepulchral inscriptions in a special alphabet called ogom or ogum in Middle Irish, ogham in Modern Irish."

[8] McManus (1991) is aware of a total of 382 orthodox inscriptions. The later scholastic inscriptions have no definite endpoint and continue into the Middle Irish and even Modern Irish periods, and record also names in other languages, such as Old Norse, (Old) Welsh, Latin and possibly Pictish. See Forsyth, K.; "Abstract: The Three Writing Systems of the Picts." in Black et al. Celtic Connections: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Vol. 1. East Linton: Tuckwell Press (1999), p. 508; Richard A. V. Cox, The Language of the Ogam Inscriptions of Scotland, Dept. of Celtic, Aberdeen University ISBN 0-9523911-3-9 [1]; See also The New Companion to the Literature of Wales, by Meic Stephens, p. 540.

[9] De Breffny, Brian (1983). Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 172.

[10] O'Kelly, Michael J., Early Ireland, an Introduction to Irish Prehistory, p. 251, Cambridge University Press, 1989

[11] De Breffny, pg. 172.

[12] (MacManus, §8.6)

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