Insular Celtic: Ogam
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36707/palaeohispanica.v0i20.381Keywords:
Ogam stones and inscriptions, Primitive Irish, Early Medieval Ireland, Early Medieval Britain, EpigraphyAbstract
The Ogam (Modern Irish: Ogham) script is a peculiar writing system devised to write the Primitive Irish language, i.e. the precursor of Old Irish. This script which in its core consists of 20 letters that are made up of 1-5 strokes or notches along the edge of standing stones was in use mainly from the 5thto the 7th centuries, but its use never fully died out. Of the c. 400 known Ogam inscriptions, around 330 are found in Ireland, the others are found in Britain. This article describes the writing system and the rather monotonous content – namely personal names – of the Ogam texts, as well as the language as far as it is accessible through these texts.
References
Carney 1975: J. Carney, “The invention of the Ogom cipher”, Ériu 26, 1975, 53-65.
Charles-Edwards 2013: Th. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons 350-1064, Oxford 2013.
CIIC: Macalister 1945.
Clarke et alii 2000: A. Clarke, M. Fulford and M. Handley, “An early date for Ogham: the Silchester Ogham stone rehabilitated”, Medieval Archaeology 44, 2000, 1-23.
Davies 2002: W. Davies, Celtic Inscribed Stones Project (CISP), London 2002. Online: <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/>.
Edwards 2007: N. Edwards, A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, Vol. II South-West Wales, Cardiff 2007.
Edwards 2013: N. Edwards, A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, Vol. III North Wales, Cardiff 2013.
Eska 2010-2: J.F. Eska, “Remarks on the intrusive vowels in the Ogam corpus of early Irish”, Keltische Forschungen 5, 2010–2012, 139-156.
Forsyth 1996: K. Forsyth, The Ogham Inscriptions of Scotland: An Edited Corpus, Ann Arbor 1996 [PhD Dissertation, Harvard University].
Forsyth 1998: K. Forsyth, “Literacy in Pictland”, in H. Pryce, Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies, Cambridge, 39-61.
Garrett 1999: A. Garrett, “On the prosodic phonology of Ogam Irish”, Ériu 50, 1999, 139-160.
Gippert 2001a: J. Gippert, TITUS Ogamica, Frankfurt am Main 2001. Online: <http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/ogam/frame.htm>.
Gippert 2001b: J. Gippert, “A new edition of the Ogham inscriptions: the advantages and limi-tations of computers”, in: J. Higgitt, K. Forsyth and D. N. Parsons, Roman, Runes and Ogham. Medieval Inscriptions in the Insular World and on the Continent. Donington 2001, 66-78.
Harvey 1987a: A. Harvey, “The Ogam inscriptions and their geminate consonant symbols”, Ériu 38, 1987, 45-71.
Harvey 1987b: A. Harvey, “Early literacy in Ireland: the evidence from Ogam”, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 14, 1987, 1-15.
Harvey 1990: A. Harvey, “The Ogham inscriptions and the Roman alphabet: two traditions or one?”, Archaeology Ireland 4/1, 1990, 13-14.
Harvey 2001: A. Harvey, “Problems in dating the origin of the Ogham script”, in: J. Higgitt, K. Forsyth and D. N. Parsons Roman, Runes and Ogham. Medieval Inscriptions in the Insular World and on the Continent, Donington 2001, 37-50.
Harvey 2017: A. Harvey, “Languages and Literacy in Mid-First-Millennium Ireland: New Questions to Some Old Answers”, in: N. Edwards, M. Ní Mhaonaigh and R. Flechner, Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond. Converting the Isles II, Turnhout 2017, 47-63.
Hofeneder 2006: A. Hofeneder, “Favorinus von Arelate und die keltische Religion”, Keltische Forschungen 1, 2006, 29-58.
Karl & Stifter 2007: R. Karl and D. Stifter, The Celtic World. Critical Concepts in Historical Studies. Volume IV. Celtic Linguistics, London-New York 2007.
