The Language of Trees: Ogham (Archaic Irish Script)

One of the stranger ancient scripts one might come across, Ogham is also known as the ‘Celtic Tree Alphabet’. Estimated to have been used from the fourth to the tenth century AD it is believed to have been possibly named after the Irish god Ogma but this is debated widely. Ogham actually refers to the characters themselves, the script as a whole is more appropriately named Beith-luis-nin after the order of alphabet letters BLFSN.

Ogham and Pictish symbols on a stone from Brandsbutt in Aberdeenshire

Description

The script originally contained twenty letters grouped into four groups of five. Five more letters were later added creating a fifth group. Each of these groups was named after its first letter. There are some four to five hundred surviving ogham inscriptions throughout Britain and Ireland with the largest number appearing in Pembrokeshire. The rest of the inscriptions were located around south-eastern Ireland, Scotland, Orkney, the Isle of Man and around the border of Devon and Cornwall. Ogham was used to write in Archaic Irish, Old Welsh and Latin mostly on wood and stone and is based on a high medieval Briatharogam tradition of ascribing the name of trees to individual characters. The inscriptions containing Ogham are almost exclusively made up of personal names and marks of land ownership.

Origin Theories

There are four popular theories discussing the origin of Ogham. The differing theories are unsurprising considering that the script has similarities to ciphers in Germanic runes, Latin, elder futhark and the Greek alphabet.

The first theory is based on the work of scholars such as Carney and MacNeill who suggest that Ogham was first created as a cryptic alphabet designed by the Irish. They assert that the Irish designed it in response to political, military and/or religious reasons so that those with knowledge of just Latin could not read it.

The second theory is held by McManus who argues that Ogham was invented by the first Christians in early Ireland in a quest for uniqueness. The argument maintains that the sounds of the primitive Irish language were too difficult to transcribe into Latin.

Page of the Book of Ballymote

The third theory states that the Ogham script from invented in West Wales in the fourth century BC to intertwine the Latin alphabet with the Irish language in response to the intermarriage between the Romans and the Romanized Britons. This would account for the fact that some of the Ogham inscriptions are bilingual; spelling out Irish and Brythonic-Latin.

The fourth theory is supported by MacAlister and used to be popular before other theories began to overtake it. It states that Ogham was invented in Cisalpine Gaul around 600 BC by Gaulish Druids who created it as a hand signal and oral language. MacAliser suggests that it was transmitted orally until it was finally put into writing in early Christian Ireland. He argues that the lines incorporated into Ogham represent the hand by being based on four groups of five letters with a sequence of strokes from one to five. However, there is no evidence for MacAlisters theory that Ogham’s language and system originated in Gaul.

Mythical theories for the origin of Ogham also appear in texts from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. The eleventh century Lebor Gabala Erenn tells that Ogham was invented soon after the fall of the tower of Babel, as does the fifteenth century Auraicept na n-eces text. The Book of Babymote also includes ninty-two recorded secret modes of writing Ogham written in 1390-91.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)”]

Ogham alphabet [non-IPA

Ogham Consonants

The Characters

• Right side/downward strokesB beith [b] (*betwias)
  • L luis [l]
  • F fearn [w] (*wernā)
  • S saille [s] (*salis)
  • N nuin [n]
• Left side/upward strokes
  • H úath [j]?
  • D duir [d] (*daris)
  • T tinne [t]
  • C coll [k] (*coslas)
  • Q ceirt [kʷ] (*kʷertā)
• Across/pendicular strokes
  • M muin [m]
  • G gort [ɡ] (*gortas)
  • NG gétal [ɡʷ] (*gʷēddlan)
  • Z straif [sw] or [ts]?
  • R ruis [r]

    Vowels and Additional Characters

• notches (vowels)
  • A ailm [a]
  • O onn [o] (*osen)
  • U úr [u]
  • E edad [e]
  • I idad [i]

Examples of Ogham Texts

Irish Language in Ogham
Transliteration
LIE LUGNAEDON MACCI MENUEH
Translation
The stone of Lugnaedon son of Limenueh

 

Latin in Ogham Script
Transliteration
Numus honoratur sine. Numo nullus amatur.
Translation
Money is honoured, without money nobody is loved
From: The Annals of Inisfallen of 1193

