The World's Writing Systems

56 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Irish

Christianity gained a secure foothold in Ireland during the fifth century, and Ogham
(section 26), inspired doubtless by contact with the Roman alphabet, is the earliest
writing system known to have been used by the Irish. Experimentation with the Latin
alphabet itself, as opposed to the Ogham script, may have been on-going during the
early centuries of the Christian period, but our oldest surviving texts date from the
seventh century, and Classical Old Irish (8th and 9th centuries) is the best starting
point for a discussion of the adaptation of the Roman alphabet to Irish.

The Irish adopted 18 Roman characters: the vowel symbols a, e, i, o, u\ the con-
sonant symbols b, c, d,f, g, /, m, n, p, r, s, t; and h, which for them was for the most
part a nota aspirationis — though it could also appear as a mute letter at the beginning
of short words and loans (e.g. hi [i] 'in', Mar [usr] 'hour' < Latin hora). The vowel
symbols may be said to have their Latin values, both long and short, in Old Irish; the
long vowels are served by the use of the Latin apex (acute accent), i.e. a, e, 1, 0, u. The
Irish consonants are more complicated, as each of these had a broad (velar) and slen-
der (palatal) quality (for the most part contrastive), and in initial position each had
mutated and unmutated (radical) forms. The most important developments in the evo-
lution of Irish orthography focus on establishing an unambiguous system of repre-
senting this variety in the consonantal system. As the first stage in this evolution, Old
Irish orthography is the least unambiguous and thus the most complicated.

table 59.6: Glides Indicating Consonant Quality 61

Old

Modern

Pronunciation

Fintan

Fiontan

f j ONten

'Fintan'

Declan

Deaglan

d j e:gla:n

'Declan'

ua Cellig

6 Ceallaigh

0: k j aL3(y j )

'0' Kelly'

ua Cennetig

6 Ceinneidigh

0: k j eN j e:d j 9y j

O Cinneide

0: k j iN j e:db

'0' Kennedy'

Erenn

Eireann

e:r j 9N

'of Ireland'

a. A consonant marked with ['] is slender, otherwise it is broad.

A system of writing on- and off-glides, which had begun early, was perfected in
time to distinguish palatal and velar quality. The front vowels / and e were associated
with the former; a, o, and u with the latter. By the Early Modern period (i 200-1 650),
the rule Caol le caol, leathan le leathan 'Slender with slender, broad with broad' had
been evolved whereby consonants had to be followed, preceded, and/or flanked by
glides indicating their quality. Some examples illustrate this (table 59.6).

Modern Irish spelling, then, is characterized by the use of digraphs such as
ealealed, io/10, aildi, oiloi, ui/ui, etc. One member of each set serves solely to mark
the quality of a preceding or following consonant; the other serves primarily as the
main vowel but also, by its nature, indicates the quality of an adjacent consonant. The
first letter of the digraph represents the main vowel if it is long; otherwise the second
usually predominates, thus fear [f j e:r] 'grass' but fear [f j ar] 'man'; Seamus [s j e:mss]
'James' but Sean [s j a:n] 'John'.

In word-initial position, consonants in Irish may have their radical form; or they
may be mutated by lenition (spirantization)* or nasalization (nasalization and subse-
quent absorption of voiced stops, voicing of voiceless stops, and lengthening of
voiced continuants etc.). A good example of lenition is furnished by the name Seamus
[s J e:m9s], vocative a Sheamuis [q he:ni3s j ], whence Scottish Hamish. The final sound
of a preceding closely connected word was the governing factor in Primitive Irish
(pre-5th century): a vowel lenited a following consonant, a nasal nasalized it, any oth-
er consonant left it unmutated. But initial mutations are a feature of grammar in the
period of recorded Irish, as the final syllables which caused them were lost in or
around the fifth century. Thus the nominative, accusative, and genitive singular re-
spectively of 'man' (Modern Irish fear, fear, fir) zrefer,fer, and fir in Old Irish, but
were * wiros, * wiron, and * wiri at an earlier stage. Though they have the same auslaut
in Old Irish, the nom. causes no mutation, the ace. nasalizes, and the gen. lenites the
initial consonant of a following closely connected word. Similarly, the possessive ad-
jectives a 'his', a 'her', and a 'their' are identical in shape in Old and Modern Irish
but have different effects on a following initial, a 'his' leniting (< *esyo), a 'her' caus-
ing no mutation to a consonant (< *esyas), and a 'their' causing nasalization (<
*eysom). Modern Irish capall [kapSL], then, becomes chapall [xapaij 'horse' after a
'his', remains unchanged after a 'her', and becomes gcapall [gapsL] after a 'their'.
Representing these mutations unambiguously was a major challenge to Irish orthog-
raphy, and table 59.7 illustrates the Old and the Modern systems.

