Ogham Consaine
Eric Stevens
ancient vowelless form of Ogham. Amongst them was the URL
http://members.tripod.com/Taliere/ogham.htm from which I quoted:
"The earliest form of the Ogham, according to tradition, was
composed of the fifteen letters of the consonants, Ogham
Consaine ... "
That there was ever such an early form of Ogham has long been denied
by John Byrne (JMB) and severely doubted by Searles O'Dubhain.
Accordingly I wrote to to the author of the above text and asked him
why he believed there was an early vowelless form of Ogham. As you
will see by what follows, Kevin Jones, the author is an Ogham scholar
of long standing. The following is the part of his reply which he has
given me permission to quote:
Begin quote
===============================
Ah! That site. I wasn't aware it was there until a
couple of days ago. It's an old work of mine,
hand-written maybe 20 years back, polished up on WP
5.1 maybe ten years ago, and republished without its
references - or me knowing about it, come to that. It
also misses out on it's companion article, which dates
from about eight to ten years back which had a look at
modern ideas on the origin of the Ogham.
Having read it over after all these years, it could do
with revision - I write rather better these days, and
I've been through the academic mill since then.
> "The earliest form of the Ogham, according to
> tradition, was composed of the fifteen letters of the
> consonants, Ogham Consaine. "
>
> I wanted to know what the basis was for that
> statement.
--- personal note snipped ----
I was referring to the Book of Ballymote; I was
actually looking at a translation of the text while
revising the work. It's a piddling passage and easily
missed, BTW.
The Book of Ballymote is 14th century work, attributed
to to Flann Mainistrech (d 1056 AD). However, Flann
was probably, in part, similarly compiling earlier
material, rather than inventing things. It is
therefore not wise to say that because the Book of
Ballymote is 14th century, its contents are no older
than the 14th century. It would equally be rash to
argue that if the traditional attribution is correct,
the ideas are no older than the 11th century.
There tends to be a pattern in Irish literature of
successive authors recompiling past material ad
infinitum, and texts can have an ancient origin. For
example, although recension B1 of Audacht
Morainn is 16th century, it faithfully preserves the
archaic spelling of a much earlier period. It is
probable, on the evidence, that Audacht Morainn was
originally compiled in the 7th century, However, there
are multiple pointers to even earlier material, such
as the use of a probable pre-Christian British Latin
loan word and the term 'Aithechtuatha' to refer to a
particular group in Ireland. 'Aithechtuatha'
Latinises as Attacotti, who appear in accounts of the
'Barbarian Conspiracy'. Cath Maighe Tuired has a
similarly extended history; what we basically have in
Harleian 5280 is an 11th century redaction of an early
9th century compilation of much older Old Irish
materials, which may themselves have archaic roots
(Gray 1982, 1, 11, 13-20).
One can reasonably say that this was the traditional
position on Ogham Consaine by the 14th century,
because that's what the Book of Ballymote is saying.
It does leave you with the problem of how old that
tradition is. Given the traditional attribution, there
is a good chance that it is at least 300 years older.
It may in fact be much older; I'd have to re-research
the matter to give a firmer idea on this, but it is in
no way impossible.
Presumably the filidh had good reason for holding the
position that the earliest Ogham was Ogham Consaine.
Now it might not be possible to prove that
historically this was the case - this is however
irrelevant. We are talking about the traditional view
of the Ogham, not historical exactitude. As far as the
filidh were concerned it was, and this no doubt
reflected their understanding of what the Ogham was
and why it was. Now it all depends on what the filidh
meant by 'earliest'.
I have met members of old Irish poetic families
(mostly from the Gaeltacht) who use Ogham Consaine as
the basis of a teaching aid for an esoteric
understanding of things. This is in line with that
hinted at in a manuscript translation of the Book of
Ballymote by J McQuige that's in the British Museum.
"From whence come the figures and names in the
explanation of B, L and N in Ogham? Answer: From the
branches and limbs of the oak tree: they formed ideas
which they expressed in sounds, i.e. as the stalk of
the bush is the noblest part; . . . the branches of
the wood give figures for the branches and veins in
Ogham, chief of all."
One lady was taught this material - which she called
the explanation - back in the 40's. The basis of this
explanation is not whether Ogham Consaine was the
original historical Ogham (that's actually
irrelevant), but that the derivation of Aicme B and H
from Aicme A is central to understanding the esoteric
ideas. These ideas BTW are not mainstream European
stuff in any way, but are rooted in the culture and
tradition of places like the Gaeltacht. In short, it's
another bit of misdirection by the filidh - they've
pointed you away from what they're talking about and
towards history, and written the (partial) explanation
backwards. You have to bear in mind that they were
tricky folk, and from a very different culture. BTW,
applying such knowledge was considered by such
families to be a denial of baptism; maintaining
tradition was however was a duty.
Of course, this could be argued to be a post-Book of
Ballymote tradition - but then you'd be looking at a
tradition that is a minimum of 700 years old (rather
older than many British traditions), and more probably
1000 or more years old. BTW, it should be recalled
that it was the Irish rural folk who first taught the
academics how to read Ogham, and that they were
carving it on things like carts while academics were
still trying to work out what it said.
Do not underestimate the filidh BTW; they were not
stupid people. In modern terms they would be PhD
polymaths who would regard the Times crossword puzzle
as an elementary diversion. They also had
corkscrew-like minds, which becomes apparent if you
get familiar with their material. They were rarely
direct with anything important, and were likely to
leave the unitiated reader to misdirect themselves, as
above. As the opening paragraphs of the Auraicept say,
"much has been added by way of misdirection"; if you
try and read it only for the surface meaning, you
won't make head nor tail of it. They deliberately play
fast and loose with a variety of myths to state things
in a disguised way. It isn't ignorance; words were
their trade and they use them like lawyers. They also
use wordplay and even multilingual puns which may have
nonsensical surface meanings (the meaning is the
unwritten pun). Such writings were, in their words,
"not for rustics and herdsmen" - in short, it was not
enough to be able to merely read. Material like the
Auraicept and the Book of Ballymote were their
professional works. In fact the Auraicept, in modern
terms, is an undergrad text book suitable for
freshmen. All in all, the modern academic who assumes
that they know more than the filidh may well come
badly unstuck; you're dealing with a bunch of highly
qualified professional academics who were not about to
put the secrets of their profession in the open.
Incidentally the method behind Ogham Consaine is what
is technically called positional encoding; a common
example would be that rather old schoolboy cipher
using a box. In fact none of the ideas in Ogham
Consaine is inherently novel, and they are all fairly
ancient. Encoding vowels is known from the writings of
Greek strategos in the fourth century BC, while
positional encoding was used in Roman military
signalling (it may even be earlier). The idea of using
paired letters for encoding isn't new either - it is,
for example, found in the Kama Sutra. OTOH, medieval
ciphers had a tendency to be very much more complex
than this, which suggests on those grounds alone that
the ideas are rather older than the date of the
surviving text.
Anyway, there's a 19th century translation or two of
Ballymote and, if I recall correctly, the relevant
passage also appears in the Auraicept Na N'Eces.
==========================
End quote
On the basis of the above it does seem as though a piddling and easily
missed passage in the Book of Ballymote lends credibility to the idea
of an ancient vowelless form of Ogham.
That there is no evidence for such a form of Ogham has been at the
heart of most of the many attacks and accusations levelled at Larry
Athy's paper. It now seems that his critics may be entirely wrong, at
least in this respect.
Eric Stevens
Tom McDonald
Eric,
Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
critical for the language, as apparently Irish is). Also, it
isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
talking somewhat past each other.
Tom McDonald
--
remove 'nohormel' to reply
Larry Athy
- Note that Kevin Jones makes reference to a possible Phoenician origin
for Ogam.
- If you recall, I have previously posted the fact that I had
identified a later Phoenician variation, carved in the Olmec area in
Mexico. There are later vowelless Ogam inscriptions nearby.
- Thus we have: Phoenicia, Mexico, U.S.A., and Atlantic coast of
Europe, in that order.
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Searles O'Dubhain
{This is exactly what I've been saying, Eric. It's only taken you a year
to catch on. Please see references below)
LOL!!!
"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
news:mr7jpvk41c74alqi8...@4ax.com...
> A few days ago I posted a number of references to their being an an
> ancient vowelless form of Ogham. Amongst them was the URL
> http://members.tripod.com/Taliere/ogham.htm from which I quoted:
>
> "The earliest form of the Ogham, according to tradition, was
> composed of the fifteen letters of the consonants, Ogham
> Consaine ... "
>
> That there was ever such an early form of Ogham has long been denied
> by John Byrne (JMB) and severely doubted by Searles O'Dubhain.
> Accordingly I wrote to to the author of the above text and asked him
> why he believed there was an early vowelless form of Ogham. As you
> will see by what follows, Kevin Jones, the author is an Ogham scholar
> of long standing. The following is the part of his reply which he has
> given me permission to quote:
>
> Begin quote
> ===============================
> Ah! That site. I wasn't aware it was there until a
> couple of days ago. It's an old work of mine,
> hand-written maybe 20 years back, polished up on WP
<big snip>
Now Eric,
Please refer to these postings by me and then read what Kevin wrote for
comprehension this time and *do* note the dates:
From: "Searles O'Dubhain" <odub...@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
References: <648a75e3.03101...@posting.google.com>
<mct5pv4n9kaidreml...@4ax.com>
<bmv0sr$36l$1...@kermit.esat.net> <c9mdnfSx7_d...@giganews.com>
<XIUkb.830672$Ho3.234373@sccrnsc03>
Subject: Re: [OT] The Folly of Ogam Consaine (vowelless ogham)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 20:28:00 -0400
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"Richard Flavin" <rdfl...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:XIUkb.830672$Ho3.234373@sccrnsc03...
> Searles O'Dubhain wrote:
> > "JMB" <j...@utvinternet.ie> wrote in message
> > news:bmv0sr$36l$1...@kermit.esat.net...
