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. An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ... 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. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ... The Insular Celtic language hypothesis groups the Goidelic languages, which include Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic, together with the Brythonic languages, of which the modern ones are Breton, Cornish and Welsh. ... Writing Systems of the World today A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Irish (Gaeilge), a Goidelic language spoken in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Canada, and the United States, is constitutionally recognised as the first official language of the Republic of Ireland. ... Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages. ... This Buddhist stela from China, Northern Wei period, was built in the early 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. Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... This article is about inflection in linguistics. ... Gaulish is the name given to the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Vulgar Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम् ; pronunciation: ) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ...

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. 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. ... This Buddhist stela from China, Northern Wei period, was built in the early 6th century. ... In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. ...

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. Europe in 450 The 5th century is the period from 401 - 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... Statistics Area: 19,774. ... Annals are a form of historical writing which record events year by year. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ...

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. Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recounted in the Gospels. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

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 linguistics, a register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. ...

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. The vernacular forms, freed from the conservative influence of the formal register, changed rapidly, until a new written standard, Old Irish, established itself. Druidry or Druidism was the religion of the ancient druids, the priestly class in ancient Celtic and Gallic societies through much of Western Europe north of the Alps and in the British Isles. ...

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. Munster (Irish: An Mhumhain, IPA: ) is the southernmost province of Ireland, comprising the counties of Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (Latin Gallia, Greek Galatia) was the region of Western Europe occupied by present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river. ... The Belgae were a group of nations or tribes living in north-eastern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 1st century BC, and later also attested in Britain. ... The Iverni, later Érainn, were an ancient people of Ireland attested in Ptolemys 2nd century Geography. ... The Iverni, later Érainn, were an ancient people of Ireland attested in Ptolemys 2nd century Geography. ... Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: ; c. ... The 2nd century is the period from 101 - 200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... An Irish glossary called Sanas Chormaic, containing etymologies and explanations of over 1400 Irish words was created by Cormac mac Cuilleanáin (836-908), King-Bishop of Munster; it is an encyclopaedic dictionary containing simple synonymous explanations in Irish or Latin of words in the Irish language. ... 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. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages. ... For an explanation of often confusing terms such as Great Britain, Britain, United Kingdom, England and Wales and England, see British Isles (terminology). ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... Thomas Francis ORahilly, also Tomás Ó Rahille, born 1883 in Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland; died 1953 in Dublin, was an influential scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly in the fields of Historical linguistics and Irish dialects. ...

Advocates of this hypothesis believe that Ivernic first diverged from Gaulish around 500 BC and survived a proposed Goidelic-speaking invasion of Ireland (sometime between 500 and 100 BC). It was said 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. Gaulish is name given to the now-extinct Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Romans, the Franks and the British Celts invaded. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 5th century BC started on January 1, 500 BC and ended on December 31, 401 BC. // Overview The Parthenon of Athens seen from the hill of the Pnyx to the west. ... Goidelic is one of two major divisions of modern-day Celtic languages (the other being Brythonic). ... Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC - 520s BC - 510s BC - 500s BC - 490s BC - 480s BC - 470s BC - 460s BC - 450s BC Events and Trends 509 BC - Foundation of the Roman Republic 508 BC - Office of pontifex maximus created... Centuries: 2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century Decades: 130s BC 120s BC 110s BC - 100s BC - 90s BC 80s BC 70s BC 60s BC 50s BC Years: 105 BC 104 BC 103 BC 102 BC 101 BC - 100 BC - 99 BC 98 BC 97 BC 96 BC 95... Bede depicted in an early medieval manuscript Depiction of Bede from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493. ... The 7th century is the period from 601 - 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... The name Viking is a loan from the native Scandinavian term for the Norse seafaring warriors who raided the coasts of Scandinavia, Europe and the British Isles from the late 8th century to the 11th century, the period of European history referred to as the Viking Age. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 52. ... As a means of recording the passage of time the 9th century was that century that lasted from 801 to 900. ...

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 language which was spoken in Ireland before any Indo-European languages arrived.^{[citation needed]} Cormac mac Cuilennáin, scholar, bishop and King of Munster, died 13 September 908. ... Cashel (An Caisleán in Irish, meaning the castle) is a town in County Tipperary, in the southern midlands of Ireland. ... Munster (Irish: An Mhumhain, IPA: ) is the southernmost province of Ireland, comprising the counties of Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. ... The Sanas Cormaic (sometimes called Sanas Chormaic using modern rules of initial consonant mutation) is an Irish glossary containing etymologies and explanations of over 1400 Irish words. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. ...

See also

• Ogham
• List of Ogham inscriptions
• Old Irish
• Brythonic language

Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages. ... There are roughly 400 known Ogham inscriptions scattered around the Irish Sea, the bulk of them dating to the 5th and 6th centuries. ... 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. ... The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family. ...

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.