Ogham

Ogham ᚛ᚑᚌᚐᚋ᚜
An inscription found in 1975 inRatass Church,Tralee,County Kerry
Script type	Alphabet
Time period	c. 4th–10th centuries
Direction	Bottom-to-top, left-to-right
Languages	Primitive Irish; Old Irish;Pictish
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Ogam(212),​Ogham
Unicode
Unicode alias	Ogham
Unicode range	U+1680–U+169F

Ogham(/ˈɒɡəm/OG-əm,Modern Irish:[ˈoː(ə)mˠ];Middle Irish:ogum, ogom,laterogam[ˈɔɣəmˠ]) is anEarly MedievalAlpha betused primarily to write theearly Irish language(in the"orthodox" inscriptions,4th to 6th centuries AD), and later theOld Irishlanguage (scholastic ogham,6th to 9th centuries). There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain, the bulk of which are in southernMunster.The largest number outside Ireland are inPembrokeshire,Wales.

The vast majority of the inscriptions consist of personal names.

According to the High MedievalBríatharogam,the letters are named after various trees. For this reason, Ogham is sometimes known as theCeltic tree Alpha bet.

The etymology of the wordogamoroghamremains unclear. One possible origin is from the Irishog-úaim'point-seam', referring to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon.

Origins

Carving of Ogham letters into a stone pillar – illustration byStephen Reid(1873 – 1948), in:Myths & Legends of the Celtic RacebyT. W. Rolleston(1857 – 1920), published 1911, p. 288

It is generally thought that the earliest inscriptions in Ogham date to about the 4th century AD,butJames Carneybelieved its origin is rather within the 1st century BC.Although the use of "classical" ogham in stone inscriptions seems to have flourished in the 5th and 6th centuries around theIrish Sea,from the phonological evidence it is clear that the Alpha bet predates the 5th century. Indeed, the Alpha bet has letters representing "archaic"phonemeswhich were clearly part of the system, but which were no longer spoken by the 5th century and never appear in inscriptions, suggesting an extended period of ogham writing on wood or other perishable material prior to the preserved monumental inscriptions. They are:úath( "H" ) andstraif( "Z" in the manuscript tradition, but probably "F" from "SW" ), andgétal(velar nasal "NG" in the manuscript tradition, but etymologically probably "GW" ).

It appears that the Ogham Alpha bet was modelled on another script,and some even consider it a mere cipher of its template script (Düwel 1968:points out similarity withciphers of Germanic runes). The largest number of scholars favour theLatin Alpha betas this template,although theElder Futharkand even theGreek Alpha bethave their supporters.Runic origin would elegantly explain the presence of "H" and "Z" letters unused in Irish, as well as the presence of vocalic and consonantal variants "U" vs. "W", unknown to Latin writing and lost in Greek (cf.digamma). The Latin Alpha bet is the primary contender mainly because its influence at the required period (4th century) is most easily established, being widely used in neighbouring RomanBritannia,while runes in the 4th century were not very widespread even incontinental Europe.

In Ireland and Wales, the language of the monumental stone inscriptions is termedPrimitive Irish.The transition toOld Irish,the language of the earliest sources in the Latin Alpha bet, takes place in about the 6th century.Since ogham inscriptions consist almost exclusively of personal names and marks possibly indicating land ownership, linguistic information that may be gleaned from the Primitive Irish period is mostly restricted tophonologicaldevelopments.

Theories of origin

Fol. 170r of theBook of Ballymote(1390), theAuraicept na n-Écesexplaining the ogham script

There are two main schools of thought among scholars as to the motivation for the creation of ogham. Scholars such as Carney and MacNeill have suggested that ogham was first created as a cryptic Alpha bet, designed by the Irish to hide their meaning from writers of the Latin Alpha bet.In this school of thought, it is asserted that "the Alpha bet was created by Irish scholars or druids for political, military or religious reasons to provide a secret means of communication in opposition to the authorities of Roman Britain."The serious threat of invasion by the Roman Empire, which then ruled over neighbouring southern Britain, may have spurred the creation of the Alpha bet.Alternatively, in later centuries when the threat of invasion had receded and the Irish were themselves invading western Britain, the desire to keep communications secret from Romans or Romanised Britons would still have provided an incentive. With bilingual ogham and Latin inscriptions in Wales, however, one would suppose that the ogham could easily be decoded by at least an educated few in the post-Roman world.