The most significant feature of the Old Irish system is its failure to mark the na-
salization (voicing) of voiceless stops (i.e. its t- for Modern dt- etc.) and the lenition
of their voiced counterparts and m (i.e. its d- for Modern dh- etc.). This, however, is
more apparent than real, as the Old Irish system is based on traditional Latin spelling
serving British (i.e. British Celtic) pronunciation. In British Latin the words populus,

*The unlenited forms of /, n, and r are represented in transcriptions by the small capital versions l, n, and r of
those letters; for phonetic details see Thumeysen 1946 § 135.

table 59.7: Orthographic Representation of Mutations

Radical

Lenited

Nasalized

t-

Old

[t]

th-

[e]

t-

[d]

Modern

[t]

th-

M

dt-

[d]

c-

Old

M

ch-

[x]

c-

[g]

Modern

M

ch-

[x]

gc-

[g]

p-

Old

M

ph-

'»]

P-

[b]

Modern

[p] Y ph-

M

bp-

M

d-

Old

[d]

d-

PI

A

nd-

M

Modern

[d]

dh-

[y]

/

nd-

[N]

g-

Old

[g]

g-

[y]

ng-

M

Modern

[g]

gh-

[y]

ng-

M

b-

Old

[b]

b-

[H

mb-

[m]

Modern

[b]

bh-

[v]

mb-

[m]

m-

Old

[m]

m-

M

m(m)

-[m]

Modern

[m]

mh-

[v]

m-

[m]

l- a

Old

[l]

1-

[1]

1(0-

[L]

Modern

[l]

1-

[1]

1-

M

s-

Old

[s]

s-

[h]

s-

[s]

Modern

M

sh-

[h]

s-

[s]

f-

Old

ra

f-

(no

sound)

f-

[p]

Modern

ffl

fh-

(no

sound)

bhf-

M

a. n and r are treated similarly to /.

pater, and locus were pronounced (by British "lenition") with intervocalic [b], [d],
and [g], while scribo, idolum, legendum, and dominicus had intervocalic [p], [5], [y],
and [p] respectively by the same process. In writing, the Irish simply adopted tradi-
tional Latin spelling with this pronunciation, so these words, which were borrowed
into Irish, appear in Old Irish as popul [pobul] 'people', palter [padbr] 'the Lord's
prayer, a paternoster' , loc [log] 'place'; and scribaid [skr j i:ps9 j ] 'writes', idol [iifol]
'idol', leigend [leiybnd] 'reading', domnach [dopnsx] 'Sunday'. The letters/?, t, and
c, on the one hand, and b,d, g, and m, on the other, had two sets of values in initial
position in British, depending on whether they were "lenited" or not. This British "le-
nition" corresponded to Irish lenition in the case of the voiced stops (and m) and to
Irish nasalization in the case of the voiceless ones; and Old Irish (like Early Welsh)
simply applied the dual- value principle across word boundary (a boundary often ig-
nored in writing). Thus, as the intervocalic p in popul [pobul] represented [b], the ini-
tial p could also represent [b] (its nasalized counterpart) in a popul [q bobul] 'their
people' (Modern a bpobal); and as intervocalic d represented [5] in idol, the initial d
in dan 'poem' [dam] could represent [5] (its lenited counterpart) in a dan [s 3a:n] 'his
poem' (Modern a dhdn [o yarn]).

