Primitive Irish language
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| Primitive Irish | ||
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| Spoken in: | Ireland | |
| Language extinction: | Evolved into Old Irish about the 6th century AD | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Celtic Insular Celtic Primitive Irish |
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| Writing system: | Ogham | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | to be added | |
| ISO/FDIS 639-3: | —
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Primitive Irish is the oldest known form of the Irish language, known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the Ogham alphabet in Ireland and western Britain up to about the 6th century.
Transcribed Ogham inscriptions show Primitive Irish to be archaic in character, lacking a letter for the /p/ phoneme, and in morphology and inflections similar to Gaulish, Latin, Classical Greek or Sanskrit. It has few of the distinctive characteristics of modern Irish and is difficult to recognise as a form of Irish.
By contrast, Old Irish, written from the 6th century on, is recognisably Irish, complete with initial mutations, distinct "broad" and "slender" consonants, the letter P, consonant clusters created by the loss of unstressed syllables, along with a number of significant vowel and consonant changes.
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 INEQUAGLAS. The development of one to the other clearly shows the loss of unstressed syllables and lenition of certain consonants.
These changes, traced by historical linguistics, are not unusual in the development of languages but appear to have taken place remarkably quickly in Irish. The changes coincide with the conversion to Christianity and the introduction of Latin learning.[citation needed]
All languages have various registers or levels of formality. The most formal register, usually that of learning and religion, changes slowly. The most informal vernacular registers change much more quickly, but in most cases are prevented from developing into mutually unintelligible dialects by the existence of more formal registers in which speakers also need to be able to communicate.
In pre-Christian Ireland the most formal register of the language would have been that used by the learned and religious class, the druids, for their ceremonies and teaching. It is also likely that memorial inscriptions would have been written in this form. But when the druids were replaced as the learned class by Christian monks, formal Primitive Irish was replaced as the language of learning by Latin.[citation needed] The vernacular forms, freed from the conservative influence of the formal register, changed rapidly, until a new written standard, Old Irish, established itself.[citation needed]
[edit] External influences
Before Gaelic dialects evolved in Ireland, some allege that the inhabitants spoke Ivernic, particularly in Munster. It receives its name from a Gallo-Belgic group known as the Iverni (later Érainn), attested in Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography. This hypothesis may be supported by what seems to be a brief mention of such a language in the 9th-century dictionary Sanas Cormaic, under the names Iarnnbélrae, Iarnbélrae, and Iarmbérla, which, if treated as Old Irish, means "Iron-speech". However, most linguists now explain these Brythonic loanwords as borrowings directly from Welsh, noting that Ogham inscriptions attest to an early Irish presence in Wales. The early 20th century Gaelic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly thus proposed their language, which he called Ivernic, as the source for these loanwords.
Advocates of this hypothesis believe that Ivernic first diverged from Gaulish around 500 BC[citation needed] and survived a proposed Goidelic-speaking invasion of Ireland (sometime between 500 and 100 BC). It was said[citation needed] to be still spoken by a minority in Munster at the time of Bede in about AD 700. However its speakers were eventually absorbed into the Goidelic-speaking population, and by the time the Vikings had established Limerick in about 850, the Ivernic and Goidelic languages had merged into Irish.
Cormac mac Cuilennáin, king and bishop of Cashel in Munster in Ireland, born 836, died 908, wrote a large Glossary which said that the "Iron-speech" was "dense and difficult" and had recently died out and that two words of it were remembered: ond = "stone" and fern = "anything good". It is difficult to argue from two words, but it could be that Ivernic was the language spoken in Ireland before any Indo-European languages arrived.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- John T. Koch (1995), "The conversion and the transition from Primitive to Old Irish", Emania 13
- Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (1995), Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200
- T. F. O'Rahilly in Ériu 13, 1942.
- T. F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946, 1957, 1964, 1971, 1976, 1984, 1999.
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| Primitive Irish | Old Irish | Middle Irish | Modern Irish | Connacht Irish | Munster Irish | Newfoundland Irish | Ulster Irish | ||
| Initial mutations | Morphology (nominals, verbs) | Phonology | Syntax | Orthography | Ogham | Gaelic script | ||
