Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language, or, rather, the Goidelic languages, for which extensive written texts are possessed. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, when it gave way to Middle Irish. Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... This article is about the country. ... This article is about the country. ... An extinct language is a language which no longer has any native speakers, in contrast to a dead language, which is is a language which has stopped changing in grammar, vocabulary, and the complete meaning of a sentence. ... Middle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the form of the Irish language from the 10th to 16th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of Middle English. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. ... The Insular Celtic hypothesis concerns the origin of the Celtic languages. ... The Goidelic languages (also sometimes called, particularly in colloquial situations, the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) have historically been part of a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... This article is about the modern Goidelic language. ... The Goidelic languages (also sometimes called, particularly in colloquial situations, the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) have historically been part of a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland. ... my children are my life ...

A still older form of Irish is known as Primitive Irish. Fragments of Primitive Irish, mainly personal names, are known from inscriptions on stone written in the Ogham alphabet. These inscriptions date from about the 4th to the 6th centuries. Primitive Irish is still very close to Common Celtic, the ancestor of all Celtic languages. 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 4th century. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the putative ancestor of all the known Celtic languages. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. ...

Old Irish first appears in the margins of Latin religious manuscripts as early as the 6th century. A large number of early Irish literary texts, though recorded in manuscripts of the Middle Irish period (such as Lebor na hUidre and the Book of Leinster), are essentially Old Irish in character. For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... Lebor na hUidre, or the Book of the Dun Cow, is the oldest Irish manuscript to contain primarily native narrative materials. ... The Book of Leinster (Irish Lebor Laignech), formerly known as the Book of Noughaval (Lebor na Nuachongbála), is a medieval Irish manuscript compliled ca. ...

Old Irish is the ancestor of Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man). However, it is quite distinct from these. Broadly speaking, the grammar and sound systems of the modern languages are simpler than those of Old Irish. This article is about the modern Goidelic language. ... // Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... For the rules of English grammar, see English grammar and Disputes in English grammar. ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ...

Contemporary Old Irish scholarship is still greatly influenced by the works of a small number of scholars active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, among them Rudolf Thurneysen (1857-1940) and Osborn Bergin (1873-1950). Their books are viewed as required material for any enthusiast of Old Irish even today. Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen (March 14, 1857–9 August 1940) was a Swiss linguist and celticist. ... Osborn Joseph Bergin (1873-1950) was a scholar of Gaelic and Early Irish literature. ...

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Old Irish is shown in the chart below. /N/, /Nʲ/, /L/, /Lʲ/, /R/, /Rʲ/ represent fortis sonorants whose precise articulation is unknown, but which were probably longer, tenser, and generally more strongly articulated than their lenis counterparts /n/, /nʲ/, /l/, /lʲ/, /r/, /rʲ/. In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Fortis (from Latin fortis strong) and lenis (from Latin lenis weak) are linguistics terms. ... In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ... Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. ...

Some details of Old Irish phonetics are not known. /sʲ/ may have been pronounced [ɕ] or [ʃ], as in Modern Irish. /hʲ/ may have been the same sound as /h/ and/or /xʲ/. /Nʲ/ and /Lʲ/ may have been pronounced [ɲ] and [ʎ] respectively. The difference between /R(ʲ)/ and /r(ʲ)/ may have been that the former were trills while the latter were flaps. Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that air escapes partially or wholly through the nose during the production of the sound. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the tongue) is thrown against another. ...

Vowels

The inventory of Old Irish monophthongs is: A monophthong (in Greek μονόφθογγος = single note) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation; compare diphthong. ...

The distribution of short vowels in unstressed syllables is a little complicated. All short vowels may appear in unstressed final open syllables (an open syllable is one with no coda consonant), after both broad and slender consonants. The front vowels /e/ and /i/ are often spelled ae and ai after broad consonants, which might indicate a retracted pronunciation here, perhaps something like [ɘ] and [ɨ]. All ten possibilities are shown in the following examples: A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ...

In unstressed closed syllables (that is, those with a syllable coda), the quality of a short vowel is almost entirely predictable by whether the surrounding consonants are broad or slender. Between two broad consonants, the vowel is /a/, as in dígal /ˈdʲiːɣal/ "vengeance" (nom.). Between a slender and a broad consonant the vowel is /e/, as in dliged /ˈdʲlʲiɣʲeð/ "law" (nom./acc.). Before a slender consonant the vowel is /i/, as in dígail /ˈdʲiːɣilʲ/ "vengeance" (acc./dat.), and dligid /ˈdʲlʲiɣʲiðʲ/ "law" (gen.). The chief exceptions to this pattern are that /u/ frequently appears when the following syllable contained an *ū in Proto-Celtic (for example, dligud /ˈdʲlʲiɣuð/ "law" (dat.) < PC *dligedū), and that /o/ or /u/ frequently appears after a broad labial (for example, lebor /ˈLʲevor/ "book"; domun /ˈdoṽun/ "world"). Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... In grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a verb mood that exists in many languages. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the putative ancestor of all the known Celtic languages. ... Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ...

