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Ogham

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: ogham

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Irish ogham, from Middle Irish ogam, from Proto-Celtic *ogmos (furrow, path), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂óǵmos.

The Irish word is frequently folk-etymologized as og-úaim, referring to ogham being supposedly made by the point of a sharp weapon, but this approach faces serious phonological and morphological problems in that:[1]

  • The name of ogham and the supposed second element (úaimm (seam)?) inflected very differently in Early Irish, "ogham" being an o-stem and the second element being a neuter n-stem.
  • Middle Irish ogmóir (skilled in ogham) should have a vowel in between the g and m because vowels lengthened by compensatory lengthening after consonant loss are usually not syncopated in Early Irish.

Pronunciation

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Proper noun

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Ogham

  1. An ancient Celtic alphabet historically used to write Primitive Irish.
    • 2024 May 8, Dalya Alberge, “Teacher finds stone with ancient ogham writing from Ireland in Coventry garden”, in The Guardian[2], →ISSN:
      The rectangular sandstone rock that Graham Senior had discovered was inscribed in ogham, an alphabet used in the early medieval period primarily for writing in the Irish language.

Usage notes

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The pronunciation /ˈoʊ.əm/ more closely matches the modern Irish pronunciation of the word ([ˈoːmˠ], [ˈoːəmˠ]), but the pronunciation /ˈɒɡəm/, based on the spelling and the Old Irish pronunciation, is also common in English.

Derived terms

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Noun

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Ogham (plural Oghams)

  1. A single character in this alphabet.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Stifter, David (2023 February 20) “What does the word ogam mean and where does the name come from?”, in Megan Kasten, editor, OG(H)AM[1]

Anagrams

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