> > <snip>
> >
> >>>Also, at http://members.tripod.com/Taliere/ogham.htm tou will find
> >>>Kevin Jones writing:
> >>>
> >>> "The earliest form of the Ogham, according to tradition, was
> >>> composed of the fifteen letters of the consonants, Ogham
> >>> Consaine. "
> >>>
> >>
> >>Its a pity that he doesn't give a source. I have emailed the site
to
> >
> > ask if
> >
> >>they have any older sources for the term than Dineen's dictionary,
and
> >
> > will
> >
> >>let everyone know if/when I get a response.
> >>
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > I'll forward this to Kevin directly to see if he has the reference.
I've
> > seen it mentioned in references to the Book of Ballymote, but have
never
> > actually seen a proper folio citation or the actual text myself. In
the
> > references I've seen, vowels are said to be replaced by "pairs" of
> > consonants in words. That is to say, that a vowel consisting of a
single
> > stroke across the flesc is replaced by those with single strokes
from
> > both aicme Beithe and aicme hUath. In this case, only consonantal
> > strokes are used but vowels are implied by grouping the consonant
> > strokes or "decoding" them in pairs. The same sort of thing is done
with
> > Collogam.
> >
> > Searles
>
LOL!!!
That's not the first time I mentioned the passage that you seem to think
is news. Here's a few more instances:
LOL!!!
[beginning of LOL!!! postings]
From: "Searles O'Dubhain" <odub...@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
References: <648a75e3.03101...@posting.google.com>
<mct5pv4n9kaidreml...@4ax.com>
<bmv0sr$36l$1...@kermit.esat.net>
Subject: Re: [OT] The Folly of Ogam Consaine (vowelless ogham)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 05:58:37 -0400
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"JMB" <j...@utvinternet.ie> wrote in message
news:bmv0sr$36l$1...@kermit.esat.net...
<snip>
> >
> > Also, at http://members.tripod.com/Taliere/ogham.htm tou will find
> > Kevin Jones writing:
> >
> > "The earliest form of the Ogham, according to tradition, was
> > composed of the fifteen letters of the consonants, Ogham
> > Consaine. "
> >
>
> Its a pity that he doesn't give a source. I have emailed the site to
ask if
> they have any older sources for the term than Dineen's dictionary, and
will
> let everyone know if/when I get a response.
>
<snip>
I'll forward this to Kevin directly to see if he has the reference. I've
seen it mentioned in references to the Book of Ballymote, but have never
actually seen a proper folio citation or the actual text myself. In the
references I've seen, vowels are said to be replaced by "pairs" of
consonants in words. That is to say, that a vowel consisting of a single
stroke across the flesc is replaced by those with single strokes from
both aicme Beithe and aicme hUath. In this case, only consonantal
strokes are used but vowels are implied by grouping the consonant
strokes or "decoding" them in pairs. The same sort of thing is done with
Collogam.
Searles
LOL!!!
[End of LOL!!! quoted postings]
Let's go back even further shall we???
:-)
[more postings by me about this passage from the Book of Ballymote and
the first of these in reply to you]
:-)
***
From: "Searles O'Dubhain" <odub...@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
References: <JqmcnSzjVtl...@comcast.com>
<14413-3E...@storefull-2231.public.lawson.webtv.net>
<S8CcnaJoLpp...@comcast.com>
<hkcp0vsmnlhal69o1...@4ax.com>
<auik74$7ma56$1...@ID-167714.news.dfncis.de>
Subject: Re: Earliest attested Ogham
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 17:03:16 -0600
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"JMB" <j...@utvinternet.ie> wrote in message
news:auik74$7ma56$1...@ID-167714.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "Eric Stevens" <eric.s...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:hkcp0vsmnlhal69o1...@4ax.com...
> > On Fri, 27 Dec 2002 07:22:11 -0600, "Searles O'Dubhain"
> > <odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >"Larry Athy" <marth...@webtv.net> wrote in message
> > >news:14413-3E...@storefull-2231.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> > >> On Sat, Dec 21, 2002, 12:14pm and 12:35pm, our SOD posted his
dirt
> > >here
> > >> twice and again managed to say nothing deserving of a reply. I
have
> > >> answered all previously, but he does not understand any of it.
> > >> -
> > >
> > >I don't accept your opinions as fact ...
> >
> > Aah - but you do if they come from someone named Macalister or
> > McManus.
>
> The difference is, they provided genuine, and testable, proof to
support
> their opinions.
>
Another thing to be understood is that McManus and Macalister build upon
the book of Ballymote's information. Where they disagree, they provide
well researched and stated evidence to substantiate their positions.
This is unlike certain people who post in this newsgroup.
> >
> > > .. nor do I believe that your
> > >evaluations are unbiased. I believe that you are letting your
emotions
> > >guide your logic and that you have clearly bought into some false
and
> > >far-out ideas about Ogam and ancient history as well.
> >
> > Apart from the possible existence of the vowelless form of the Ogham
> > script, the questionable ideas come after the symbol count,
statistics
> > etc, not before. There is some justification for the idea that there
> > is a vowelless form of the Ogham script and Larry's statistics
appear
> > to reinforce that.
>
> What justification is that Eric? Larry's flawed analysis doesn't
justify
> it, and neither do any of the ridiculous "translations" made by the
likes of
> Fell.
To my knowledge, no one has presented evidence of a vowelless Ogam
script. The actual Ogam Consaine mentioned by
Owen Row ÓSúileabháin has vowels that are expressed as combinations of
consonants. If anyone uses Ogam Consaine to transliterate an
inscription, I'd expect them to find vowels expressed as consonant pairs
and not a lack of vowels at all (or even made-up vowels).
It's also important to know that the selection of the samples is as
important or more so than the actual processing of the data. If the
samples are invalid, then the analysis has no chance of being correct.
Searles
[end of first :-) reply to Eric's lack of memory and reaqding
comprehension]]
:-)
[Next :-) in a reply to larry I actually made a punny use of the Book of
Ballymote's "Ogham Coansaine"}
:-) :-)
From: "Searles O'Dubhain" <odub...@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
References: <CO2dnTmnqcl...@comcast.com>
<20243-3DF...@storefull-2232.public.lawson.webtv.net>
Subject: Re: Earliest attested Ogham
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 12:25:48 -0600
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"Larry Athy" <marth...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:20243-3DF...@storefull-2232.public.lawson.webtv.net...
<snip of a bunch of attempts to give Larry some clarity so that I might
finallybring some to Eric>
The facts of Ogam can be a friend or an enemy. That you have chosen to
oppose the facts places you squarely in the appropriate field. Perhaps
your clan badge is "Straif" or perhaps it is "Ruis?" I think the latter
of the two more appropriate as a briatharogam for Ruis means a
"reddening of faces." I picture you in this way, sometimes red-faced
through anger and obstinacy and at other times embarrassed. The
briatharogam kennings for this character are:
The Word Ogham of Morann Mac Main: Tinnem ruccae ('intensest of blushes
').
The Word Ogham of Cú Chulainn: Bruth fergae ('glow of anger').
The Word Ogham of Mac ind Óic: Ruamna dreach ('redness of face').
I think most will agree with me that all three apply to you and your
behavior here in this newsgroup. You should have an intense blush of
embarrasment. Perhaps I'll call you Ruamna Dreach from now (or RD for
short)? (In "Ogam Consaine" RD could also be considered to be "Rude"
though it's probably "RuaDh" (as in face). :-)
Searles
[end of the "punny" second :-) attempt to show how to read for
comprehension]
I think my references to the Book of Ballymote's mention of this type of
"Ogham Consaine" goes back for years. Here's one:
Re: Earliest attested Ogham
... Larry *made up* the form that he calls vowelless Ogham. Even Ogham
Consaine has
vowels in it (they are represented using pairs of characters for
consonants). ...
sci.archaeology - Nov 19, 2002 by Searles O'Dubhain - View Thread (990
articles)
[the snipped and relevant text follows]
From: Searles O'Dubhain (odub...@comcast.net)
Subject: Re: Earliest attested Ogham
View: Complete Thread (990 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Date: 2002-11-19 22:45:42 PST
"Seppo Renfors" <Sen...@not.ollis.com.au> wrote in message
news:3DDAD73B...@not.ollis.com.au...
> <snip of superfluous comments>
>
> This may be so, but unless there are vowels in the script, how do you
> know they exist? You cannot claim the the theory is wrong, unless you
> can provide the proof -eg an example of vowels in said script claimed
> to be vowel less. Till then it is fair to term it as "vowel less" as
> an identifier. After all, about the only thing you don't apply the
> name Ogam to is the leprechauns (well not yet anyway). Why then are
> you are hell bent on denying Larry's definition?
>
He's not saying anything and is attempting to define a new form of Ogham
without substantiation. In short, he is adding confusion where clarity
is needed. I think your talk about leprechauns is beneath you but I may
well be wrong. There are many strange things in the worlds but
leprechauns and Hell are two that are more illusion and fabrication than
anything else. I don't believe in either except as parts of folklore and
myth. As far as Hell is concerned and as Odran said to Columcille, it is
not as we've been told it is.
> > > Therefor resulting in
> > > a vowel less script.
> > >
> >
> > It results in a script in the sense that names and messages have
been
> > written without vowels using a *form* of Ogham that allows for each
> > letter to represent a name or a phrase.
>
> Well the question is "Does it have vowels or not", if you say "yes",
> point them out! If you say "no", then it is a vowel less script.
> Simple as that.
>
The Ogham forms after which the inscriptions are modeled do *indeed*
have vowels though some of the inscriptions may not contain them. It's
that simple. Larry *made up* the form that he calls vowelless Ogham.
Even Ogham Consaine has vowels in it (they are represented using pairs
of characters for consonants).
Searles O'Dubhain
Searles O'Dubhain
"Tom McDonald" <tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote in message
news:vpjj677...@corp.supernews.com...
<snip>
>
> Eric,
>
> Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
> Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
> of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
> ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
> critical for the language, as apparently Irish is). Also, it
> isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
> Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
> Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
> his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
> statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
> sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
> talking somewhat past each other.