The second main school of thought, put forward by scholars such as McManus,is that ogham was invented by the first Christian communities in early Ireland, out of a desire for a unique Alpha bet to write short messages and inscriptions in Irish. The sounds of Primitive Irish may have been difficult to transcribe into the Latin Alpha bet, motivating the invention of a separate Alpha bet. A possible such origin, as suggested by McManus (1991:41), is the early Irish Christian community known from around AD 400 at atest, attested by the mission ofPalladiusbyPope Celestine Iin AD 431.

A variation is that the Alpha bet was first invented, for whatever reason, in 4th-century Irish settlements in westWalesafter contact and intermarriage with Romanised Britons with knowledge of the Latin Alpha bet.In fact, several ogham stones in Wales are bilingual, containing both Irish andBritish Latin,testifying to the international contacts that led to the existence of some of these stones.

A third theory put forward by the noted ogham scholarR. A. S. Macalisterwas influential at one time, but finds little favor with scholars today.Macalister believed that ogham was first invented in Cisalpine Gaul around 600 BC by Gaulish druids as a secret system ofhand signals,and was inspired by a form of the Greek Alpha bet current in Northern Italy at the time. According to this theory, the Alpha bet was transmitted in oral form or on wood only, until it was finally put into a written form on stone inscriptions in early Christian Ireland. Later scholars are largely united in rejecting this theory, however,primarily because a detailed study of the lettersshows that they were created specifically for the Primitive Irish of the early centuries AD. The supposed links with the form of the Greek Alpha bet that Macalister proposed can also be disproved.

Macalister's theory of hand or finger signals as a source reflects that the Alpha bet consists of four groups of five letters, with a sequence of strokes from one to five. Another theory, proposed by the scholarsRudolf ThurneysenandJoseph Vendryes,is that the forms of the letters derive from a numericaltally-markcounting system of the time, based around the numbers five and twenty, which was then adapted into an Alpha bet.

Legendary accounts

According to the 11th-centuryLebor Gabála Érenn,the 14th-centuryAuraicept na n-Éces,and other MedievalIrish folklore,ogham was first invented soon after the fall of theTower of Babel,along with theGaelic language,by the legendaryScythianking,Fenius Farsa.According to the Auraicept, Fenius journeyed fromScythiatogether with Goídel mac Ethéoir, Íar mac Nema and aretinueof 72 scholars. They came to the plain ofShinarto study theconfused languagesatNimrod's tower (theTower of Babel). Finding that they had already been dispersed, Fenius sent his scholars to study them, staying at the tower, coordinating the effort. After ten years, the investigations were complete, and Fenius createdin Bérla tóbaide"the selected language", taking the best of each of the confused tongues, which he calledGoídelc,Goidelic,after Goídel mac Ethéoir. He also created extensions ofGoídelc,calledBérla Féne,after himself,Íarmberla,after Íar mac Nema, and others, and theBeithe-luis-nuin(the ogham) as a perfectedwriting systemfor his languages. The names he gave to the letters were those of his 25 best scholars.

Alternatively, theOgam TractcreditsOgmawith the script's invention. Ogma was skilled in speech and poetry, and created the system for the learned, to confound rustics and fools. The first message written in ogam was sevenb's on a birch, sent as a warning toLug,meaning: "your wife will be carried away seven times to the otherworld unless the birch protects her". For this reason, the letterbis said to be named after the birch, andIn Lebor Ogaimgoes on to tell the tradition that all letters were named after trees, a claim also referred to by the Auraicept as an alternative to the naming after Fenius' disciples.