The inventory of Old Irish diphthongs is shown in this chart: In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages. ...

Orthography

As with most medieval languages, the orthography of Old Irish is not fixed, so the following statements are to be taken as generalizations only. Individual manuscripts may vary greatly from these guidelines. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. ... A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ...

The Old Irish alphabet consists of the following eighteen letters of the Latin alphabet: ABCs redirects here, for the Alien Big Cats, see British big cats. ... This article is about letter, a written message from one party to another. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u

In addition, the acute accent and the superdot are used as diacritics with certain letters: The acute accent (   ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ... When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the Interpunct ( · ), or to the glyphs combining dot above ( ) and combining dot below ( ) which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in Central European languages and Vietnamese. ... Example of a letter with a diacritic A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ...

• The acute accent indicates a long vowel: á, é, í, ó, ú are long vowels
• The superdot indicates the lenition of f and s: ḟ is silent, ṡ is pronounced /h/
• The superdot is also sometimes used on m and n with no change in pronunciation, when these letters are used to mark the nasalization mutation: ṁ, ṅ.

A number of digraphs are also used: Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

The letter i is placed after a vowel letter to indicate that the following consonant was slender: ai, ei, oi, ui; ái, éi, ói, úi

The letter h is placed after c, t, p to indicate a fricative: ch, th, ph

The diphthongs are also indicated by digraphs: áe/aí, ía, uí, áu, óe/oí, úa, éu, óu, iu, au, eu

In word-initial position, when no initial consonant mutation has applied, the consonant letters have the following values; they are broad before back vowels (a, o, u) and slender before front vowels (e, i): Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ...

• b: /b/, /bʲ/
• c: /k/, /kʲ/
• d: /d/, /dʲ/
• f: /f/, /fʲ/
• g: /g/, /gʲ/
• h: See discussion below
• l: /L/, /Lʲ/
• m: /m/, /mʲ/
• n: /N/, /Nʲ/
• p: /p/, /pʲ/
• r: /R/, /Rʲ/
• s: /s/, /ʃ/
• t: /t/, /tʲ/

Although Old Irish has both a sound /h/ and a letter h, there is no consistent relationship between the two. Vowel-initial words are sometimes written with an unpronounced h, especially if they are very short (the preposition i "in" was sometimes written hi) or if they need to be emphasized (the name of Ireland, Ériu, was sometimes written Hériu). On the other hand, words that begin with the sound /h/ are usually written without it, for example a ór /a hoːr/ "her gold". If the sound and the spelling cooccur, it is by coincidence, as ní hed /Nʲiː heð/ "it is not". It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with adposition. ... Co-occurrence can either mean concurrence / coincidence or, in a more specific sense, the above-chance frequent occurrence of two terms from a text corpus alongside each other in a certain order. ...

After a vowel or l, n, or r the letters c, p, t can stand for either voiced or voiceless stops; they can also be written double with either value:

• mac or macc /mak/ "son"
• bec or becc /bʲeg/ "small"
• op or opp /ob/ "refuse"
• brat or bratt /brat/ "mantle"
• brot or brott /brod/ "goad"
• derc /dʲerk/ "hole"
• derc /dʲerg/ "red"
• daltae /daLte/ "fosterling"
• celtae /kʲeLde/ "who hide"
• anta /aNta/ "of remaining"
• antae /aNde/ "who remain"

After a vowel the letters b, d, g stand for the fricatives /v, ð, ɣ/ or their slender equivalents:

• dub /duv/ "black"
• mod /moð/ "work"
• mug /muɣ/ "slave"
• claideb /klaðʲev/ "sword"
• claidib /klaðʲivʲ/ "swords"

After m, b is a stop, but after d, l and r it is a fricative:

• imb /imʲbʲ/ "butter"
• odb /oðv/ "knot (in a tree)"
• delb /dʲelv/ "image"
• marb /marv/ dead

After n and r, d is a stop

• bind /bʲiNʲdʲ/ "melodious"
• cerd /kʲeRd/ "art, skill"

After n, l, and r, g is usually a stop, but it is a fricative in a few words:

• long /loŋg/ "ship"
• delg or delc /dʲelg/ "thorn"
• argat or arggat /argad/ "silver"
• ingen /inʲɣʲen/ "daughter"
• bairgen /barʲɣʲen/ "loaf of bread"

After vowels m is usually a fricative, but sometimes a (nasal) stop, in which case it is also often written double:

• dám /daːṽ/ "company"
• lom or lomm /lom/ "bare"

The digraphs ch, ph, th do not occur in word-initial position except under lenition, but wherever they occur they are pronounced /x/, /f/, /θ/.