Macalister 1945: R.A.S. Macalister, Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum, Dublin 1945.
Mac Eoin 2007: G. Mac Eoin, “What Language was Spoken in Ireland before Irish?”, in: H. C. Tristram, The Celtic Languages in Contact, Potsdam 2007, 113-125.
McCone 1996: K. McCone, Towards a Relative Chronology of Ancient and Medieval Celtic Sound Change [Maynooth Studies in Celtic Linguistics 1], Maynooth 1996.
McManus 1988: D. McManus, “Irish letter-names and their kennings”, Ériu 39, 1988, 127-168.
McManus 1991: D. McManus, A Guide to Ogam [Maynooth Monographs 4], Maynooth 1991.
Nash-Williams 1950: V.E. Nash-Williams, The Early Christian Monuments of Wales, Cardiff 1950.
Ogham in 3D: White 2012.
Okasha 1993: E. Okasha, Corpus of Early Christian Inscribed Stones of South-west Britain, Leicester 1993.
Poppe 2018: E. Poppe, “Writing systems and cultural identity: ogam in medieval and early modern Ireland”, Language & History 61/1-2, 2018, 23-38.
Redknap & Lewis 2007: M. Redknap and J. M. Lewis, A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, Vol. I South-East Wales and the English border, Cardiff 2007.
Sims-Williams 1992: P. Sims-Williams, “The additional letters of the Ogam alphabet”, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 23, 1992, 29–75.
Sims-Williams 1993: P. Sims-Williams, “Some Problems in Deciphering the Early Irish Ogam Alphabet”, Transactions of the Philological Society 91/2, 1993, 133-180.
Sims-Williams 2003: P. Sims-Williams, The Celtic inscriptions of Britain: phonology and chronology, c. 400–1200 [Proceedings of the Philological Society 37], Oxford-Boston 2003.
Sims-Williams 2018: P. Sims-Williams, “IE *peug’-/*peuk’- ‘to pierce’ in Celtic: Old Irish og ‘sharp point’, ogam, and uaigid ‘stitches’, Gallo-Latin Mars Ugius, Old Welsh -ug and Middle Welsh -y ‘fist’, Middle Welsh vch ‘fox’, and ancient names like Uccius”, Transactions of the Philological Society 116/1 (2018), 117-130.
Stifter 2009: D. Stifter, “Chapter 4. Early Irish”, in M.J. Ball and N. Müller, The Celtic Languages, Abingdon-New York 20092, 55-116.
Swift 1997: C. Swift, Ogam stones and the earliest Irish Christians [Maynooth Monographs. Series Minor 2], Maynooth 1997.
Swift 2007: C. Swift, “Welsh ogams from an Irish perspective”, in K. Jankulak and J. M. Wooding, Ireland and Wales in the Middle Ages, Dublin 2007, 62-79.
Thomas 1994: Ch. Thomas, And shall these mute stones speak? Post-Roman inscriptions in Western Britain, Cardiff 1994.
Thurneysen 1937: R. Thurneysen, “Zum Ogom”, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und Literatur 61, 1937, 188-208.
Thurneysen 1946: R. Thurneysen, A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin 1946.
Uhlich 1993: J. Uhlich, Die Morphologie der komponierten Personennamen des Altirischen, Witterschlick-Bonn 1993.
White 2012: N. White, Ogham in 3D, Dublin 2012. Online: <https://ogham.celt.dias.ie/menu.php?lang=en>.
Ziegler 1994: S. Ziegler, Die Sprache der altirischen Ogam-Inschriften. Göttingen 1994.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Professional standards and ethical policies
a) Palaeohispanica’s editorial board
Details concerning the journal’s internal organization can be found at this website.
b) Authors’ responsibilities
As an implicit condition for publishing in Palaeohispanica, authors are expected to adhere to all the ethical and professional principles that are shared across all research fields and academic publications. By submitting a contribution for peer review, potential authors guarantee that their work is original, that it constitutes a significant contribution to its research field and has not been published elsewhere.