Additional Reading

Carney, James. The Invention of the Ogam Cipher ’Ériu’ 22, 1975, pp 62 –3, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy
Macalister, Robert A.S. The Secret Languages of Ireland, pp27 – 36, Cambridge University Press, 1937
Macalister, Robert A.S. Corpus inscriptionum insularum celticarum. First edition. Dublin: Stationery Office, 1945-1949.
McManus, Damian. Ogam: Archaizing, Orthography and the Authenticity of the Manuscript Key to the Alphabet, Ériu 37, 1988, 1-31. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
McManus, Damian. A Guide to Ogam, Maynooth 1991.
MacNeill, Eoin. Archaisms in the Ogham Inscriptions, ‘Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy’ 39, pp 33–53, Dublin

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Important Rules to Remember When Learning Ancient Greek Part 2

Well with part one of ‘Important Rules to Remember When Learning Ancient Greek’ being the most viewed post in last three months, let me present you with part two. Important rules to remember when looking at the imperfective and the aorist. Hopefully this will be helpful in remembering terms and simple rules when you are in the process of learning or improving your Greek.

The secondary active suffixes

MS 2649 LEVITICUS 10:15 - 11:3; 11:12 - 47; 12:8 - 13:6; 23:20 - 30; 25:30 - 40

• Kind of action = verbal aspect
• Past tenses of the active indicative = Imperfect and Aorist
• Greek verbs have three sets of forms for indicating action in past time
  • Imperfective aspect = imperfect indicative
  • Aoristic aspect = aorist indicative
  • Perfective aspect = pluperfect indicative
• Past time is indicated by the prefixing of the past time morpheme = AUGMENT ε
• Augment appears only in secondary tenses
• All aorists and imperfects use Greek secondary suffixes (For a full list of the secondary suffixes see Black, p.49)

The imperfect active indicative

• Imperfect tense = augmenting the present stem, attaching the connecting vowels ο/ε, adding secondary suffix

1st Person Singular:   ἔ-λυ-ον = I was releasing
2nd Person Singular: ἔ-λυ-ες
3rd Person Singular:  ἔ-λυ-ε(ν)
1st Person Plural:        ἐ-λύ-ομεν
2nd Person Plural:      ἐ-λύ-ετε
3rd Person Plural:       ἔ-λυ-ον

.

The Aorist active indicative

• Aorist Active Indicative = augment, add aoristic aspect morpheme σα, add secondary active suffix
• Major difference = aoristic aspect morpheme

1st Person Singular:   ἔ-λυ-σα = I released
2nd Person Singular: ἔ-λυ-σας
3rd Person Singular:  ἔ-λυ-σε
1st Person Plural:        ἐ-λύ-σαμεν
2nd Person Plural:      ἐ-λύ-σατε
3rd Person Plural:       ἔ-λυ-σαν

Amalgamation in the aorist tense

• When aoristic aspect morpheme σα added
• Same kind of modifications are made in the final consonants of the stem as are made when the future time morpheme σ is added to form the future stem
• Κ, γ, χ + σ = ξ
• Π, β, φ + σ = ψ
• Τ, δ, θ +σ = σ

The Augment

• Several important allomorphs
• If the verb stem begins with a consonant = ADDITIVE MORPHEME = SYLLABIC AUGMENT
• If the verb stem begins with a short vowel = PROCESS MORPHEME, TEMPORAL AUGMENT = lengthens the short vowel to the corresponding long vowel
• If the verb begins with a long vowel/long diphthong = ZERO MORPHEME AUGMENT = no visible phonetic change
• Some Greek verbs take a double augment = both an additive and a process morpheme = αγω = αγαγ- = ηγαγον
• Some are irregular = εχω = ειχον

The imperfect indicative of ειμι

• Its person-number suffixes are those of the secondary active tenses with the exception of the first person singular = middle/passive suffix, and 3^rd Singular = takes a nu

First and second Aorists

Panel from an Ivory box (The Maskell Ivories), Rome, Present Location: British Museum, Date: 420-430