Alphabet: the Beith-luis-nin

Mug with Ogham letters: the four series (aicmi) of the 20 original letters and the five most important supplementary letters (forfeda)

Strictly speaking, the wordoghammeansletters,while the Alpha bet is calledbeith-luis-ninafter the letter names of the first letters (in the same way that the modern word "Alpha bet" derives from the Greek lettersAlphaandbeta). The order of the first five letters, BLFSN, led the scholar Macalister to propose that a link between a form of the Greek Alpha bet used in Northern Italy in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. However, there is no evidence for Macalister's theory, and it has been discounted by later scholars. There are in fact other explanations for the nameBeith-luis-nin.One explanation is that the wordnin,which meansforked branch,was used to mean letters in general.Beith-luis-nincould therefore mean simplybeith-luisletters. Another suggestion is thatbeith-luis-ninis a contraction of the first five letters, ie,beith-LVS-nin.

The ogham Alpha bet originally consisted of twenty letters, divided into four groups (Irish:aicme) according the stroke angle and direction. The groups were

• Aicme beithe,right side/downward strokes
• Aicme hÚatha,left side/upward strokes
• Aicme muine,oblique crossing strokes
• Aicme ailme,notches or perpendicular crossing strokes

Five additional letters were later introduced (mainly in the manuscript tradition), the so-calledforfeda.

A letter forpis conspicuously absent, since thephonemewas lost inProto-Celtic,and the gap was not filled inQ-Celtic,and no sign was needed before loanwords fromLatincontainingpappeared in Irish (e.g.,Patrick). Conversely, there is a letter for thelabiovelarq(ᚊceirt), a phoneme lost in Old Irish. The base Alpha bet is, therefore, as it were, designed for Proto-Q-Celtic.

Of the fiveforfedaor supplementary letters, only the first,ébad,regularly appears in inscriptions, but mostly with the value K (McManus, § 5.3, 1991), in the wordkoi(ᚕᚑᚔ "here" ). The others, except foremancholl,have at most only one certain 'orthodox' (see below) inscription each.Due to their limited practical use, later ogamists turned the supplementary letters into a series ofdiphthongs,changing completely the values forpínandemancholl.This meant that the Alpha bet was once again without a letter for the 'P' sound, forcing the invention of the letterpeithboc(soft 'B'), which appears in the manuscripts only.

B group	beith ᚁ IPA:[b]	luis ᚂ IPA:[l]	fearn ᚃ IPA:[w]	sail ᚄ IPA:[s]	nion ᚅ IPA:[n]
M group	muin ᚋ IPA:[m]	gort ᚌ IPA:[ɡ]	nGéadal ᚍ IPA:[ɡʷ]	straif ᚎ IPA:[st], [ts],[sw]	ruis ᚏ IPA:[r]
A group	ailm ᚐ IPA:[a]	onn ᚑ IPA:[o]	úr ᚒ IPA:[u]	eadhadh ᚓ IPA:[e]	Iodhadh ᚔ IPA:[i]
H group	uath ᚆ IPA:[j]	dair ᚇ IPA:[d]	tinne ᚈ IPA:[t]	coll ᚉ IPA:[k]	ceirt ᚊ IPA:[kʷ]
Forfeda	éabhadh ᚕ IPA:[ea], [k],[x],[eo]	ór ᚖ IPA:[oi]	uilleann ᚗ IPA:[ui]	ifín ᚘ IPA:[ia]	eamhancholl ᚙ IPA:[x],[ai]

Letter names

Main article:Bríatharogam

The letter names are interpreted as names of trees or shrubs in manuscript tradition, both inAuraicept na n-Éces('The Scholars' Primer') andIn Lebor Ogaim('The Ogam Tract'). They were first discussed in modern times byRuaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh(1685), who took them at face value. The Auraicept itself is aware that not all names are known tree names: "Now all these are wood names such as are found in theOgham Book of Woods,and are not derived from men ", admitting that" some of these trees are not known today ". The Auraicept gives a short phrase orkenningfor each letter, known as aBríatharogam,that traditionally accompanied each letter name, and a further gloss explaining their meanings and identifying the tree or plant linked to each letter. Only five of the twenty primary letters have tree names that the Auraicept considers comprehensible without further glosses, namelybeith"birch",fearn"alder",saille"willow",duir"oak" andcoll"hazel". All the other names have to be glossed or "translated".