>
> Tom McDonald
Tom,
I've mentioned this instance of "Ogham Consaine" from the Book of
Ballymote in this newsgroup for about a year now. I've known and
corresponded with Kevin Jones about the Ogham for about 8 years. He and
I share many interests (one of them being Ogham; others being
archaeology and Celtic traditions).
Searles
Searles O'Dubhain
I think it's time to perhaps invite Kevin here to discuss these matters
since it's very dangerous for accuracy to rely on second hand
quotations.
Searles
Eric Stevens
<tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote:
--- snip ----
>Eric,
>
> Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
>Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
>of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
>ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
>critical for the language, as apparently Irish is).
I agree, part of Ken Jones email is consonant with what Searles has
written However other parts are in direct contradiction to what John
Byrne has written and similarly makes a statement about a
consonants-only Ogham which Searles has just told us he is (most?)
reluctant to buy.
>Also, it
>isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
>Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
>Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
>his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
>statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
>sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
>talking somewhat past each other.
I'm not really concerned at this stage with Larry's theory as I am
with those determined objectors who have repeatedly told us in one
form or another that Ogham consaine is a figment of Barry Fell's
imagination while the description if Dineen's Irish-English dictionary
is a product of alcoholic maunderings.
It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts' there
is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment of
somebody else's imagination. It also may greatly weaken the various
attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine. It certainly opens up
the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
could be correct.
It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
certainly wrong. It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
details of a script, the existence of which he denies. As far as I can
tell, JMB's vowelless script is not the same as Larry's and is likely
to be wrong.
The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at the
heart of Larry's paper. Matters of time depth and Larry's theories as
to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If Kevin
Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major arguments
used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
That's interesting.
In Message-ID: <IrRV8.70263$vq.32...@bin6.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>
You denied the existence of Ogham consaine when you wrote:
"Larry has never presented any other argument than his fudged
data, his altered 'Classic Ogham' and his support of the
non-existent and non-proven Ogham Consaine."
The first suggestion that you might have shifted your view came in
Message-ID: <t-udnU-h9Ik...@giganews.com> on 22 December 2002
when you wrote:
"I wasn't appealing to the Book of Ballymote regarding the
invention of Ogham. The versions of its invention that are
given there are mytho-poetical and not to be taken literally. I
was merely noting that I'd seen a mention for a type of Ogham
that used only consonants (even though pairs of consonants
were used to represent vowels). I also thought that I'd clearly
stated that I had not personally seen this reference in the
Book of Ballymote (meaning verified for my self)."
So at that stage, you hadn't actually identified the reference in the
Book of Ballymote and wrote of it being used to code vowels by pairs
of consonants.
In any case, the good thing is that are prepared to accept the
existence of an ancient Ogham consaine, even though it may have been
used to code vowels.
The question is, is there any evidence that Macalister etc ever
consider any of the more inscrutable inscriptions as being written in
Ogham consaine?
Eric Stevens
Searles O'Dubhain
<snip>
>
> So at that stage, you hadn't actually identified the reference in the
> Book of Ballymote and wrote of it being used to code vowels by pairs
> of consonants.
>
I wrote about it in November and December of *LAST YEAR*.
> In any case, the good thing is that are prepared to accept the
> existence of an ancient Ogham consaine, even though it may have been
> used to code vowels.
I've *ALWAYS* said that inscriptions can be made using consonants. What
is disputed is Larry's use of obvious vowel markings as consonants and
his steadfastly maintaining that there aren't any vowels in some
versions of Ogham. There most certainly *ARE* vowels even in "Ogham
Consaine." In Ogham Consaine (as it's reported by Kevin Jones and Nigel
Pennick in the Book of Ballymote) the vowels are represented by the
strokes in pairs of consonants (those having the *SAME* number of
strokes as the vowel marking in Ogham Craoibh and Scholastic Ogham).
> The question is, is there any evidence that Macalister etc ever
> consider any of the more inscrutable inscriptions as being written in
> Ogham consaine?
>
Macalister acknowledged that two of the functions of Ogham are magical
and for use in encryption. According to what I've read by Macalister,
either function was a possibility for the "inscrutable inscriptions"
though other likely functions were as hoaxes, padding of letter counts
to increase fees and outright ignorance of the Ogham script/language
(and yes Macalister did think Ogham represented a variety of language
forms in spoken, written and signed Irish). I've specifically looked for
references to Ogham Consaine in Macalister's writings and have found
none to date. One would think that Fell and even Larry would have made
mention of such notable support for their theories if it had every
occurred by one so acknowledged for skill and knowledge about Ogham.
Searles
Searles O'Dubhain
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:06:16 -0500, Tom McDonald
> <tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote:
>
> --- snip ----
>
> >Eric,
> >
> > Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
> >Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
> >of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
> >ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
> >critical for the language, as apparently Irish is).
>
> I agree, part of Ken Jones email is consonant with what Searles has
> written However other parts are in direct contradiction to what John
> Byrne has written and similarly makes a statement about a
> consonants-only Ogham which Searles has just told us he is (most?)
> reluctant to buy.
>
First of all, the man's name is Kevin Jones. Secondly, I am on record in
the Google archives about acknowledging the existence of a form called
Ogham Consaine that was reported to be in the Book of Ballymote. What I
don't buy into is transcribing vowels as consonants when vowels are
obviously also present in other forms within inscriptions. As far as
whether vowels can be lines or points, that's certainly something that
I've always said and understood about Ogham. When scores that can
possibly be vowels or consonants in an inscription, it has always been
my practice to attempt reading using both transliterations and to choose
the ones that make the most sense if a meaningful translation can also
be accomplished. It is certainly true that I am very reluctant to buy
anything Larry or others of his ilk are selling about Ogham, considering
their non-scholarly and rigorous (some would say "profane" and these
would be the people actually credited with the invention, teaching, use
and preservation of Ogham) approach to the subject.
> >Also, it
> >isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
> >Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
> >Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
> >his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
> >statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
> >sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
> >talking somewhat past each other.
>
> I'm not really concerned at this stage with Larry's theory as I am
> with those determined objectors who have repeatedly told us in one
> form or another that Ogham consaine is a figment of Barry Fell's
> imagination while the description if Dineen's Irish-English dictionary
> is a product of alcoholic maunderings.
>
As Barry Fell chose to interpret Ogam Consaine, it is a figment of his
active imagination. The name might be the only thing that Fell, Dinneen,
and the Book of Ballymote have in common regarding the "Ogham Consaine."
You do understand what the differences are don't you?
> It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts' there
> is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
There is a reported mention of an Ogham form to be in the Book of
Ballymote that is called Ogham Consaine. I have *YET* to see and actual
reference in the BB itself. That you pronounce things about Ogham and
castigate "experts" seems to be the pot calling the kettle black. :-)
> This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment of
> somebody else's imagination.
It certainly does no such thing. Perhaps those who look at the surface
of such things would be misled. I hope you look beyond the surface to
what is actually reported about what the Book of Ballymote is saying as
contrasted to what Fell and Larry are saying. If you don't, you will be
looking very foolish indeed.
> It also may greatly weaken the various
> attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
> inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine.
I don't think so since Larry most certainly did edit and selectively
choose his database. This has been noted and identified by several
people here on this newsgroup on more than one occasion.
>It certainly opens up
> the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
> force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
> could be correct.
That's a very small possibility; what I'd describe as a "Stevens"
possibility. These are the remotely possible but highly unlikely events
that can occur in any reality according to probability theory and
assuming one has unlimited time for seeking and space in which to
explore. :-)
> It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
> form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
> certainly wrong.
It does no such thing at all. I hope you'll eventually remove the rose
colored glasses and the blinders.
> The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at the
> heart of Larry's paper. Matters of time depth and Larry's theories as
> to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If Kevin
> Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major arguments
> used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
I'm awaiting Kevin's appearance on this newsgroup to provide some
clarity on the subject. He and I don't always agree about items related
to traditions and even some things about the Ogham but he is very
thorough and fair in his statements and his research. He's also a person
who studies and is degreed in Archaeology that takes the unconventional
and creative approach. I respect him and his opinions very much, unlike
others who don't have much truth in them and/or who can only defend
their positions through ignoring logic and making ad hominem attacks.
Searles
Richard Flavin
How very metrosexual... I can't wait for the next episode of SOUTH PARK.
RDF
--
Flavin's Corner:
http://www.flavinscorner.com
Eric Stevens
<odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>news:2gvjpvkseaegj7bk9...@4ax.com...
>
><snip>
>
>>
>> So at that stage, you hadn't actually identified the reference in the
>> Book of Ballymote and wrote of it being used to code vowels by pairs
>> of consonants.
>>
>
>I wrote about it in November and December of *LAST YEAR*.
>
>> In any case, the good thing is that are prepared to accept the
>> existence of an ancient Ogham consaine, even though it may have been
>> used to code vowels.
>
>I've *ALWAYS* said that inscriptions can be made using consonants. What
>is disputed is Larry's use of obvious vowel markings as consonants and
>his steadfastly maintaining that there aren't any vowels in some
>versions of Ogham. There most certainly *ARE* vowels even in "Ogham
>Consaine." In Ogham Consaine (as it's reported by Kevin Jones and Nigel
>Pennick in the Book of Ballymote) the vowels are represented by the
>strokes in pairs of consonants (those having the *SAME* number of
>strokes as the vowel marking in Ogham Craoibh and Scholastic Ogham).
Is that a fudge or have I long been understanding you? The accepted
view of Ogham is that vowels are expressed by strokes or dots. Larry
has been proposing the use of an Ogham script which contained no
vowels. You seem now to be saying that this vowelless script could be
used to encode vowels and therefore is not vowelless. Are you agreeing
with Larry about there being an Ogham script which did not use vowels
butb which could be used to encode vowels? Are you also disagreeing
with Larry when you say this script was not used in the ordinary
course of events to write messages without vowels?