The same mutations were indicated unambiguously, however, in the case of other
sounds. Thus the lenition of voiceless stops, unlike their voiced counterparts, was rep-
resented by Latin ch, th, and ph\ that off and s, which involved the complete loss of
the sound in the case of the former, and reduction to [h] or no sound in some sequenc-
es in the case of the latter (e.g. Old Irish mac int sacairt [mak iNt ag3Rd J ] 'son of the
priest' = 'Mac Entaggart'), came to be marked during the Old Irish period by the Lat-
in punctum delens (i.e./, i), a scribal device for indicating an erroneously written let-
ter. Similarly, the nasalization of the voiced stops b, d, and g, unlike their voiceless
counterparts, was represented by Latin mb, nd, and ng.

By a process of cross-fertilization (operating in the direction indicated by the ar-
rows in table 59.7), the Old Irish devices just mentioned were gradually extended
to the ambiguous notation discussed above so that lenited initial and internal b [|3], d
PL g [yL and m [pS] came to be written b or bh 9 d or dh, g or gh, and m or mh (the
latter in each case winning out completely in the Modern Irish standard, where even
/and s have yielded to fh, sh). Similarly, as mb-, nd-, and ng- were pronounced [m],
[n], and [rj], the principle that the first letter indicated the sound to be pronounced, the
second the radical, was extended to nasalized (i.e. voiced) initial/?-, t-, c-, and/-, giv-
ing bp- 9 dt-, go, and bhf- (after an intermediate experimentation with pp-, tt-, etc.).
When not in word-initial position, p [b], t [d], and c [g] gave way to b, d, and g\ e.g.
Old Irish Pdtraic [pa:dreg j ] (< British Latin Patricius [padrigius]) > Modern Pddraig
[pa:dreg j ], [pa:reg j ] in some dialects). These developments were on-going during the
Early Modern period, 1 200-1 650, and manuscripts of the time often have both sys-
tems side by side. Some examples will illustrate the changes: Old hi cocad [i gogo5]
> Modern / gcogadh [i goga] 'in a fight', Old a tech |> d j ex] > Modern a dteach [o
d j ax] 'their house', Old a gobae [q yo|3e] > Modern a ghabha [a yau] 'his smith'.

The Official Modern Irish Standard (the Caighdedn Oifigiuil) established in the
twentieth century fixed these developments; if it did not represent a new departure in
orthographic convention, it did constitute a major break with tradition in taking the
modern pronunciation as its basis. Scottish Gaelic orthography did not pass through
this third stage.

Sample of Irish Words and Names

The following words and surnames (formerly patronymics) illustrate the conventions
of the three periods in Irish orthography (Old and Middle, 8th— 12th c; Modern, 13th-
20th c; Caighdedn Oifigiuil, 1958-).

/. Old and Middle Irish: buiden [bu5 j sn] slegan [s j l j eya:n]

2. Modern Irish: buidhean [biy J sn] sleaghan [s j l j aya:n]

3. Caighdedn Oifigiuil: buion [bi:n] slean [s j l j a:n]

4. Gloss: host slane, turf-spade

)0 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. celebrad [k j el j 9pr9<3]

2. ceileabhradh [k j elbpro<5]

3. ceiliuradh [k j el j u:re]

4. celebration

1. ua Domnaill [us doping]

2. 6 Domhnaill [o: do(3ri9L j ]

3. 6 Donaill [o: do:n9L j ]

4. grandson/descendant of Domnall
'world leader' > O'Donnell

mac Mathgamno [mak maByspno]
Mac Mathghamhna [mak mahyspino]
Mac Mathuna [mak mahuins]

son of Mathgamain 'bear' > McMahon

ua Segdai [ua s j e:yc5i]
6 Seaghdha [o: s j e:y3a]
6 Se [o: s j e:]

grandson/descendant of Segdae
'the propitious one' > O'Shea

PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Celtic languages and Irish

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Journal of the Sociology of Language 70: 109-26.

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ed. B. 6 Cuiv, pp. 22-34. Dublin: Stationery Office.

6 Murchu, Mairtin. 1985. The Irish Language. Dublin: Bord na Gaeilge.

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THE WORLD'S
WRITING SYSTEMS Pete ™ els

William Bright