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THE ALPHABET
According to Professor Ifor Williams ("THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF CYMMRODORION," Sessions 1943 and 1944, London, 1946, pp. 152-156), the oghamic alphabet was an independent invention of a Celtic grammarian from southern Ireland, who knew either the Latin alphabet or the Greek or both, but made no attempt to make his symbols resemble either the Latin or the Greek letters. The invention took place when Old Irish knew neither diphthongs nor the sound p, which
JASRANIFILI
be on
XO 6 # #
ULUI 11
Fig. 236 1-2, The ogham script (mainly written up
wards). 3, Latin-ogharic bilingual inscription. 4-5. Oghamic inscriptions
111
therefore were not included in the original alphabet of 20 letters. At a later period, when some vowels became diphthongs, and a sign for p became necessary, particularly for loan-words, the extra-letters, forfeda, were invented.