According to the leading modern ogham scholar, Damian McManus, the "Tree Alphabet" idea dates to theOld Irishperiod (say, 10th century), but it postdates the Primitive Irish period, or at least the time when the letters were originally named. Its origin is probably due to the letters themselves being calledfeda"trees", ornin"forking branches" due to their shape. Since a few of the letters were, in fact, named after trees, the interpretation arose that they were calledfedabecause of that. Some of the other letter names had fallen out of use as independent words, and were thus free to be claimed as "Old Gaelic" tree names, while others (such asruis,úathorgort) were more or less forcefully reinterpreted as epithets of trees by the medieval glossators.

McManus (1991, §3.15) discusses possible etymologies of all the letter names, and as well as the five mentioned above, he adds one other definite tree name:onn"ash" (the Auraicept wrongly has "furze" ). McManus (1988, p. 164) also believes that the nameidadis probably an artificial form ofiubhar"yew", as the kennings support that meaning, and concedes thatailmmay possibly mean "pine tree," as it appears to be used to mean that in an 8th-century poem.Thus out of twenty letter names, only eight at most are the names of trees. The other names have a variety of meanings.

• Beith,Old IrishBeithemeans "birch-tree ", cognate to Middle Welshbedw.Latinbetulais considered a borrowing from the Gaulish cognate.
• Luis,Old IrishLuisis either related toluise"blaze" orlus"herb". The arboreal tradition hascaertheand"rowan".
• Fearn,Old IrishFernmeans "alder-tree ", Primitive Irish*wernā,so that the original value of the letter was[w].
• Sail,Old IrishSailmeans "willow-tree ", cognate to Latinsalix.
• Nion,Old IrishNinmeans either "fork" or "loft". The arboreal tradition hasuinnius"ash-tree".
• Uath,Old IrishÚathmeansúath"horror, fear"; the arboreal tradition has "white-thorn".The original etymology of the name, and the letter's value, are however unclear. McManus (1986) suggested a value[y].Peter Schrijver (see McManus 1991:37) suggested that ifúath"fear" is cognate with Latinpavere,a trace of PIE*pmight have survived into Primitive Irish, but there is no independent evidence for this.
• Dair,Old IrishDairmeans "oak"(PIE*doru-).
• Tinne,Old IrishTinnefrom the evidence of thekenningsmeans "bar of metal,ingot".The arboreal tradition hascuileand"holly".
• Coll,Old IrishCollmeant "hazel-tree ", cognate with Welshcollen,correctly glossed ascainfidh"fair-wood" ( "hazel" ) by the arboreal interpretation. Latincorulusorcorylusis cognate.
• Ceirt,Old IrishCertis cognate with Welshperth"bush", Latinquercus"oak" (PIE*perkwos). It was confused with Old Irishceirt"rag", reflected in the kennings. The Auraicept glossesaball"apple".
• Muin,Old IrishMuin:the kennings connect this name to three different words,muin"neck, upper part of the back",muin"wile, ruse", andmuin"love, esteem". The arboreal tradition hasfinemhain"vine".
• Gort,Old IrishGortmeans "field" (cognate togarden). The arboreal tradition hasedind"ivy".
• nGéadal,Old IrishGétalfrom the kennings has a meaning of "killing", maybe cognate togonid"slays", from PIEgwen-.The value of the letter in Primitive Irish, then, was a voiced labiovelar,[ɡʷ].The arboreal tradition glossescilcach,"broom"or"fern".
• Straif,Old IrishStraiphmeans "sulphur". The Primitive Irish letter value is uncertain, it may have been a sibilant different froms,which is taken bysail,maybe a reflex of/st/or/sw/.The arboreal tradition glossesdraighin"blackthorn".
• Ruis,Old IrishRuismeans "red" or "redness", glossed astrom"elder".
• Ailm,Old IrishAilmis of uncertain meaning, possibly "pine-tree". The Auraicept hascrand giuis.i. ochtach,"fir-tree "or"pinetree".
• Onn,Old IrishOnnmeans "ash-tree",although the Auraicept glossesaiten"furze".
• Úr,Old IrishÚr,based on the kennings, means "earth, clay, soil". The Auraicept glossesfraech"heath".
• Eadhadh,Old IrishEdadof unknown meaning. The Auraicept glossescrand fir no crithach"test-tree oraspen"
• Iodhadh,Old IrishIdadis of uncertain meaning, but is probably a form ofibhar"yew",which is the meaning given to it in the arboreal tradition.