• Two basic patterns
• Difference is one of form only
• -ed
• First Aorists have σα aoristic aspect morpheme
• Most Greek verbs have first aorist forms
• Second aorist forms are identical to the forms of the imperfect tense except for their stems
• The second aorist differs from the imperfect by differences within the stem itself
• The only difference between the imperfect and the second aorist indicative is that the imperfect is formed on the present stem, while the second aorist is formed on the aorist stem = VOWEL GRADATION = like the English ‘sing’/’sang’
• Some verbs form their second Aorists by substituting entirely different forms = SUPPLETIVES = λεγω = ειπον eg. Went and go

Second aorist stems

• Add the augment and imperfect ending to the second aorist stem
• The second aorist is translated exactly the same as the first aorist
• The original stem of a Greek verb is often preserved in the second aorist

Uses of the imperfect and aorist

• PROGRESSIVE IMPERFECT = continuous action in the past = I kept loosing
• CUSTOMARY IMPERFECT = habitual action in the past = I used to loose
• CONATIVE IMPERFECT = attempted action in the past = I tried to loose
• INCEPTIVE IMPERFECT = initiation of an action in the past = I began to loose
• CONSTATIVE AORIST = views an action in its totality = was built
• INGRESSIVE AORIST = emphasises beginning of an action = lived
• EFFECTIVE AORIST = views action from the vantage point of the conclusion = I have learned

Resources that may help you further:

Perseus Vocabulary Tools

New Testament Greek Grammar Books

Learn to Read New Testament Greek, Third Edition, By: David Alan Black

Little Greek 101

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Important Rules to Remember When Learning Ancient Greek Part 1

There are many reasons why one may study ancient Greek and Koine Greek; as a student of the classics, archaeology, new testament studies, pure interest, but when we learn a new language we are often bowled over by the amount of rules and terms to remember with just the basics. So in response to some of my students I am here providing some of the most important rules when learning basic Greek so one can remember them, refer to them and read the Greek better.

The Alphabet:

• 24 Letters, many similar to English ones
• 7 vowels
• Short vowels = α  ε  ι  ο  υ
• Long vowels = α  η  ι  ω  υ = note Eta and Omega are long forms of Epsilon and Omicron
• Γγ is pronounced as ng. Thus ἅγγελος is angelos (angel)
• There is still debate over how eta is pronounced
• Iota can sometimes behave as a consonant when it begins a work (ie. Like a Y in English). Thus IAKWB is Yakob
• Ensure that there is a difference in sound between k and x, by over-emphasising the h sound in x.
• Watch Nu – it looks like an English V
• Watch Rho – it looks like an English P
• The letter sigma is written in two different ways, depending on where it is in the word. Lunate sigma at end of word. Eg. χριστός
• It can often be helpful to know that in English words derived from Greek the U has become a Y, eg. Mystery
• DIPHTHONG = Two different vowels combined into one syllable
• Four sibilants or s sounds = ζ ξ σ ψ

Accents and Breathings:

• Rough breathing mark ( = initial h
• Smooth breathing mark ) = no initial h sound
• E(n = one = hen
• E)n = in = en
• Initial rho and upsilon always have the rough breathings, eg. ῥῆμα (word) and ὑποκριτής (hypocrite)
• With a rho = H not pronounced
• If with a capital letter = breathing goes to left

• Acute /
• Grave \
  

  Oldest Known Image of Jesus from Duras Europos 235AD

• Circumflex ~
• Accents occasionally distinguish between words that are otherwise identical. Eg. εἰ means ‘if’; εἶ means ‘you are’
• Accents serve to indicate which syllable in a Greek word is to be stressed in pronunciation

• Apostrophe indicates the omission of the final short vowel before a word that begins with a vowel or a diphthong δι’ αὐτου= (through him)
• This is called ELISION
• DIAERESIS (¨) occurs where two vowels that normally combine to form a diphthong are to be pronounced separately
• CORONIS (‘) indicates the combination of two words with the loss of an intermediate letter or letters. Combination of two words = CRASIS eg. I’m, eg. κἀγώ = καί ἐγω “and I”

Present and Future Verbs:

• ACTIVE VOICE = subject is performing an action
• PASSIVE VOICE = subject is being acted upon
• MIDDLE VOICE = subject is pictured as acting in its own interest

