Ogham Letter Assignments - Ballymote Akkadian 1300's CE

Most Ogham runestones would have been originally placed at various sacred groves around the landscape.

Letter Matches to Ogham In Book of Ballymote

By David Olmsted December 16, 2024

ᚐ ᚑ ᚒ ᚓ ᚔ ᚁ ᚂ ᚃ ᚄ ᚅ ᚋ ᚌ ᚍ ᚎ ᚏ ᚆ ᚇ ᚈ ᚉ ᚊ Ogham
A ' U/W E Y/I R P Ṣ Š N M Ṭ Z B G Ḫ D T K S Akkadian/Pre-Oppression (New)
A O U E I B L V S N M G G2 Z R H D T C Q Post-Oppression Lettering

X = (letter divider)> = (end of sentence)

All Irish texts before the arrival of the Normans between 1150 and 1200 CE were written in Akkadian (even the glosses in early parchment texts). The Normans as part of their controlling strategy suppressed any last remnants of Irish Christianity and Irish Druidry in favor of state controlled Catholic Christianity. This caused the letters to change sounds as they were adapted for writing the native Irish spoken language. Yet, Ogham was developed during the pre-oppression Akkadian era around 500 CE as a way to silently communicate by hand. Why this was done is unknown. Consequently, Akkadian letter assignments must be used for Ogham.

For a more detailed description of how Norman King Henry II of England established his control in Ireland and handed church control over to the Roman Catholic church see Veach (2024). The only problem with this paper is its portrayal of the Irish takeover as an English conquest when in fact it was still a French/Latin speaking Norman conquest occurring only 90 years after their invasion of England in 1066. Edward I (king 1272 to 1307) was the first king who spoke English during his reign. It was only during this time that the nobility started speaking English (Middle English) thus becoming English. (Starkey, 2010)

Reference

Colin Veach (November 4, 2024) From Kingdom to Colony: Framing the English Conquest of Ireland. The English Historical Review, ceae210, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae210 also https://academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ehr/ceae210/7875032?login=false

Starkey, David (2010). Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9780007307715.

Page 360 from the book Book of Ballymote was compiled towards the end of the 1300's at the castle of Ballymote for Tonnaltagh McDonagh of Ireland. The chief compiler was Manus O'Duignan, one of a family who were scribes to the McDonagh and the McDermots. Other scribes of the book were Solomon O'Droma, a member of a famous County Fermanagh family, and a Robert McSheedy. The book is a compilation of older works, mostly loose manuscripts and valuable documents handed down from antiquity that came into possession of McDonagh.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ballymote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._Stewart_Macalister

Photo from Wikimedia commons at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Book_of_Ballymote_170r.jpg

General Reference

https://www.ogham.academy/blog/ogham-alphabet-sources
Macalister, R A Stewart. 1945. Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum CelticarumVolume 1. Online at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Corpus_Inscriptionum_Insularum_Celticaru/4jgaAAAAYAAJ?hl=en

Akkadian Ogham Letter Assignments

(December 11, 2024) The top 4 rows show Celtic Ogham being translated in the Book of Ballymote. Notice the small marks are all vowels.

Rows 5 through 7 show Nordic Ogham with their side branches.

Further down the ogham is being used for occultic mysticism based on its number of strokes without reference to their Akkadian meanings (which had likely been forgotten by this time). The top 4 rows seem to be a set of mystic chants just sounding out the ogham letters. These are its Ogham -Middle Irish/Akkadian letter assignments from the top lines: (Letter assignments using Northern Letter Lineage Chart)

ᚁ = R
ᚂ = P
ᚃ = Ṣ
ᚄ = Š
ᚅ = N
ᚋ = M
ᚌ = Ṭ
ᚍ = Z
ᚎ = B
ᚏ = G
ᚐ = A
ᚑ = '
ᚒ = U
ᚓ = E
ᚔ = I
ᚆ = Ḫ
ᚇ = D
ᚈ = T
ᚉ = K
ᚊ = S

Letters missing Q, Z

This means that the original hypothesis about ogham by Irish scholar R. A. S. Macalister (July 1870 – 26 April 1950) was mostly correct. He believed that because ogham consists of four groups of five letters in a sequence of strokes from one to five that it was a finger alphabet. Furthermore, that the ogham was invented as a secret system of finger signs in Cisalpine Gaul around 600 BC by Gaulish Druids, inspired by a form of the Greek alphabet current in Northern Italy (which we now know is runic Akkadian). According to this idea, the alphabet was transmitted in oral form or on wood only, until it was finally put into a permanent form on stone inscriptions in the early British Celtic lands. (in the introduction of Macalister, 1945)

(December 12, 2024) This is a scan of the Ogham letter assignments R.A.S Macalister made using the Book of Ballymote which seems to have been the consensus at the time. Unfortunately he and his collegues were mostly wrong in trying to assign letters from the modern Latin and Irish alphabet to Akkadian runic letters.

Reference

Macalister, R A Stewart. 1945. Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum CelticarumVolume 1. Online at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Corpus_Inscriptionum_Insularum_Celticaru/4jgaAAAAYAAJ?hl=en

Standard Ogham Letter Assignments Used Today Originated From Non-Akkadian Ballymote Letter Assignments

(December 12, 2024) Standard Ogham letter assignments used today as listed in Wikipedia. Only the vowels are similar to those of the Ballymote Ogahm Letter Assignments. These seem to have originated is "assuming" all other runestones having ogham were bilingual in some fashion, that is, the ogham text mirrored that of the runic text.

These bilingual assumptions are false. Additionally their runic translations are all wrong with them being assumed to be some sort of Latin like letters. Even so, the only Ogham translations ever achieved with those letter assignments were names and names are just linguistic cheats because they can cluster any arbitrary set of letters.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham

(December 13, 2024) All that is known about this possible Ogham style is from this one line on the Ballymote ogham page. Even the author of the Ballymote book could not give a complete letter assignment.

Scan from David Stifter via Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/davidstifter.bsky.social

Changing Irish Letter Assignments

(December 13, 2024) Another page from the Book of Ballymote showing how the Irish language was undergoing rapid change at this time. This list gives the newly evolving sounds to the letters where the traditional Greek letter names no longer fit. This is why applying recent Irish language letter sounds to ogham does not work. Its letter assignments have to be based on what was current at the time and that is Akkadian lettering.

The rightmost column lists the alphabet in order as they understood it: top to bottom, left to right.

Ogham Stone Distribution

(December 17, 2024) Most are in Ireland, Cornwall and Wales.

References

Macalister, R A Stewart. 1945. Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum CelticarumVolume 1. In the back appendix. Online at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Corpus_Inscriptionum_Insularum_Celticaru/4jgaAAAAYAAJ?hl=en

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