Of theforfeda,four are glossed by the Auraicept:

• Eabhadh,Old IrishEbhadhwithcrithach"aspen";
• Ór,"gold" (from Latin aurum); the arboreal tradition hasfeorus no edind,"spindle tree or ivy"
• Uilleann,Old IrishUilleand"elbow"; the arboreal tradition hasedleand"honeysuckle"
• Pín,laterIfín,Old IrishIphinwithspinan no ispin"gooseberryor thorn ".

The fifth letter isemanchollwhich means 'twin of hazel'

Corpus

Main article:Ogham inscription

Ogham stone from the Isle of Man showing thedroimin the centre. Text reads BIVAIDONAS MAQI MUCOI CUNAVA[LI], or in English, "Of Bivaidonas, son of the tribe Cunava[li]".

Monumental ogham inscriptions are found in Ireland andWales,with a few additional specimens found in southwest England (DevonandCornwall), theIsle of Man,andScotland,includingShetlandanda single examplefromSilchesterand another fromCoventryin England. They were mainly employed as territorial markers and memorials (grave stones). The stone commemoratingVortiporius,a 6th-century king ofDyfed(originally located inClynderwen), is the only ogham stone inscription that bears the name of an identifiable individual.The language of the inscriptions is predominantlyPrimitive Irish;the few inscriptions in Scotland, such as theLunnasting stone,record fragments of what is probably thePictish language.

The more ancient examples arestanding stones,where the script was carved into the edge (droimorfaobhar) of the stone, which formed the stemline against which individual characters are cut. The text of these "Orthodox Ogham" inscriptions is read beginning from the bottom left-hand side of a stone, continuing upward along the edge, across the top and down the right-hand side (in the case of long inscriptions). Roughly 380 inscriptions are known in total (a number, incidentally, very close to the number of known inscriptions in the contemporaryElder Futhark), of which the highest concentration by far is found in the southwestern Irish province ofMunster.Over one-third of the total are found inCounty Kerryalone, most densely in the former kingdom of theCorcu Duibne.

Later inscriptions are known as "scholastic",and are post 6th century in date. The term 'scholastic' derives from the fact that the inscriptions are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript sources, instead of being continuations of the original monument tradition. Unlike orthodox ogham, some medieval inscriptions feature all fiveForfeda.Scholastic inscriptions are written on stemlines cut into the face of the stone, instead of along its edge. Ogham was also occasionally used for notes in manuscripts down to the 16th century. A modern ogham inscription is found on a gravestone dating to 1802 in Ahenny,County Tipperary.

In Scotland, a number of inscriptions using the ogham writing system are known, but their language is still the subject of debate. It has been argued by Richard Cox inThe Language of Ogham Inscriptions in Scotland(1999) that the language of these is Old Norse, but others remain unconvinced by this analysis, and regard the stones as beingPictishin origin. However, due to the lack of knowledge about the Picts, the inscriptions remain undeciphered, their language possibly being non-Indo-European.The Pictish inscriptions are scholastic, and are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript tradition brought into Scotland byGaelic settlers.

A rare example of a Christianised (cross-inscribed) Ogham stone can be seen inSt. Mary's Collegiate Church Gowran,County Kilkenny.

