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 .
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.
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 Cluster s created by the loss of unstressed syllables, along with a number of significant vowel and consonant changes.
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.
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.
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 virtually week by week, 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 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.
Before Gaelic dialects evolved in
Ireland , some allege that the inhabitants spoke , 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 , as the source for these loanwords.
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 .
arrived.
- 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.
