Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 529

528
THE ALPHABET If Kroeber's theory can be applied, as I think it can, to the invention of oghams, we may take it as likely, without uselessly going deeper into this matter, that the inventor or inventors of the oghams probably knew of the existence of the runic script and of the Latin alphabet. It is, therefore, a priori probable that one of the two or rather both of them had se influence on the origin of the oghamic script. On the whole, it seems that the oghams and the runes were in some way allied systems; this is shown, e.g. in the fact that both "share the characteristic of having full, native, semantically recognisable names for the letters" (J. A. Walker). This affinity between the two systems, and the fact that they were both employed roughly at the same time in the British Isles, have induced me to deal with the oghams immediately after the runes. But what has here been said will be enough to show that the information which would alone warrant a definite theory on the origin of the oghams is not yet forthcoming, and probably never will be.
However, the distribution of the oghamic inscriptions and, according, to Kermode, a high authority on the subject, their language and grammatical forms, point to southern Wales or southern Ireland as their
origin, and to the fourth century A.D. as the date of their origin. Professor Rhys holds on phonetic grounds that the invention of the oghams took place in southern Wales, but the inventor belonged probably to the race of the invaders from southern Ireland.
Oghamic Scripts The oghams were employed for writing messages and letters, generally on wooden staves, sometimes also on shields or on other hard material, and for carving on tombstones (see above).
The ogham alphabet (Fig. 236) was very simple; it consisted of twenty letters, which were represented by straight or diagonal strokes varying in number, from one to five, drawn or cut below, or above, or right through, horizontal lines, or else, drawn or cut to the left, or right, or right through vertical lines. These horizontal or vertical lines were sometimes replaced, in stones or other squared hard material, by the arrises or edges of the object on which the letters were cut.
The oghams were divided into four groups (aicme), each containing five letters. The letters belonging to the first aicme (b, If or 0, 5, ?) consisted of 1 to 5 strokes drawn below the main horizontal (or to the right of the vertical line); the second aicme (of the letters h, d, t, 6, 9) consisted of I to 5 strokes drawn above the horizontal line or to the left of the vertical line; the third aicme of the letters m, g, ng, s, r) consisted of 1 to 5 slanting strokes right through the horizontal or perpendicular line, and the fourth aicme, consisting of the vowels a, 0, 4, 6, 1, was represented either by straight