• ech /ex/ "horse"
• oíph /oif/ "beauty"
• áth /aːθ/ "ford"

The letters l, n, and r are written double when they indicate the tense sonorants, single when they indicate the lax sonorants. (But the tense sonorants are usually written single in word-initial position.)

• corr /koR/ "crane"
• cor /kor/ "putting"
• coll /koL/ "hazel"
• col /kol/ "sin"
• sonn /soN/ "stake"
• son /son/ "sound"

Syntax

Old Irish follows the typical VSO (verb-subject-object) structure shared by most Celtic languages (even though other orders are possible, especially under Bergin's Law). Verbs are all fully conjugated, and have most of the forms typical of Indo-European languages, i.e. present, imperfect, past, future and preterite tenses, indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative moods, and active and passive voices. The only verbal form lacking in Old Irish is the infinitive (present to a limited degree in Modern Irish), the meaning of which Old Irish conveyed with verbal noun constructions. Personal pronouns, when used as direct objects, are infixed into the verb with which they are associated. What equate to prepositions in English are generally in the same placement as Old Irish, though a good many with verbal overtones are actually infixed into the verbs themselves. The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. ... In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (regular alteration according to rules of grammar). ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... For referencing in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Citing sources. ... The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a past tense with an imperfective aspect. ... The past tense is a verb tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past. ... It has been suggested that Future perfect tense be merged into this article or section. ... The preterite (also praeterite, in American English also preterit, or past historic) is the grammatical tense expressing actions which took place in the past. ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... In grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a verb mood that exists in many languages. ... The conditional mood (or conditional tense) is the form of the verb used in conditional sentences to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event that is contingent on another set of circumstances. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood (or mode), which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. ... A verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb stem, sharing at least in part its constructions. ...

Morphology

Nouns

Old Irish maintained three genders, namely, masculine, feminine and neuter; three numbers, namely, singular, plural and dual, with the third number, dual, being attested only to a limited degree with somewhat distinct forms, though it is almost always preceded by the cardinal dá, meaning "two"; and five cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive and dative). Thurneysen had fourteen classes of noun, defined by the morphological marking on the stem, with seven vocalic stems and seven consonantal stems (including one class of irregular and indeclinable nouns). In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... Look up plural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Common Slavic had a complete singular-dual-plural number system, although the dual paradigms showed considerable syncretism. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The vocative case (also called the fifth case) is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc. ... The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen (March 14, 1857–9 August 1940) was a Swiss linguist and celticist. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ...

In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... Look up plural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Common Slavic had a complete singular-dual-plural number system, although the dual paradigms showed considerable syncretism. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The vocative case (also called the fifth case) is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc. ... The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ...

Verbs

Verbs stand initially in the sentence (preceded only by some particles, forming a 'verbal complex' and very few adverbs). Most verbs have, in addition to the tenses, voices, and moods named above, two sets of forms: a conjunct form, and an absolute form. The conjunct form typically consists of one or more preverbs (particles some of which are historically of prepositional origin, compare a-, e-, in-, etc. in Latin verbs, though not directly related and verbal prefixes in Germanic languages), followed by a verb stem which bears the bulk of the conjugation. Personal pronouns as direct objects are infixed between the preverb and the verbal stem, along with various other particles that modify the verb's meaning (including the negative) or indicate certain special sentence structures. The absolute form is used when no infixes are necessary, and any other necessary elements are given in another part of the sentence. A single verb can stand as an entire sentence in Old Irish, in which case emphatic particles such as -sa and -se are affixed to the end of the verb.

See also

• Early Irish literature
• Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Auraicept na n-Éces

This article deals with Old Irish and Middle Irish literature // The earliest existing examples of the written Irish language as preserved in manuscripts do not go back farther than the 8th century; they are chiefly found in Scriptural glosses written between the lines or on the margins of religious works... Dictionary of the Irish language is the definitive dictionary of the Irish language, specifically the Old Irish and Middle Irish stages; the modern language is not included. ... fol. ...

References

Location in Massachusetts Coordinates: Country United States State Massachusetts County Middlesex County Settled 1630 Incorporated 1842 Government  - Type Mayor-council city  - Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone Area  - City  4. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... For other uses, see Dublin (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Dublin (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Dublin (disambiguation). ...

External links

• An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language MacBain, Alexander Gairm Publications, 1982
• Old Irish dictionary
• Old Irish Online from the University of Texas at Austin.

v • d • e Irish linguistics
History of the language · Primitive Irish · Old Irish · Middle Irish · Early Modern Irish · Modern Irish
Connacht Irish · Munster Irish · Newfoundland Irish · Ulster Irish
Initial mutations · Morphology (declension, verbs) · Phonology · Syntax · Orthography · Ogham · Gaelic script

v • d • e Manx linguistics
Primitive Irish | Old Irish | Middle Irish | Manx language