>
>> The question is, is there any evidence that Macalister etc ever
>> consider any of the more inscrutable inscriptions as being written in
>> Ogham consaine?
>>
>
>Macalister acknowledged that two of the functions of Ogham are magical
>and for use in encryption. According to what I've read by Macalister,
>either function was a possibility for the "inscrutable inscriptions"
>though other likely functions were as hoaxes, padding of letter counts
>to increase fees and outright ignorance of the Ogham script/language
>(and yes Macalister did think Ogham represented a variety of language
>forms in spoken, written and signed Irish). I've specifically looked for
>references to Ogham Consaine in Macalister's writings and have found
>none to date.
Which suggests he may not have considered it - may not even known of
it.
>One would think that Fell and even Larry would have made
>mention of such notable support for their theories if it had every
>occurred by one so acknowledged for skill and knowledge about Ogham.
Which has no bearing on the matter of support for Ogham consaine in
the Book of Ballymote.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
<odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>news:9ltjpv0t0gp0ir5uu...@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:06:16 -0500, Tom McDonald
>> <tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote:
>>
>> --- snip ----
>>
>> >Eric,
>> >
>> > Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
>> >Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
>> >of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
>> >ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
>> >critical for the language, as apparently Irish is).
>>
>> I agree, part of Ken Jones email is consonant with what Searles has
>> written However other parts are in direct contradiction to what John
>> Byrne has written and similarly makes a statement about a
>> consonants-only Ogham which Searles has just told us he is (most?)
>> reluctant to buy.
>>
>
>First of all, the man's name is Kevin Jones. Secondly, I am on record in
>the Google archives about acknowledging the existence of a form called
>Ogham Consaine that was reported to be in the Book of Ballymote.
Yes, belatedly, and with no sign of withdrawing your earlier
criticisms of Larry made on the basis that there was no such script.
>What I
>don't buy into is transcribing vowels as consonants when vowels are
>obviously also present in other forms within inscriptions.
It all depends on how firm your knowledge is of the ancient
inscriptions and what you understand to be the form of the vowelless
Ogham.
This has nothing to do with Barry Fell.
>
>> It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts' there
>> is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
>
>There is a reported mention of an Ogham form to be in the Book of
>Ballymote that is called Ogham Consaine. I have *YET* to see and actual
>reference in the BB itself. That you pronounce things about Ogham and
>castigate "experts" seems to be the pot calling the kettle black. :-)
Oh dear. I have been castigated by 'experts' for a long time on the
grounds that I am discussing something that is not defined by the Book
of Ballymote. Now I find that it likely has been present in the book
for several centuries. Do you blame me for now retaliating at the
self-appointed experts who have heaped all kinds of crap on me for so
long? You are by no means the worst offender and you may remember the
number of times I have attempted to draw JMB's attention to the fact
that the certainty with which he 'knows' things may not be justified.
>
>> This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment of
>> somebody else's imagination.
>
>It certainly does no such thing. Perhaps those who look at the surface
>of such things would be misled. I hope you look beyond the surface to
>what is actually reported about what the Book of Ballymote is saying as
>contrasted to what Fell and Larry are saying. If you don't, you will be
>looking very foolish indeed.
Stop trying to drag Fell in to the argument. This is the worst kind of
arguing by innuendo.
>
>> It also may greatly weaken the various
>> attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
>> inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine.
>
>I don't think so since Larry most certainly did edit and selectively
>choose his database. This has been noted and identified by several
>people here on this newsgroup on more than one occasion.
Several - you and JMB? People who at the time denied even the
possibility of vowelless Ogham?
>
>>It certainly opens up
>> the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
>> force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
>> could be correct.
>
>
>That's a very small possibility; what I'd describe as a "Stevens"
>possibility. These are the remotely possible but highly unlikely events
>that can occur in any reality according to probability theory and
>assuming one has unlimited time for seeking and space in which to
>explore. :-)
See - here we go. Innuendo again. If the inscriptions really are
written in a vowelless form of Ogham, someone who only knew a vowelled
form of Ogham is likely to use every trick in the book that they knew,
to extract a reading from the inscriptions in the only form of Ogham
that they knew. I wouldn't blame them. They would be only human to do
so.
>
>> It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
>> form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
>> certainly wrong.
>
>It does no such thing at all. I hope you'll eventually remove the rose
>colored glasses and the blinders.
Presumably in an attempt to appear to be arguing from a stronger
position than you have, you have deleted part of what I wrote without
indicating the fact. Immediately following the above I had written:
"It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
details of a script, the existence of which he denies.
As far as I can tell, JMB's vowelless script is not the
same as Larry's and is likely to be wrong."
It seems you are wearing the optical filter glasses and you are the
one who is editing scripts.
>
>> The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at the
>> heart of Larry's paper. Matters of time depth and Larry's theories as
>> to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If Kevin
>> Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major arguments
>> used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
>
>I'm awaiting Kevin's appearance on this newsgroup to provide some
>clarity on the subject. He and I don't always agree about items related
>to traditions and even some things about the Ogham but he is very
>thorough and fair in his statements and his research. He's also a person
>who studies and is degreed in Archaeology that takes the unconventional
>and creative approach. I respect him and his opinions very much, unlike
>others who don't have much truth in them and/or who can only defend
>their positions through ignoring logic and making ad hominem attacks.
>
Glass houses Searles, glass houses ...
Eric Stevens
JMB
Everything he has said here is in agreement with what you have been told
over the last two years. There is no vowelless Ogham recorded in the Book
of Ballymote. The Ogham Consaine that is referenced above is in no way the
same as the Ogham Consaine used by Fell, Larry et al. They inscriptions
referenced above have vowels, those claimed by Fell and Larry do not.
--
John Byrne
www.iol.ie/~archaeology
To email me use the feedback form on the website.
The address attached to this post is just a spam trap.
JMB
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:06:16 -0500, Tom McDonald
> <tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote:
>
> --- snip ----
>
> >Eric,
> >
> > Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
> >Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
> >of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
> >ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
> >critical for the language, as apparently Irish is).
>
> I agree, part of Ken Jones email is consonant with what Searles has
> written However other parts are in direct contradiction to what John
> Byrne
No its not. When I have used the term Ogham Consaine, I have specifically
being refering to Fell, Larry et al's usage of the term.
> has written and similarly makes a statement about a
> consonants-only Ogham which Searles has just told us he is (most?)
> reluctant to buy.
No it doesn't. It refers to a form of Ogham that contains vowels, but they
are encoded.
>
> >Also, it
> >isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
> >Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
> >Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
> >his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
> >statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
> >sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
> >talking somewhat past each other.
>
> I'm not really concerned at this stage with Larry's theory as I am
> with those determined objectors who have repeatedly told us in one
> form or another that Ogham consaine is a figment of Barry Fell's
> imagination
It is. Fell's form of Ogham Consaine is nothing like the form mentioned by
Kevin Jones, or the BoB.
> while the description if Dineen's Irish-English dictionary
> is a product of alcoholic maunderings.
Dineen doesn't give a description, he only gives a one word translation,
which he makes clear comes from a poem not from the Irish language.
>
> It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts' there
> is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
You are talking about a completely different thing, that uses a similar term
to describe it by Kevin Jones.
>
> This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment of
> somebody else's imagination.
No it doesn't. The same term is used for two totally different things.
> It also may greatly weaken the various
> attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
> inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine.
No it doesn't, it strenghtens them. Not only does it confirm that vowel
marks should not be read as consonants, it is showing a very real
possibility that some inscriptions that only contain consonant marks should
in fact have those marks transliterated as vowels.
> It certainly opens up
> the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
> force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
> could be correct.
I think you have either ignored, or misunderstood, what Kevin has wrote
about the form he is refering to as Ogham Consaine. It is nothing like the
form that Fell et al refer to as Ogham Consaine.
>
> It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
> form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
> certainly wrong.
Of course its wrong, that's why I didn't publish those readings. The only
reason I tried them was to find out wjat Larry had actually done since he
will not show us his readings.
> It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
> details of a script, the existence of which he denies.
And the existence of which has still to be supported by anyone other than
Fell et al.
> As far as I can
> tell, JMB's vowelless script is not the same as Larry's and is likely
> to be wrong.
Its obviously wrong, and so is Larry's. I have published the readings as
they should be if read correctly, although even that may by missing vowels
if any of them are written in Ogham Consaine as described by Searles and
Kevin Jones.
>
> The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at the
> heart of Larry's paper.
Yes, the question of the existence of Ogham consaine as used by Larry and
Fell. Coming up with a reference to another form of Ogham that uses the
term does not support Larry's claims, it actually puts yet more nails in the
coffin.
> Matters of time depth and Larry's theories as
> to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If Kevin
> Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major arguments
> used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
Actually, it has been strenghtened. The form of Ogham is what is important,
not the term used to describe it.
>
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
Searles O'Dubhain
> On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 01:08:12 -0400, "Searles O'Dubhain"
> <odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> >news:2gvjpvkseaegj7bk9...@4ax.com...
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >>
> >> So at that stage, you hadn't actually identified the reference in the
> >> Book of Ballymote and wrote of it being used to code vowels by pairs
> >> of consonants.
> >>
> >
> >I wrote about it in November and December of *LAST YEAR*.
> >
> >> In any case, the good thing is that are prepared to accept the
> >> existence of an ancient Ogham consaine, even though it may have been
> >> used to code vowels.
> >
> >I've *ALWAYS* said that inscriptions can be made using consonants. What
> >is disputed is Larry's use of obvious vowel markings as consonants and
> >his steadfastly maintaining that there aren't any vowels in some
> >versions of Ogham. There most certainly *ARE* vowels even in "Ogham
> >Consaine." In Ogham Consaine (as it's reported by Kevin Jones and Nigel
> >Pennick in the Book of Ballymote) the vowels are represented by the
> >strokes in pairs of consonants (those having the *SAME* number of
> >strokes as the vowel marking in Ogham Craoibh and Scholastic Ogham).
>
> Is that a fudge or have I long been understanding you?