Non-monumental uses

As well as its use for monumental inscriptions, the evidence from early Irish sagas and legends indicate that ogham was used for short messages on wood or metal, either to relay messages or to denote ownership of the object inscribed. Some of these messages seem to have been cryptic in nature and some were also for magical purposes. In addition, there is evidence from sources such asIn Lebor Ogaim,or theOgham Tract,that ogham may have been used to keep records or lists, such as genealogies and numerical tallies of property and business transactions. There is also evidence that ogham may have been used as a system of finger or hand signals.

In later centuries when ogham ceased to be used as a practical Alpha bet, it retained its place in the learning of Gaelic scholars and poets as the basis of grammar and the rules of poetry. Indeed, until modern times the Latin Alpha bet in Gaelic continued to be taught using letter names borrowed from theBeith-Luis-Nin,along with the Medieval association of each letter with a different tree.

Samples

Further information:Ogham inscription

Ogham	Transliteration	English translation	Source
᚛ᚁᚔᚃᚐᚔᚇᚑᚅᚐᚄᚋᚐᚊᚔᚋᚒᚉᚑᚔ᚜ ᚛ᚉᚒᚅᚐᚃᚐ[ᚂᚔ]᚜	BIVAIDONAS MAQI MUCOI CUNAVA[LI]	"[Stone] of Bivaidonas, son of the tribe Cunava[li]"	Ballaqueeney Ogham Stone,Isle of Man
᚛ᚂᚓᚌᚌ[--]ᚄᚇ[--]ᚂᚓᚌᚓᚄᚉᚐᚇ᚜ ᚛ᚋᚐᚊ ᚉᚑᚏᚏᚁᚏᚔ ᚋᚐᚊ ᚐᚋᚋᚂᚂᚑᚌᚔᚈᚈ᚜	LEGG[...]SD[...]LEGESCAD MAQ CORRBRI MAQ AMMLLOGITT	"Legescad, son of Corrbrias, son of Ammllogitt"	Breastagh Ogham Stone,County Mayo,Ireland

Unicode

Main article:Ogham (Unicode block)

Ogham was added to theUnicodeStandard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.

The spelling of the names given is a standardisation dating to 1997, used in Unicode Standard and in Irish Standard 434:1999.

The Unicode block for ogham is U+1680–U+169F.

Ogham[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart(PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+168x

ᚁ

ᚂ

ᚃ

ᚄ

ᚅ

ᚆ

ᚇ

ᚈ

ᚉ

ᚊ

ᚋ

ᚌ

ᚍ

ᚎ

ᚏ

U+169x

ᚐ

ᚑ

ᚒ

ᚓ

ᚔ

ᚕ

ᚖ

ᚗ

ᚘ

ᚙ

ᚚ

᚛

᚜

Notes 1.^As of Unicode version 16.0 2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Neopaganism

ModernNew AgeandNeopaganapproaches to ogham largely derive from the now-discredited theories ofRobert Gravesin his bookThe White Goddess.In this work, Graves took his inspiration from the theories of the ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister (see above) and elaborated on them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham Alpha bet encoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle East inStone Agetimes, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Moon goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument is extremely complex, but in essence, he argues that the Hebrews, Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in the Aegean, called 'the people of the sea' by the Egyptians, who spread out around Europe in the 2nd millennium BC, taking their religious beliefs with them.He posits that at some early stage these teachings were encoded in Alpha bet form by poets to pass on their worship of the goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) in a secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, via the druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets of early Ireland and Wales. Graves, therefore, looked at the Tree Alphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the tree folklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of the letters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic".Although his theories have been discredited and discarded by modern scholars (including Macalister himself, with whom Graves corresponded),they were taken up with enthusiasm by some adherents of the neopagan movement. In addition, Graves followed the BLNFS order of ogham letters put forward by Macalister (see above), with the result taken up by many New Age and Neopagan writers as the 'correct' order of the letters, despite its rejection by scholars.