All submitted manuscripts ought to contain bibliographic references at the end of the paper as well as an indication of how the research that culminated in the article was funded.
Likewise, authors must agree to incorporate any relevant changes that peer reviewers suggest as well as to include any recommendations that the editorial committee includes in the manuscript’s proofs at the end of the editorial process.
The journal expects its authors, reviewers, editors and staff members to all conduct themselves professionally by treating others with respect and civility. Should any sort of untoward situation arise, such as (self) plagiarism, conflicts of interest or aggressive behaviour on the author’s part, the following actions will be taken:
- Plagiarism and the republication of articles
Plagiarism is defined as the reproduction of a text or other materials found in different publications without the original source being adequately cited. Accordingly, material can still be plagiarized even when it has been tweaked or paraphrased. Plagiarism constitutes a serious ethical violation; furthermore, there can be legal ramifications for violating an author’s rights in cases where the reproduced material has been previously published. Authors who want to cite published work must do so by including complete references to the original materials and by including any quotations within quotation marks. Graphs and images can only be reproduced with the express permission of the original author and must include a citation below said image or graphic according to the rules laid out on the journal’s website. If a peer reviewer or the editorial board detects any instance of plagiarism (whether of one’s own or another’s work), the manuscript will automatically be disqualified.
- Conflicts of interest
In most instances an individual who works at the same institution as an author or one of the co-authors is automatically barred from evaluating a potential contribution. The journal’s editors must always be aware of possible conflicts of interest and are required to recuse themselves from any decision-making process, whenever there is even the appearance of a possible conflict of interest.
c) The peer-review process
Palaeohispanica employs peers to evaluate externally all contributions, with this being understood as obtaining the opinion of an established expert over the merits of every potential contribution. In addition to completing the relevant form, reviewers are expected to suggest any pertinent bibliography that was not included in the original version of the manuscript.
Furthermore, the peer-review process is double blind, meaning that both authors’ anonymity as well as the reviewers’ impartiality and independence are guaranteed. Reader reviews will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. As is the case with all respectable research journals, the editors of Palaeohispanicawill not share with a third party the identity of a peer reviewer, the contents of his or her review or any correspondence resulting from the review process. Likewise, reviewers are required to adhere to the same strict standard of confidentiality: neither manuscripts nor the contents of any correspondence between an author and the editors can be shared with a third party without the written and express consent of the journal’s editors.
While strictly speaking authors are not held to the same standards (they can, for instance, solicit advice from co-authors and colleagues as they revise and amend a manuscript in accordance with the recommendations found in a reviewer’s report), the public airing of a reviewer’s report or of the correspondence with the editorial team constitutes untoward behavior. Any author who acts in such a way will automatically forfeit his or her right to the journal’s confidentiality.
- Aggressive behaviour
Should the editorial committee be made aware of any untoward behaviour on the author’s part towards external reviewers, other authors or the journal’s editors/staff, that author’s submission will immediately be withdrawn from the consideration process.
All participants in the publication process, including editors, authors, peer reviewers, and member’s of the journal’s staff are expected to meet basic standards of professional courtesy and to respect the fundamental rules and guidelines concerning the peer-review and publication processes. Under any circumstance, personal attacks and verbal assault (whether expressed orally or through writing) are completely unacceptable. Accordingly, the journal reserves the right to reject the contribution of any author who repeatedly violates these principles or refuses to cooperate with the editors and reviewers during the normal evaluation and publication processes.
d) Editorial ethics
The editorial team at Palaeohispanica will bring an end to any dishonest research practice by submitting every proposal to a careful review process that will begin before the selection of possible peer reviewers. Should anything questionable be detected, an author will be asked to provide relevant explanations and then be told to review his/her text so as to meet the journal’s quality standards. If an author does not make the requested changes, the manuscript will not be submitted for double-blind peer review and, accordingly, will not be published. The editorial board is always available to discuss and debate with authors any misunderstanding that could have given rise to such a situation.
e) Copyright and journal access
Journal content falls under the protection of licence Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA. Access the all journal content is open and free of charge.
f) Journal archive
Given that the Institución Fernando el Católico is an established and important publishing house, it is extremely unlikely that access to the journal’s contents could be compromised in anyway within the foreseeable future. The contents of Palaeohispanica will be stored in IFC’s servers even if the journal ceases to be published.
g) Ownership and management of the journal
The journal Palaeohispanica is edited and run by the institution «Fernando el Católico», an independent entity of the Excelentísima Diputación de Zaragoza.