Your understanding of what I've said has been very poor. I assume this
is because you've been overlooking any facts that don't support the
position that you embrace. If that's not the reason for your confusion
about what I've said, then I'm at a loss to understand how you could
do so. How can it be a fudge when what I've said now and recently
agrees with what I've said specificallyt over the past year and in
general with what I've always said?
> The accepted
> view of Ogham is that vowels are expressed by strokes or dots.
Actually, vowels are expressed by perpendicular strokes to the
stemline, by dots on the stemline, and by the complex symbols known
collectively as the Forfedha.
> Larry
> has been proposing the use of an Ogham script which contained no
> vowels.
Larry has said that no matter how the strokes are made in his BI-1
corpus, they can only be transliterated as consonants.
> You seem now to be saying that this vowelless script could be
> used to encode vowels and therefore is not vowelless.
I'm not sayingthat at all. What I am saying is that the vowels are
said to be encoded or represented in the form known as Ogham Consaine
with paired strokes. If these paired strokes were transliterated
singly, then they would be transcribed as being consonants. The
transliteration is the key to determining if there are vowels or not
in an inscription of this sort. A great deal of how the rules are
applied depends on whether meaning can be had from selecting a vowels
or consonants transliteration. It's not a strictly one way or the
other process. It depends on the intelligence that can be derived from
applying either approach. That's the way of it with any Ogham
tranliteration and/or translation. There are about 90 different Ogham
forms/alphabets that can be used to transliterate an inscription. Most
inscriptions are in the two or three most prevelant forms.
> Are you agreeing
> with Larry about there being an Ogham script which did not use vowels
> butb which could be used to encode vowels?
I have plainly stated tha the form (Ogham Consaine) reported by Jones
and Pennick to be in the BB can be used that way. I don't think this
is what Larry is saying or what he has done however.
> Are you also disagreeing
> with Larry when you say this script was not used in the ordinary
> course of events to write messages without vowels?
I don't know of any recognized Ogham inscriptions on stone that have
been done using this Ogham form. I don't agree with what Larry has
said about the BI-1 corpus.
> >
> >> The question is, is there any evidence that Macalister etc ever
> >> consider any of the more inscrutable inscriptions as being written in
> >> Ogham consaine?
> >>
> >
> >Macalister acknowledged that two of the functions of Ogham are magical
> >and for use in encryption. According to what I've read by Macalister,
> >either function was a possibility for the "inscrutable inscriptions"
> >though other likely functions were as hoaxes, padding of letter counts
> >to increase fees and outright ignorance of the Ogham script/language
> >(and yes Macalister did think Ogham represented a variety of language
> >forms in spoken, written and signed Irish). I've specifically looked for
> >references to Ogham Consaine in Macalister's writings and have found
> >none to date.
>
> Which suggests he may not have considered it - may not even known of
> it.
I don't think that's what it suggests at all. I think that Macalister
was probably aware of it and did not find any instances of Ogham
Consaine in his CIIC inscriptions. Judging from the amunt of work he
did on Ogham and its usages in encryption, I'm convinced that he most
probably considered Ogham Consaine for those inscriptions and rejected
it because using it to decode the strokes did not supply viable
translations after transliteration.
>
> >One would think that Fell and even Larry would have made
> >mention of such notable support for their theories if it had every
> >occurred by one so acknowledged for skill and knowledge about Ogham.
>
> Which has no bearing on the matter of support for Ogham consaine in
> the Book of Ballymote.
>
Of course not but it does say a lot about their lack of rigorous
scholarship and study in the matter.:-)
Searles
Eric Stevens
O'Dubhain) wrote:
Are you saying your recent secondhand discovery of the mention of
vowelless Ogham in the Book of Ballymote continues to support your
long standing views about (and I quote from you) "the non-existent and
non-proven Ogham Consaine"? The only person I know of who could
maintain the same views in the face of such a reversal was a Roman
god.
>
>> The accepted
>> view of Ogham is that vowels are expressed by strokes or dots.
>
>
>Actually, vowels are expressed by perpendicular strokes to the
>stemline, by dots on the stemline, and by the complex symbols known
>collectively as the Forfedha.
Are you saying there are no scripts which use dots for vowels?
>
>> Larry
>> has been proposing the use of an Ogham script which contained no
>> vowels.
>
>Larry has said that no matter how the strokes are made in his BI-1
>corpus, they can only be transliterated as consonants.
For the purpose of his trial, that is correct.
>
>> You seem now to be saying that this vowelless script could be
>> used to encode vowels and therefore is not vowelless.
>
>I'm not sayingthat at all. What I am saying is that the vowels are
>said to be encoded or represented in the form known as Ogham Consaine
>with paired strokes. If these paired strokes were transliterated
>singly, then they would be transcribed as being consonants.
That's fair enough then. The first step is to transliterate the
characters - all consonants. Larry did not proceed to the next stage
which is the translation of possible vowelled consonant pairs to
vowels. All he was doing was a simple caharcter count with all the
single characters bein consonants.
>The
>transliteration is the key to determining if there are vowels or not
>in an inscription of this sort. A great deal of how the rules are
>applied depends on whether meaning can be had from selecting a vowels
>or consonants transliteration. It's not a strictly one way or the
>other process. It depends on the intelligence that can be derived from
>applying either approach. That's the way of it with any Ogham
>tranliteration and/or translation. There are about 90 different Ogham
>forms/alphabets that can be used to transliterate an inscription. Most
>inscriptions are in the two or three most prevelant forms.
>
>> Are you agreeing
>> with Larry about there being an Ogham script which did not use vowels
>> butb which could be used to encode vowels?
>
>I have plainly stated tha the form (Ogham Consaine) reported by Jones
>and Pennick to be in the BB can be used that way. I don't think this
>is what Larry is saying or what he has done however.
He certainly has been long claiming the existence of a vowelless
Ogham, irrespective of whther or not it could be used to encode
vowels.
>
>> Are you also disagreeing
>> with Larry when you say this script was not used in the ordinary
>> course of events to write messages without vowels?
>
>I don't know of any recognized Ogham inscriptions on stone that have
>been done using this Ogham form. I don't agree with what Larry has
>said about the BI-1 corpus.
OK, but I didn't ask those questoins.
>
>
>> >
>> >> The question is, is there any evidence that Macalister etc ever
>> >> consider any of the more inscrutable inscriptions as being written in
>> >> Ogham consaine?
>> >>
>> >
>> >Macalister acknowledged that two of the functions of Ogham are magical
>> >and for use in encryption. According to what I've read by Macalister,
>> >either function was a possibility for the "inscrutable inscriptions"
>> >though other likely functions were as hoaxes, padding of letter counts
>> >to increase fees and outright ignorance of the Ogham script/language
>> >(and yes Macalister did think Ogham represented a variety of language
>> >forms in spoken, written and signed Irish). I've specifically looked for
>> >references to Ogham Consaine in Macalister's writings and have found
>> >none to date.
>>
>> Which suggests he may not have considered it - may not even known of
>> it.
>
>I don't think that's what it suggests at all. I think that Macalister
>was probably aware of it ...
Do you have any evidence that supports that view?
> ... and did not find any instances of Ogham
>Consaine in his CIIC inscriptions. Judging from the amunt of work he
>did on Ogham and its usages in encryption, I'm convinced that he most
>probably considered Ogham Consaine for those inscriptions and rejected
>it because using it to decode the strokes did not supply viable
>translations after transliteration.
One possible explanation is that he was using the wrong script.
>
>>
>> >One would think that Fell and even Larry would have made
>> >mention of such notable support for their theories if it had every
>> >occurred by one so acknowledged for skill and knowledge about Ogham.
>>
>> Which has no bearing on the matter of support for Ogham consaine in
>> the Book of Ballymote.
>>
>
>Of course not but it does say a lot about their lack of rigorous
>scholarship and study in the matter.:-)
You are welcome to debate that in another thread.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
>"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>news:9ltjpv0t0gp0ir5uu...@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:06:16 -0500, Tom McDonald
>> <tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote:
>>
>> --- snip ----
>>
>> >Eric,
>> >
>> > Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
>> >Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
>> >of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
>> >ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
>> >critical for the language, as apparently Irish is).
>>
>> I agree, part of Ken Jones email is consonant with what Searles has
>> written However other parts are in direct contradiction to what John
>> Byrne
>
>No its not. When I have used the term Ogham Consaine, I have specifically
>being refering to Fell, Larry et al's usage of the term.
Yet, right up to Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 you have been prepared to say
"that the only scholarly reference to Ogham Consaine, isn't actually a
reference to Vowelless Ogham, but a made up word for a poem."
In other words, only a few days ago _you_had_no_idea_ that Ognham
Consaine was mentioned in the Book of Ballymote. You will remember
that I have repeatedly warned you about the folly of attributing too
much certainty to what you know.
>
>> has written and similarly makes a statement about a
>> consonants-only Ogham which Searles has just told us he is (most?)
>> reluctant to buy.
>
>No it doesn't. It refers to a form of Ogham that contains vowels, but they
>are encoded.
I can encode the full set ASCII characters a hexadecimal binary. That
doesn't make hexadecimal binary ASCII. BY the same token, the fact
that you can encode vowels in a vowelless Ogham script does not mean
that the script has become vowelled.
>
>>
>> >Also, it
>> >isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
>> >Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
>> >Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
>> >his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
>> >statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
>> >sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
>> >talking somewhat past each other.
>>
>> I'm not really concerned at this stage with Larry's theory as I am
>> with those determined objectors who have repeatedly told us in one
>> form or another that Ogham consaine is a figment of Barry Fell's
>> imagination
>
>It is. Fell's form of Ogham Consaine is nothing like the form mentioned by
>Kevin Jones, or the BoB.
That would be fine if we were discussing Fell. If you want to do so I
suggest you go and join Searles who has trailed the same red herring.
>
>> while the description if Dineen's Irish-English dictionary
>> is a product of alcoholic maunderings.
