The Forfeda are the "additional" letters of the Ogham alphabet, beyond the basic inventory of twenty signs. Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The correct title of this article is nGéadal. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Ceirt (queirt) is a letter of the Ogham alphabet, transcribed as Q. It expresses the Primitive Irish labiovelar phoneme. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Forfeda are the additional letters of the Ogham alphabet, beyond the basic inventory of twenty signs. ... The Forfeda are the additional letters of the Ogham alphabet, beyond the basic inventory of twenty signs. ... Ifín (also spelled iphin) is one of the forfeda, the additional letters of the Ogham alphabet. ... The Forfeda are the additional letters of the Ogham alphabet, beyond the basic inventory of twenty signs. ... Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages. ...

The aicme

Five of the forfeda are given as an additional vocalic aicme, with the values, according to Auraicept na n-Éces, De dúilib feda and In Lebor Ogaim, respectively: fol. ... In Lebor Ogaim (the book of Ogams), also known as the Ogam Tract, is an Old Irish treatise on the Ogham alphabet. ...

• ᚕ (U+1695) Éabhadh: ea, éo ea;
• ᚖ (U+1696) Ór: oi óe, oi;
• ᚗ (U+1697) Uilleann: ui, úa, ui;
• ᚘ (U+1698) Ifín: io ía, ia;
• ᚙ (U+1699) Eamhancholl: ae.

Four of these names are glossed in the Auraincept with tree names, ebhadh as crithach "aspen", oir as feorus no edind "spindle-tree or ivy", uilleand as edleand "honeysuckle", and iphin as spinan no ispin "gooseberry or thorn". Species Populus adenopoda Populus alba Populus grandidentata Populus sieboldii Populus tremula Populus tremuloides Aspens are trees of the willow family and comprise a section of the poplar genus Populus sect. ... Species The spindles, genus Euonymus, comprise about 170-180 species of deciduous and evergreen shrubs and small trees. ... Species See text Hedera (English name ivy (plural, ivies) is a genus of about 10 species of climbing or ground-creeping evergreen woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to the Atlantic Islands, Europe, North Africa and across Asia east to Japan. ... Species Lonicera albiflora Lonicera arizonica Lonicera x bella Lonicera caerulea Lonicera canadensis Lonicera caprifolium Lonicera chrysantha Lonicera ciliosa Lonicera conjugialis Lonicera dioica Lonicera etrusca Lonicera flava Lonicera fragrantissima Lonicera x heckrottii Lonicera hirsuta Lonicera hispidula Lonicera interrupta Lonicera involucrata Lonicera japonica Lonicera korolkowii Lonicera maackii Lonicera x minutiflora Lonicera morrowii... Species Ribes grossularia L. Ribes hirtellum Ribes echinellum The gooseberry is a well-known fruit-bush. ... Raised thorns on the stem of the wait-a-bit climber Thorns on rose stems A spine is a rigid, pointed surface protuberance or needle-like structure on an animal, shell, or plant, presumably serving as a defense against attack by predators. ...

All five of these forfeda were clearly invented in the Old Irish period, several centuries after the peak of Ogham usage. They appear to have represented sounds felt to be missing from the original alphabet, maybe é(o), ó(i), ú(i), p and ch: Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language which can be more or less fully reconstructed from extant sources. ...

Éabhadh has the Bríatharogam kenning "fair-swimming letter" or "fairest fish", pointing to éo or é "salmon". The name appears modelled after Eadhadh and Iodhadh. Ór has the kennings "most venerable substance" and "splendour of form", pointing to ór "gold" (from Latin aurum). The kenning of Uilleann, "great elbow", refers to the letter name. Since the Ogham alphabet dates to the Primitive Irish period, it had not sign for [p] in its original form. Ifín may originally have been added as a letter expressing [p], called Pín (probably influenced by Latin pinus). The name Eamhancholl means "twinned C", referring to the shape of the letter, and gives no indication of sound value. The Bríatharogam kenning "groan of a sick person" refers to a value ch [x], predating the decision that all five forfeda represent vowels. A Bríatharogam (word ogham, plural Bríatharogaim) is a list of kennings for the names of the letters of the Ogham script. ... The Chinook or King Salmon is the largest salmon in North America and can grow up to 58 long and 126 pounds. ... It has been suggested that Gold bar be merged into this article or section. ... 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. ... This article deals with the tree; for the e-mail client see Pine email client Species About 115. ...

Other

Beyond the five Forfeda discussed above, which doubtlessly date to Old Irish times, there is a large number of letter variants and symbols, partly found in manuscripts, and partly in "scholastic" (post 6th century) inscriptions collectively termed "Forfeda". They may date to Old Irish, Middle Irish or even early modern times. Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language which can be more or less fully reconstructed from extant sources. ... Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language which can be more or less fully reconstructed from extant sources. ... my children are my life ...

Peith

Due to the "schematicism of later Ogamists" (McManus 1988:167), who insisted on treating the five primary forfeda as vowels, [p] had again to be expressed as a modification of [b], called peithe, after beithe, also called beithe bog "soft beithe" or, tautologically, peithbog (ᚚ Peith, Unicode allocation U+169A).

Manuscript tradition

The forfeda of the Ogham scales in the Book of Ballymote (scale nrs. 79, 80, 81 [1][2][3])

The 14th century Auraicept na n-Éces among the 92 "variants" of the Ogham script gives more letters identified as forfeda (variant nrs. 79, 80 and 81). fol. ... This 14th-century statue from south India depicts the gods Shiva (on the left) and Uma (on the right). ... fol. ...

Inscriptions

The Bressay stone in Shetland (CISP BREAY/1) contains five forfeda, three of them paralleled on other Scottish monuments and also in Irish manuscripts, and two unique to Bressay. One of the latter is possibly a correction of an error in carving and not intended as a forfid. One is "rabbit-eared", interpreted as some kind of modified D, presumably the voiced spirant. Another is an "angled vowel", presumably a modified A. One unique character consists of five undulating strokes sloping backwards across the stem, possibly a modified I. The fourth is a four-stroke cross-hatching, also appearing in the late eighth or ninth-century Bern ogham alphabet and syllabary under a label which has previously been read as RR, but another suggestions is SS. It appears in the Book of Ballymote, scale no. 64.[4] See Shetland (disambiguation) for other meanings. ... fol. ...

References

• Damian McManus, Irish letter-names and their kennings, Ériu 39 (1988), 127-168.
• P. Sims-Williams, The additional letters of the Ogam Alphabet, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 23: 29-75 (1992).

External links

• The Ogam Scales from the Book of Ballymote by B. Fell