Names and email addresses submitted to this journal will only be used for tasks related to the journal and will not be shared with any third party or used for any other purpose.
In accordance with the Regulation UE 2016/679, information gathered by the Institución Fernando el Católico de la Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza (IFC) will be used for carrying out the functions of an academic publication, the handling of claims, appeals, complaints, suggestions, surveys as well as any other activity involved in the management of the journal.
Cubic Factory is in charge of handling said data. They can be contacted at cubic@cubicfactory.com.
Data can be given to public agencies with the relevant competencies and in case of legal obligations.
Those who are interested can exercise their rights of access, correction, suppression, limitation of the use, opposition and portability by contacting ifc@dpz.es.
Users can also go to the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos to make any complaints that they feel is necessary.
User information will be kept during the period in which it is needed to complete the task for which said information was provided in the first place or for the period necessary to comply with any legal obligations. Once a given objective has been completed, personal data that is not part of fulfillment of public service will be blocked until the applicable period has ended.
Ethical and confidentiality policy of Palaeohispanica can be consulted here.
Privacy policy
Names and email addresses submitted to this journal will only be used for tasks related to the journal and will not be shared with any third party or used for any other purpose.
In accordance with the Regulation UE 2016/679, information gathered by the Institución Fernando el Católico de la Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza (IFC) will be used for carrying out the functions of an academic publication, the handling of claims, appeals, complaints, suggestions, surveys as well as any other activity involved in the management of the journal.
Cubic Factory is in charge of handling said data. They can be contacted at cubic@cubicfactory.com.
Data can be given to public agencies with the relevant competencies and in case of legal obligations.
Those who are interested can exercise their rights of access, correction, suppression, limitation of the use, opposition and portabilityby contacting ifc@dpz.es.
Users can also go to the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos to make any complaints that they feel is necessary.
User information will be kept during the period in which it is needed to complete the task for which said information was provided in the first place or for the period necessary to comply with any legal obligations. Once a given objective has been completed, personal data that is not part of fulfillment of public service will be blocked until the applicable period has ended.
The IFC’s privacy and data protection policy can be consulted at https://tiendaifc.dpz.es/Sites/dpz/paginasPersonalizadas/Modelo2/inicio.aspx. It can also be found in the journal’s the top navigation menu: http://ifc.dpz.es/ojs/index.php/palaeohispanica/dpd
Names and email addresses submitted to this journal will only be used for tasks related to the journal and will not be shared with any third party or used for any other purpose.
In accordance with the Regulation UE 2016/679, information gathered by the Institución Fernando el Católico de la Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza (IFC) will be used for carrying out the functions of an academic publication, the handling of claims, appeals, complaints, suggestions, surveys as well as any other activity involved in the management of the journal.
Cubic Factory is in charge of handling said data. They can be contacted at cubic@cubicfactory.com.
Data can be given to public agencies with the relevant competencies and in case of legal obligations.
Those who are interested can exercise their rights of access, correction, suppression, limitation of the use, opposition and portability by contacting ifc@dpz.es.
Users can also go to the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos to make any complaints that they feel is necessary.
User information will be kept during the period in which it is needed to complete the task for which said information was provided in the first place or for the period necessary to comply with any legal obligations. Once a given objective has been completed, personal data that is not part of fulfillment of public service will be blocked until the applicable period has ended.
Ethical and confidentiality policy of Palaeohispanica can be consulted here.