>
>Dineen doesn't give a description, he only gives a one word translation,
>which he makes clear comes from a poem not from the Irish language.
You may now have to consider that the established explanatoin for
Dineen's usage may be wrong. Maybe he knew the Book of Ballymote
better than his critics.
>
>>
>> It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts' there
>> is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
>
>You are talking about a completely different thing, that uses a similar term
>to describe it by Kevin Jones.
You mean there is more than one form of authentic vowelless Ogham? It
wouldn't entirely surprise me but you are the first person to suggest
that.
>>
>> This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment of
>> somebody else's imagination.
>
>No it doesn't. The same term is used for two totally different things.
We are not talking about the term We are talking about vowelless
Ogham.
>
>> It also may greatly weaken the various
>> attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
>> inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine.
>
>No it doesn't, it strenghtens them. Not only does it confirm that vowel
>marks should not be read as consonants, it is showing a very real
>possibility that some inscriptions that only contain consonant marks should
>in fact have those marks transliterated as vowels.
But Larry was only doing a character count - a character count of
inscriptions which he considered may have been written using a
vowelless form of Ogham.
>
>> It certainly opens up
>> the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
>> force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
>> could be correct.
>
>I think you have either ignored, or misunderstood, what Kevin has wrote
>about the form he is refering to as Ogham Consaine. It is nothing like the
>form that Fell et al refer to as Ogham Consaine.
Please leave Fell out of it. The question is the conclusions that can
be drawn from your years of sustained denial of an an authentic and
ancient vowelless Ogham.
>
>>
>> It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
>> form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
>> certainly wrong.
>
>Of course its wrong, that's why I didn't publish those readings. The only
>reason I tried them was to find out wjat Larry had actually done since he
>will not show us his readings.
But if you have only just accepted the idea of a form of vowelless
Ogham, and you didn't use Larry's example of his Figure 1, what then
did you base your transliteration upon?
>
>> It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
>> details of a script, the existence of which he denies.
>
>And the existence of which has still to be supported by anyone other than
>Fell et al.
Red herring again. Have you forgotten the Book of Ballymote so
quickly?
>
>> As far as I can
>> tell, JMB's vowelless script is not the same as Larry's and is likely
>> to be wrong.
>
>Its obviously wrong, and so is Larry's. I have published the readings as
>they should be if read correctly, although even that may by missing vowels
>if any of them are written in Ogham Consaine as described by Searles and
>Kevin Jones.
But, as I have just pointed out above, it is impossible for you to
have got them entirely right except by chance.
>
>>
>> The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at the
>> heart of Larry's paper.
>
>Yes, the question of the existence of Ogham consaine as used by Larry and
>Fell. Coming up with a reference to another form of Ogham that uses the
>term does not support Larry's claims, it actually puts yet more nails in the
>coffin.
Wiggle wiggle little man. You have been hoist on the petard of your
own absolute certainty with the ultimate revelation of your ignorance
being the fuse.
>
>> Matters of time depth and Larry's theories as
>> to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If Kevin
>> Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major arguments
>> used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
>
>Actually, it has been strenghtened. The form of Ogham is what is important,
>not the term used to describe it.
That the form of Ogham is what is important, is what I have been
saying all along. I presume that is why you have spent so much time
arguing about the name 'Ogham Consaine'.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
Who cares whether or not it has been recorded. According to Kevin
Jones it has been referenced.
>The Ogham Consaine that is referenced above is in no way the
>same as the Ogham Consaine used by Fell, Larry et al.
Stop dragging Fell in. He's a red herring. How can you possibly know
whether it is the same as the Ogham used by Larry if you have spent
all the last several years denying there ever was a vowelless form of
Ogham? I know you are an expert in many things but I would not have
expected your expertise to extend to things you deny exist.
>They inscriptions
>referenced above have vowels, those claimed by Fell and Larry do not.
Eric Stevens
JMB
> On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 15:05:06 +0100, "JMB" <j...@utvinternet.ie> wrote:
>
> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> >news:9ltjpv0t0gp0ir5uu...@4ax.com...
> >> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:06:16 -0500, Tom McDonald
> >> <tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> --- snip ----
> >>
> >> >Eric,
> >> >
> >> > Interesting. However, Jones, when talking about vowelless
> >> >Ogham, seems to be consonent with Searles' recent discussions
> >> >of methods of indicating vowels, much as other consonant-only
> >> >ancient scripts (especially in languages where vowels are
> >> >critical for the language, as apparently Irish is).
> >>
> >> I agree, part of Ken Jones email is consonant with what Searles has
> >> written However other parts are in direct contradiction to what John
> >> Byrne
> >
> >No its not. When I have used the term Ogham Consaine, I have
specifically
> >being refering to Fell, Larry et al's usage of the term.
>
> Yet, right up to Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 you have been prepared to say
> "that the only scholarly reference to Ogham Consaine, isn't actually a
> reference to Vowelless Ogham, but a made up word for a poem."
Yes, and I still maintain that. The term Ogham Consaine is not used in the
Auraicept, and I would guess that those who use it for that Ogham probably
adopted its usage from Fell, but applied it to an actual form of Ogham
instead of a fistional form.
>
> In other words, only a few days ago _you_had_no_idea_ that Ognham
> Consaine was mentioned in the Book of Ballymote.
I had no idea that anyone was using that term to refer to it, that much is
correct, however I knew of the form of Ogham, and anyone who has been
reading Searles' posts would also know of it (I actually know of it from
other sources, although I think it was a reference from Searles a good while
back that put me on to it).
> You will remember
> that I have repeatedly warned you about the folly of attributing too
> much certainty to what you know.
There is a difference between a term and a form of Ogham.
> >
> >> has written and similarly makes a statement about a
> >> consonants-only Ogham which Searles has just told us he is (most?)
> >> reluctant to buy.
> >
> >No it doesn't. It refers to a form of Ogham that contains vowels, but
they
> >are encoded.
>
> I can encode the full set ASCII characters a hexadecimal binary. That
> doesn't make hexadecimal binary ASCII. BY the same token, the fact
> that you can encode vowels in a vowelless Ogham script does not mean
> that the script has become vowelled.
Eh, yes it does. It means that vowels are present. Do you even know what
form Fell's 'Ogham Consaine' takes?
> >
> >>
> >> >Also, it
> >> >isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
> >> >Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
> >> >Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
> >> >his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
> >> >statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
> >> >sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
> >> >talking somewhat past each other.
> >>
> >> I'm not really concerned at this stage with Larry's theory as I am
> >> with those determined objectors who have repeatedly told us in one
> >> form or another that Ogham consaine is a figment of Barry Fell's
> >> imagination
> >
> >It is. Fell's form of Ogham Consaine is nothing like the form mentioned
by
> >Kevin Jones, or the BoB.
>
> That would be fine if we were discussing Fell. If you want to do so I
> suggest you go and join Searles who has trailed the same red herring.
We are discussing Fell's form of Ogham Consaine, Larry has stated that in
the past. He just reckoned that Fell used the wrong language.
> >
> >> while the description if Dineen's Irish-English dictionary
> >> is a product of alcoholic maunderings.
> >
> >Dineen doesn't give a description, he only gives a one word translation,
> >which he makes clear comes from a poem not from the Irish language.
>
> You may now have to consider that the established explanatoin for
> Dineen's usage may be wrong.
No I don't, as Dineen himself is the one who established his explanation.
> Maybe he knew the Book of Ballymote
> better than his critics.
You need to read the introduction to his dictionary before you presume to
say what he did and didn't know.
> >
> >>
> >> It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts' there
> >> is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
> >
> >You are talking about a completely different thing, that uses a similar
term
> >to describe it by Kevin Jones.
>
> You mean there is more than one form of authentic vowelless Ogham?
No, I mean the form of Ogham that Kevin Jones, and Searles, have told you
about is not the same as the form the Fell, Larry et al refer to as 'Ogham
Consaine'.
> It
> wouldn't entirely surprise me but you are the first person to suggest
> that.
You need to pay more attention to what you are reading.
> >>
> >> This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment of
> >> somebody else's imagination.
> >
> >No it doesn't. The same term is used for two totally different things.
>
> We are not talking about the term We are talking about vowelless
> Ogham.
Which doesn't exist. All Ogham scripts have vowels, they just can take
different forms.
> >
> >> It also may greatly weaken the various
> >> attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
> >> inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine.
> >
> >No it doesn't, it strenghtens them. Not only does it confirm that vowel
> >marks should not be read as consonants, it is showing a very real
> >possibility that some inscriptions that only contain consonant marks
should
> >in fact have those marks transliterated as vowels.
>
> But Larry was only doing a character count - a character count of
> inscriptions which he considered may have been written using a
> vowelless form of Ogham.
Which caused him to ignore clear vowels. No Ogham script classes vowels as
consonants, but there is one that classes consonants as vowels.
> >
> >> It certainly opens up
> >> the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
> >> force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
> >> could be correct.
> >
> >I think you have either ignored, or misunderstood, what Kevin has wrote
> >about the form he is refering to as Ogham Consaine. It is nothing like
the
> >form that Fell et al refer to as Ogham Consaine.
>
> Please leave Fell out of it.
We can't. The Ogham Consaine that Larry uses is Fell's creation.
> The question is the conclusions that can
> be drawn from your years of sustained denial of an an authentic and
> ancient vowelless Ogham.
You have picked up someone using a term to refer to a type of Ogham about
which you know nothing. If you really want to learn, I suggest you stop
making assumptions and find out more about that form of Ogham that Kevin was
talking about.
> >
> >>
> >> It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
> >> form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
> >> certainly wrong.
> >
> >Of course its wrong, that's why I didn't publish those readings. The
only
> >reason I tried them was to find out wjat Larry had actually done since he
> >will not show us his readings.
>
> But if you have only just accepted the idea of a form of vowelless
> Ogham,
When did I do that? Nobody has mentioned a vowelless Ogham, they have just
mentioned a type of Ogham that uses consonant marks as vowels.