• AFFIRMATION is said to be INDICATIVE mood
• Express a command = IMPERATIVE mood
• Express a contingency = SUBJUNCTIVE mood
• Express a verbal idea without limiting it by person and number = INFINITIVE MOOD
• Expresses a polite request = OPTATIVE mood

• PRIMARY (or PRINCIPLE) TENSES = present, future, perfect and future perfect
• SECONDARY (or HISTORICAL) TENSES = imperfect, aorist and pluperfect

• Greek has separate sets of person-number suffixes for the primary tenses and for the secondary tenses
• Greek adds a vowel before the suffixes –men and –te = CONNECTING VOWEL

• By removing the –w we obtain the present stem
• The conjugation of present active indicative of –w verb = substitute present stem of that verb, add primary suffices with appropriate connecting vowels
• Greek indicates future time by adding a sigma to the present stem = FUTURE TIME MORPHEME = ‘will’ equivalent

• When the stem of a verb ends in a consonant, a phonological change will occur when the future time morpheme sigma is attached.
• Π, β, φ, + σ = ψ
• Κ, γ, χ + σ = ξ
• Τ, δ, θ drop out before the σ

• ‘Not’ is expressed by the adverb οὐ
• Used with the indicative mood
• μή is used with all other moods
• Both precede the word to which they refer

• Finite verbs convey = tense, voice, mood, person, and number
• + its source (lexical or vocabulary form) of the verb

Nouns of the Second Declension:

• NOMINATIVE = subject
• ACCUSATIVE = object
• GENITIVE = possessor
• DATIVE = indirect object
• VOCATIVE = person or thing addressed

• Greek nouns can be grouped together according to the manner in which their endings change
• Change in case and number
• Number = singular or plural
• Nouns with the same pattern of ending are called declensions
• Three basic declensions in Greek

• Second declension may be divided into two main groups = nouns whose nominative singular end in –os; and those than end in –on
• There are also several feminine nouns of the second declension
• Some second declension nouns are irregular in their formulation eg. ἰησοῦς

• ABLATIVAL GENITIVE = indicates a source = ‘from a house’
• LOCATIVE DATIVE = ‘in a field’
• INSTRUCTIONAL DATIVE = ‘by a word’
• DATIVE OF PERSONAL ADVANTAGE = ‘for a man’
• Definite article = THE
• NT writers typically placed the subject after the verb

Nouns of the First Declension:

Papyrus 66: This manuscript contains almost the complete Gospel of John

• Next most regular declension after the second
• Five paradigms
• Differences between these paradigms are due to certain phonetic changes and are confined to the singular
• No neuter nouns of the first declension
• If the stem of a word ends in the phonemes ε, ι, or ρ, then the α of the nominative singular is retained
• If the stem of the word ends in a sibilant phoneme then the α of the nominative singular lengthens to -ης and –η
• If the stem ends in a phoneme other than ε, ι, ρ, or a sibilant, then the η in the nominative singular is retained throughout the singular
• Mostly feminine
• 112 masculine nouns of the first declension
• All five paradigms have the same plural endings
• Prepositions with One Case
  • Used with a noun (or pronoun) in order to clarify the relationship of the noun to some other word in a sentence
  • Located before the noun = PRE-POSITION
  • In Greek, numerous prepositions take a single case, but others take two or even three cases
  • Four Greek Prepositions that are used with a single case
  • Απο = takes genitive case = from, away from, of = αφ’ before rough breathing
  • Εις = takes accusative case = into, to, for, in
  • Εκ = takes genitive case = out of, from, by
  • Εν = takes the dative case = in, within, by, with, among
  • A preposition is always to be read in conjunction with what it governs in a sentence
  • This combination is called a prepositional phrase
• The Paradigm of the Definite Article
  • The feminine article followed the paradigm of φωνη
  • The masculine and neuter inflections follow ανθρωπος/δωρον with the exception of the nominative singular
  • The root of the definite article is the rough breathing in the nominative masculine and feminine (singular and plural) and τ elsewhere

Adjectives:

• A Greek adjective agrees with the noun that it modifies in gender, number, and case.
• Most adjectives will therefore have 24 forms like the article
• Called THREE-TERMINATION ADJECTIVES as have for masculine, feminine and neuter
• Smaller number of TWO-TERMINATION ADJECTIVES with no separate forms for the feminine
• Frequently these include COMPOUND ADJECTIVES = composed of two of more constituent parts eg. Αδυνατος ‚impossible‛
• Feminine forms follow the first declension
• Masculine and neuter forms follow the second declension
• When stem ends in ε, ι, or ρ, the feminine singular will use α; otherwise it will use η
• Summary of the Uses of the Adjective
  

Resources that may help you further:

Perseus Vocabulary Tools

New Testament Greek Grammar Books

Learn to Read New Testament Greek, Third Edition, By: David Alan Black

Little Greek 101

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Survivor PhD: Close Encounters of the First Kind

In the beginning there was the word and the word was ahhhhh! Ok so I started a PhD and the first thing i found out was that this was…actually i found out nothing at all. The first year of a PhD is not exactly what you would term structured. The reality is that you are likely to be told to just ‘ready steady GO!’ The same is generally said for any postgrad and the way to react is very simple and should, and will, be followed to the letter: 1.) Celebrate (Woo! I got in!), 2.) PANIC!!!

So let me tell you how it is, this odd and unique experience, the first year of a very long period where you feel like you are achieving nothing and drink way too much tea.

In the words of a very wise colleague of mine ‘If you don’t regularly have a breakdown, you are doing it wrong!’ But ultimately, in the run of things, if you are not enjoying it you are also doing it wrong. That is the thing with a PhD you see, its your chance to finally do what you want to do, to research what you want to research, to go where NO STUDENT HAS GONE BEFORE! *cough* sorry, side tracked…Basically one does a PhD not to add to the research of the age but because they have a love of a subject and they want to find out more. If you are doing it for the sake of doing it then you are going to have four years of misery, too many energy drinks and no money for no reason, which is frankly a waste.

Lets take me, after all I am the one writing this, I think, yes it’s definitely me…as you can see doing a PhD can make you quite erratic, eccentric and noticeably tired even in the middle of a relaxing weekend. But I research what I research because I find it interesting and I not only see the benefits of my research for future students of history but for myself. In my first year as a PhD student I developed awesome researching skills, read a ridiculous amount of interesting hypotheses (most of which I decided were arguable) and I finally learnt to touch type after twenty-one years in a technology age (it was seriously about time). I stressed over time and work loads and whether my topic was original but I loved what I was doing and that made it worth my while.

But we come back to the same point we started with; when one starts one does not have a clue where to go, what to do and generally why one is doing it. The university only gives you so much direction so let me share some of my wisdom for those of you starting out, continuing or who are just interested. In the words of Corporal Jones DON’T PANIC! Well panic a little bit, that’s healthy, but don’t stress out. No one knows what they are doing at the start, you are not there by a fluke (imposter-syndrome is very common – I have always been a sufferer myself), people are interested in what you have to say and don’t take any criticism to heart.

The best thing to do is read, read like you have never read before! It is very rare for someone to start out knowing exactly what they want to do and even when they do it doesn’t often work out the same as what it started. Don’t panic if you only have a general topic, it took a super intelligent Doctor I know two and a half years of his PhD to work out what on earth he was going to write about. Obviously don’t fluff around but one can only benefit from knowing their topic area from all angles first and then deciding where to take it.

You WILL be prone to procrastination. I certainly found new and exciting ways to waste my time. When you work as hard as is required with a PhD this is actually healthy in my opinion. About the only time my brain turned off the Greek translations, medical jargon and epigraphic analysis was during an episode of QI or a random trip to the supermarket to buy new eyeliner and chocolate which I didn’t need. FYI you will forget fruit and vegetables within the first few months and convert to instant meals, try to avoid this if possible…I’m not sure it’s possible…

Everyone’s first year goes a little differently, there is no structured instructions because they would never apply to everyone involved. The thing to do is work out what works for you, discuss it with your academics, your peers, your pets, and then accept that it isn’t going to go as planned. Love what you are doing, if you don’t you will go mad. You may go mad anyway but generally in a more lovable way.  So keep this in mind after your 20^th coca cola of the week. You are not alone, we are watching! Twilight Zone Theme