Old Irish
Old Irish was the Goidelic language in the Middle Ages. People spoke Old Irish in Ireland, before the year 1000 AD.[1] Old Irish was a Goidelic language, and modern Goidelic languages like Irish and Scots Gaelic came from it.[2]
| Old Irish | |
|---|---|
| ᚛ᚃᚘᚇᚓᚂ᚜ | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈɸia̯ðel] |
| Region | Ireland and your colonies in Man, Wales, Scotland, Devon and Cornwall |
| Era | 6th–10th century; evolved into Mid Irish by around the 10th century |
Indo-European
| |
| Ogham | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | sga |
| ISO 639-3 | sga |
| Glottolog | oldi1246 |
History
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People speaking Insular Celtic languages probably first came to Ireland at the start of the Iron Age, about 500 BC.[3] By around 500 AD, people in Ireland all had the same Goidelic language and culture.[4] Speakers of Old Irish began to move to Britain as Britain became weaker.[5] Other peoples of Britain named these people the Scot.[6]
Old Irish was the only language in the Goidelic languages until Old Irish split into the modern Goidelic languages of Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx.[7] These languages are Insular Celtic languages and part of the bigger group of Celtic languages.[8]
Phonology
changeConsonants
changeThe consonant inventory of Old Irish is shown in the chart below. The complexity of Old Irish phonology is from a four-way split of phonemes inherited from Primitive Irish, with both a fortis–lenis and a "broad–slender" (velarised vs. palatalised) distinction arising from historical changes. The sounds /ɸ v θ ð x ɣ h ṽ n l r/ are the broad lenis equivalents of broad fortis /p b t d k ɡ s m N L R/; likewise for the slender (palatalised) equivalents. (However, most /ɸ ɸʲ/ sounds actually derive historically from /w/, since /p/ was relatively rare in Old Irish, being a recent import from other languages such as Latin.) |}
1The short diphthong ŏu likely existed very early in the Old Irish period, but merged with /u/ later on and in many instances was replaced with /o/ due to paradigmatic levelling. It is attested once in the phrase i routh by the prima manus of the Würzburg Glosses.[9]
/æ ~ œ/ arose from the u-infection of stressed /a/ by a /u/ that preceded a palatalized consonant. This vowel faced much inconsistency in spelling, often detectable by a word containing it being variably spelled with 
au, ai, e, i, or u across attestations.
References
change- ↑ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2015) [2010]. "Old Irish". Oxford Dictionary of English (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199571123.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-172766-5. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
- ↑ Cite error: The named reference
:2was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ Welch, Robert (2003) [2000]. The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780192800800.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-280080-0.
- ↑ Cite error: The named reference
:4was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ Cite error: The named reference
:5was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ Cite error: The named reference
:6was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ Cite error: The named reference
:7was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ Cite error: The named reference
:8was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ David Greene (1976). "The Diphthongs of Old Irish". Ériu. 27: 26–45. JSTOR 30007667.