> and you didn't use Larry's example of his Figure 1, what then
> did you base your transliteration upon?
I transliterated according to the common Ogham script, and to get Larry's
numbers I assumed that any vowel marks were "M" group consonants. It didn't
work. But then, some new revelations have come out about the accuracy of
Larry's references.
> >
> >> It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
> >> details of a script, the existence of which he denies.
> >
> >And the existence of which has still to be supported by anyone other than
> >Fell et al.
>
> Red herring again. Have you forgotten the Book of Ballymote so
> quickly?
The BoB does not say anything about this form of Ogham.
> >
> >> As far as I can
> >> tell, JMB's vowelless script is not the same as Larry's and is likely
> >> to be wrong.
> >
> >Its obviously wrong, and so is Larry's. I have published the readings as
> >they should be if read correctly, although even that may by missing
vowels
> >if any of them are written in Ogham Consaine as described by Searles and
> >Kevin Jones.
>
> But, as I have just pointed out above, it is impossible for you to
> have got them entirely right except by chance.
??? This doesn't make sense. It is not impossible. If the Ogham form
mentioned in the Auraicept is used, then its just a matter of applying the
cipher.
> >
> >>
> >> The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at the
> >> heart of Larry's paper.
> >
> >Yes, the question of the existence of Ogham consaine as used by Larry and
> >Fell. Coming up with a reference to another form of Ogham that uses the
> >term does not support Larry's claims, it actually puts yet more nails in
the
> >coffin.
>
> Wiggle wiggle little man.
Eric, you really need to reseach the form of Ogham you have been told about
if you want to continue using condescending words and phrases, otherwise it
will just make you look more and more foolish.
> You have been hoist on the petard of your
> own absolute certainty with the ultimate revelation of your ignorance
> being the fuse.
You have latched upon someone's usage of a term to describe an actual form
of Ogham, and have tried to claim that this proves the existence of a
fictional form of Ogham which others have used the same phrase to describe.
That's just foolish. Not only does it show that you have done no research,
it shows that you are ignoring what you have been told. Its a case of you
putting your fingers in your ears and shoutinhg "NAH, NAH, NAH" when
something is being explained to you.
> >
> >> Matters of time depth and Larry's theories as
> >> to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If Kevin
> >> Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major arguments
> >> used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
> >
> >Actually, it has been strenghtened. The form of Ogham is what is
important,
> >not the term used to describe it.
>
> That the form of Ogham is what is important, is what I have been
> saying all along.
Well then, why are you harping on about Larry being vindicated due to an
entirely different form of Ogham using the same term?
> I presume that is why you have spent so much time
> arguing about the name 'Ogham Consaine'.
No, I have always used the term 'Ogham Consaine' in reference to Fell's
creation. When we have discussed it, it has always been in that context.
David Johnson
news:dcf478af.03102...@posting.google.com:
> Eric Stevens <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:<gmhkpvgon9oqk1rm1...@4ax.com>...
>> On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 01:08:12 -0400, "Searles O'Dubhain"
>> <odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>> >news:2gvjpvkseaegj7bk9...@4ax.com...
>> >
<snip>
> Larry has said that no matter how the strokes are made in his BI-1
> corpus, they can only be transliterated as consonants.
>
>> You seem now to be saying that this vowelless script could be
>> used to encode vowels and therefore is not vowelless.
>
> I'm not sayingthat at all. What I am saying is that the vowels are
> said to be encoded or represented in the form known as Ogham Consaine
> with paired strokes.
Eric, _please_ tell me you can see the difference between
fXXl
where the "X" (as a capital letter, as opposed to a small - closest I
can get to the style of ogham coding in ascii alphabet) is a code for a
vowel (and the scrip _isn't_ vowelless - it's right there, coded as a
capital "X")
and
fl
where the script is vowelless?
Larry (from what I can tell) is suggesting the there is an ogham were
you'd have to write it "fl" because there are no vowels in the alphabet.
That is _so_ not the same thing as using consonants in a special way as
a "secret code" for vowels.
David
(p.s.) "X" in this case is a secret code for "o"...
--
________________________________________________________________________
________________
David Johnson
home.earthlink.net/~trolleyfan
"You're a loony, you are!"
"They said that about Galileo, they said that about
Einstein..."
"Yeah, and they said it about a good few loonies, too!"
JMB
--SNIP--
> >Everything he has said here is in agreement with what you have been told
> >over the last two years. There is no vowelless Ogham recorded in the
Book
> >of Ballymote.
>
> Who cares whether or not it has been recorded. According to Kevin
> Jones it has been referenced.
No, he didn't say that. He told you about the same type of Ogham that
Searles has told you about. It is not the vowelless Ogham that Larry, Fell
et al has claimed existed.
>
> >The Ogham Consaine that is referenced above is in no way the
> >same as the Ogham Consaine used by Fell, Larry et al.
>
> Stop dragging Fell in.
How can we? The vowelless Ogham that Larry claims exists was Fell's
creation.
> He's a red herring. How can you possibly know
> whether it is the same as the Ogham used by Larry
Larry has told us, and has mentioned Fell many times in relation to it. He
only thinks Fell used the wrong language for translation.
> if you have spent
> all the last several years denying there ever was a vowelless form of
> Ogham?
And I still deny it. The Ogham you have been told about contains vowels.
> I know you are an expert in many things but I would not have
> expected your expertise to extend to things you deny exist.
I know about the Auraicept, and have read parts of it in translation. That
does not make me an expert, but it does mean that I at least know what I'm
talking about when discussing the parts I have read. I have also paid
attention to what both Searles and Kevin have written.
>
> >They inscriptions
> >referenced above have vowels, those claimed by Fell and Larry do not.
>
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
Larry Athy
- We have just witnessed a reversal of position by those who have been
maintaining that there is no such thing as vowelless Ogam. They now
admit that there is vowelless Ogam, but also claim that there are two
types. Perhaps so, perhaps not.
- My work has demonstrated that those inscriptions without vowels (that
use consonant symbols only and can not be read) all correlate with one
another and thus are all in the same unknown language. They do not
correlate at all well with the later Ogam with vowels (My BI-2) and are
thus in a different language.
- It has been suggested that some vowelless Ogam inscriptions use pairs
of consonants to represent vowels. That may, or may not, be true. One
wonders why they did not simply use vowels, which would be much simpler.
If this premise is correct, it could be extended so that all vowelless
inscriptions simply have vowels encoded as consonants. Thus they all
correlate well in their symbol counts.
- Even if that premise is correct, I can show that the vowelless Ogams
are definitely not in the same language as the later BI-2 inscriptions.
It is also a fact that the American Ogams are by far the earliest ones.
I now have additional evidence that they are related to middle eastern
scripts.
- It is interesting to suggest that the word "hello" could also be
written as "Hzzllgg". Perhaps they should start doing that in Ireland!!
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Eric Stevens
I can't say that such a code is not present in some of the
inscriptions. However, as far as I understand what Larry has been
doing with his HP-1 and BI-1 corpora, he is not looking for hidden
vowels. he is merely reading the scripts as though all the characters
are consonants. Although the author may have meant the 'XX' as a code
for a vowel, Larry has merely read it as two Xs's. It is not essential
that vowels had to be encoded in the script. There are a number of
ancient scripts which have no vowels. That includes the ancient greek
from which some think Ogham is descended. The reader has to
interpolate their own vowels when reading such a script.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
From his original quote and his response to me, Kevin Jones would not
agree with you. In any case, you can call it what you like. It's the
fact that there is ancient precedent for a vowelless Ogham script
which interests me.
>
>>
>> In other words, only a few days ago _you_had_no_idea_ that Ognham
>> Consaine was mentioned in the Book of Ballymote.
>
>I had no idea that anyone was using that term to refer to it, that much is
>correct, however I knew of the form of Ogham, and anyone who has been
>reading Searles' posts would also know of it (I actually know of it from
>other sources, although I think it was a reference from Searles a good while
>back that put me on to it).
>
>> You will remember
>> that I have repeatedly warned you about the folly of attributing too
>> much certainty to what you know.
>
>There is a difference between a term and a form of Ogham.
>
>> >
>> >> has written and similarly makes a statement about a
>> >> consonants-only Ogham which Searles has just told us he is (most?)
>> >> reluctant to buy.
>> >
>> >No it doesn't. It refers to a form of Ogham that contains vowels, but
>they
>> >are encoded.
>>
>> I can encode the full set ASCII characters a hexadecimal binary. That
>> doesn't make hexadecimal binary ASCII. BY the same token, the fact
>> that you can encode vowels in a vowelless Ogham script does not mean
>> that the script has become vowelled.
>
>Eh, yes it does. It means that vowels are present. Do you even know what
>form Fell's 'Ogham Consaine' takes?
So you are arguing that coding ASCII in hexadecimal makes hexadecimal
coding ASCII? All I can say is the message is not the medium and in
this case we are discussing the medium - a vowelless Ogham script. You
can code latitude and longitude in it for all I care but that does not
make it a chart.
At the moment we should confine ourselves to Larry Athy's clearly
stated vowelless Ogham.
>
>> >
>> >>
>> >> >Also, it
>> >> >isn't clear to me that the time-depth relates well with
>> >> >Larry's theory; and that the language is anything to do with
>> >> >Larry's ideas on BI-1. Larry has made specific claims about
>> >> >his BI-1. It seems necessary to compare, e.g., Jones'
>> >> >statement with Larry's views. It would be important to be
>> >> >sure that they are talking about the same things, and not
>> >> >talking somewhat past each other.
>> >>
>> >> I'm not really concerned at this stage with Larry's theory as I am
>> >> with those determined objectors who have repeatedly told us in one
>> >> form or another that Ogham consaine is a figment of Barry Fell's
>> >> imagination
>> >
>> >It is. Fell's form of Ogham Consaine is nothing like the form mentioned
>by
>> >Kevin Jones, or the BoB.
>>
>> That would be fine if we were discussing Fell. If you want to do so I
>> suggest you go and join Searles who has trailed the same red herring.