The main use of ogham by adherents ofNeo-druidismand other forms ofNeopaganismis for the purpose of divination. Divination with ogham symbols is possibly mentioned inTochmarc Étaíne,a tale in the IrishMythological Cycle,wherein thedruidDalan takes four wands of yew, and writes ogham letters upon them. Then he uses the tools for what some interpret as a form ofdivination.However, as the tale doesn't explain how the sticks are handled or interpreted, this theory is open to interpretation.A divination method invented by neopagans involves casting sticks upon a cloth marked out with a pattern, such asFinn's Window,and interpreting the patterns.The meanings assigned in these modern methods are usually based on the tree ogham, with each letter associated with a tree or plant, and meanings derived from these associations. While some use folklore for the meanings,Robert Graves' bookThe White Goddesscontinues to be a major influence on these methods and beliefs.

See also

• Auraicept na n-Éces
• Coelbren y Beirdd— A similar runic Alpha bet based on the Celticvigesimalsystem invented byIolo Morganwgfor the Welsh language.
• Ogham inscription
• Primitive Irish
• Runic Alpha bet
• Scottish Gaelic Alpha bet
• Star Carr Pendant
• Thaana— Script used to write theMaldivian languagewhere letters are based on numerals.

General and cited references

• Carney, James.The Invention of the Ogam Cipher'Ériu' 22, 1975, pp. 62–63, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy
• Düwel, Klaus.Runenkunde(runic studies). Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 1968.OCLC183700
• Forsyth, Katherine.The Ogham Inscriptions of Scotland: An Edited Corpus,PhD Dissertation, Harvard University (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1996).OCLC48938210
• Gippert, Jost; Hlaváček, Ivan; Homolka, Jaromír.Ogam. Eine frühe keltische Schrifterfindung,Praha: Charles University, 1992.ISBN80-901489-3-XOCLC39570484
• Macalister, Robert A. S.The Secret Languages of Ireland,pp. 27–36, Cambridge University Press, 1937
• Macalister, Robert A. S.Corpus inscriptionum insularum celticarum.First edition. Dublin: Stationery Office, 1945–1949.OCLC71392234
• McManus, Damian.Ogam: Archaizing, Orthography and the Authenticity of the Manuscript Key to the Alphabet,Ériu 37, 1988, 1–31. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.OCLC56088345
• McManus, Damian.A Guide to Ogam,Maynooth 1991.ISBN1-870684-17-6OCLC24181838
• MacNeill, Eoin.Archaisms in the Ogham Inscriptions,'Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy' 39, pp. 33–53, Dublin
• O'Brien, Michael A., ed. (1962).Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae.Vol. 1. Kelleher, John V. (intro. in the reprints of 1976 and 2005). Dublin:DIAS.ISBN0901282316.OCLC56540733.
• Raftery, Barry.A Late Ogham Inscription from Co. Tipperary,Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 99, 1969.ISSN0035-9106OCLC6906544
• Swift, C.Ogam Stones and the Earliest Irish Christians,Maynooth: Dept. of Old and Middle Irish, St. Patrick's College, 1997.ISBN0-901519-98-7OCLC37398935
• Ranke-Graves, Robert von.Die Weisse Göttin: Sprache des Mythos(The White Goddess),ISBN978-3-499-55416-2OCLC52100148,several re-editions, but rarely available. Editions available in German and English.
• Sims-Williams, Patrick.The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain: Phonology and Chronology, c. 400–1200. (Publications of the Philological Society 37)Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.ISBN1-4051-0903-3
• Thurneysen, Rudolf.Zum Ogam,Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 61 (1937), pp. 188–208.
• Vendryès, Joseph.L'écriture ogamique et ses originesÉtudes Celtiques, 4 (1941), pp. 83–116.

External links

• Description and history of the ogham script
• TITUS:The Ogham Script& ProjectOgamica
• Every Ogham Thing on the Web
• Irish Ogham Stones
• The Ogham Stone
• Pictish Ogham Inscriptions
• Ogham in 3D project, a collection of 3D models and meta-data of Ogham stones