>
>We are discussing Fell's form of Ogham Consaine, Larry has stated that in
>the past.
Is that all you have to hang an argument re Fell on? Not even a
reference?
>He just reckoned that Fell used the wrong language.
Maybe Fell did. But what's that got to do with whether the Book of
Ballymote mentions an ancient vowelless form of Ogham?
>
>
>> >
>> >> while the description if Dineen's Irish-English dictionary
>> >> is a product of alcoholic maunderings.
>> >
>> >Dineen doesn't give a description, he only gives a one word translation,
>> >which he makes clear comes from a poem not from the Irish language.
>>
>> You may now have to consider that the established explanatoin for
>> Dineen's usage may be wrong.
>
>No I don't, as Dineen himself is the one who established his explanation.
>
>> Maybe he knew the Book of Ballymote
>> better than his critics.
>
>You need to read the introduction to his dictionary before you presume to
>say what he did and didn't know.
Quite right. What does he say?
>
>> >
>> >>
>> >> It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts' there
>> >> is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
>> >
>> >You are talking about a completely different thing, that uses a similar
>term
>> >to describe it by Kevin Jones.
>>
>> You mean there is more than one form of authentic vowelless Ogham?
>
>No, I mean the form of Ogham that Kevin Jones, and Searles, have told you
>about is not the same as the form the Fell, Larry et al refer to as 'Ogham
>Consaine'.
Then what is its form - the one you used to maintain did not exist?
>
>> It
>> wouldn't entirely surprise me but you are the first person to suggest
>> that.
>
>You need to pay more attention to what you are reading.
>
>> >>
>> >> This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment of
>> >> somebody else's imagination.
>> >
>> >No it doesn't. The same term is used for two totally different things.
>>
>> We are not talking about the term We are talking about vowelless
>> Ogham.
>
>Which doesn't exist. All Ogham scripts have vowels, they just can take
>different forms.
OK, you continue to absolutely deny the existence of scripts without
vowels.
You may now be trying to say that vowelless scripts have vowells
encoded but then you willl have to prove that claim. Can you be
entirely sure (knowing you, of course you can!) that no ancient
sinscriptions were ever made with vowelless scripts without using
vowels? Logically you can't, but I don't expect that will stop you.
>
>> >
>> >> It also may greatly weaken the various
>> >> attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
>> >> inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine.
>> >
>> >No it doesn't, it strenghtens them. Not only does it confirm that vowel
>> >marks should not be read as consonants, it is showing a very real
>> >possibility that some inscriptions that only contain consonant marks
>should
>> >in fact have those marks transliterated as vowels.
>>
>> But Larry was only doing a character count - a character count of
>> inscriptions which he considered may have been written using a
>> vowelless form of Ogham.
>
>Which caused him to ignore clear vowels. No Ogham script classes vowels as
>consonants, but there is one that classes consonants as vowels.
So you are NOW saying he should have looked at these various vowelless
inscriptions, decided what character pairs were really meant to be
vowells and then counted them as vowels? But why should he? Ultimately
this would make no difference to his statistical analysis.
>
>> >
>> >> It certainly opens up
>> >> the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
>> >> force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
>> >> could be correct.
>> >
>> >I think you have either ignored, or misunderstood, what Kevin has wrote
>> >about the form he is refering to as Ogham Consaine. It is nothing like
>the
>> >form that Fell et al refer to as Ogham Consaine.
>>
>> Please leave Fell out of it.
>
>We can't. The Ogham Consaine that Larry uses is Fell's creation.
So you say. Prove it.
Even if you are right, so what?
>
>> The question is the conclusions that can
>> be drawn from your years of sustained denial of an an authentic and
>> ancient vowelless Ogham.
>
>You have picked up someone using a term to refer to a type of Ogham about
>which you know nothing. If you really want to learn, I suggest you stop
>making assumptions and find out more about that form of Ogham that Kevin was
>talking about.
Kevin Jones was pretty clear when he wrote:
> "The earliest form of the Ogham, according to
> tradition, was composed of the fifteen letters of the
> consonants, Ogham Consaine. "
Not a mention of coded vowels. Just a simple, bald statement that "The
earliest form of the Ogham, according to tradition, was composed of
the fifteen letters of the consonants, Ogham Consaine".
No fudging. No beating around the bush.
>
>> >
>> >>
>> >> It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
>> >> form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
>> >> certainly wrong.
>> >
>> >Of course its wrong, that's why I didn't publish those readings. The
>only
>> >reason I tried them was to find out wjat Larry had actually done since he
>> >will not show us his readings.
>>
>> But if you have only just accepted the idea of a form of vowelless
>> Ogham,
>
>When did I do that? Nobody has mentioned a vowelless Ogham, they have just
>mentioned a type of Ogham that uses consonant marks as vowels.
Bullshit. Thats one of your attempts to fudge.
>
>> and you didn't use Larry's example of his Figure 1, what then
>> did you base your transliteration upon?
>
>I transliterated according to the common Ogham script, and to get Larry's
>numbers I assumed that any vowel marks were "M" group consonants. It didn't
>work.
Not surprising, in view of your continued denial of the "earliest form
of the Ogham, according to tradition, [was] composed of the fifteen
letters of the consonants".
>But then, some new revelations have come out about the accuracy of
>Larry's references.
Some very new ones have come out about the reliability of your claimed
expertise and scholarship.
>
>> >
>> >> It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
>> >> details of a script, the existence of which he denies.
>> >
>> >And the existence of which has still to be supported by anyone other than
>> >Fell et al.
>>
>> Red herring again. Have you forgotten the Book of Ballymote so
>> quickly?
>
>The BoB does not say anything about this form of Ogham.
Tell that to Kevin Jones.
>
>> >
>> >> As far as I can
>> >> tell, JMB's vowelless script is not the same as Larry's and is likely
>> >> to be wrong.
>> >
>> >Its obviously wrong, and so is Larry's. I have published the readings as
>> >they should be if read correctly, although even that may by missing
>vowels
>> >if any of them are written in Ogham Consaine as described by Searles and
>> >Kevin Jones.
>>
>> But, as I have just pointed out above, it is impossible for you to
>> have got them entirely right except by chance.
>
>??? This doesn't make sense. It is not impossible. If the Ogham form
>mentioned in the Auraicept is used, then its just a matter of applying the
>cipher.
But if the original Ogham was not described in the Auraicept then you
are left floundering.
>
>> >
>> >>
>> >> The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at the
>> >> heart of Larry's paper.
>> >
>> >Yes, the question of the existence of Ogham consaine as used by Larry and
>> >Fell. Coming up with a reference to another form of Ogham that uses the
>> >term does not support Larry's claims, it actually puts yet more nails in
>the
>> >coffin.
>>
>> Wiggle wiggle little man.
>
>Eric, you really need to reseach the form of Ogham you have been told about
>if you want to continue using condescending words and phrases, otherwise it
>will just make you look more and more foolish.
Who is the fool. You are the one who has made blanket denials of any
authority for the existence of vowelless Ogham.
>
>> You have been hoist on the petard of your
>> own absolute certainty with the ultimate revelation of your ignorance
>> being the fuse.
>
>You have latched upon someone's usage of a term to describe an actual form
>of Ogham, and have tried to claim that this proves the existence of a
>fictional form of Ogham which others have used the same phrase to describe.
>That's just foolish. Not only does it show that you have done no research,
>it shows that you are ignoring what you have been told. Its a case of you
>putting your fingers in your ears and shoutinhg "NAH, NAH, NAH" when
>something is being explained to you.
You will have to take that up with Kevin Jones. he strikes me as far
more knowledgable than you in these matters.
>
>> >
>> >> Matters of time depth and Larry's theories as
>> >> to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If Kevin
>> >> Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major arguments
>> >> used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
>> >
>> >Actually, it has been strenghtened. The form of Ogham is what is
>important,
>> >not the term used to describe it.
>>
>> That the form of Ogham is what is important, is what I have been
>> saying all along.
>
>Well then, why are you harping on about Larry being vindicated due to an
>entirely different form of Ogham using the same term?
Vowelless Ogham?
>
>> I presume that is why you have spent so much time
>> arguing about the name 'Ogham Consaine'.
>
>No, I have always used the term 'Ogham Consaine' in reference to Fell's
>creation. When we have discussed it, it has always been in that context.
Are you now saying there is no other form of Ogham Consaine? Maybe you
will have to read the Book of Ballymote a little more thoroughly.
Eric Stevens
Searles O'Dubhain
By 'recent" do you mean a year or more ago? Are you an eeejitt to
overlook th eobvious references that I've posted here? As to "Ogham
Consaine," the form used by Fell and Larry exists only in their minds.
The form referenced as such in the Book of Ballymote is entirely
different from what they've been using. Please tell me that you can tell
the difference? You do know why "idiot" is pronounced as "eejitt" in
Irish don't you? It's because some symbols expressed in the English
language are decoded and expressed with certain sounds in Irish that are
different from English. Hence "eejitt" perfectly describes your position
relative to understanding how the *real* Ogham Consaine is used vs."the
non-existent and non-proven Ogham Consaine." Let me make this very clear
in Irish "idiot" is actually spoken and called out as "eejitt":
i = ee (because that's the way the i is pronounced and heard in Irish;
alsomost word are accented on the first syllable)
d = j (because the d is influenced by the *vowels* that are around it)
io = i (albeit a short one)
t = tt (just to give emphasis and balance to the initial ee sound"
I D IO T
EE J I TT
> >
> >> The accepted
> >> view of Ogham is that vowels are expressed by strokes or dots.
> >
> >
> >Actually, vowels are expressed by perpendicular strokes to the
> >stemline, by dots on the stemline, and by the complex symbols known
> >collectively as the Forfedha.
>
> Are you saying there are no scripts which use dots for vowels?
I didn't say that at all. In the example for EEJITT above, the word
idiot would normally be expressed in Ogamic Irish as:
..... '' # '''
I've represented left-handed strokes in Ogham Craoibh above using ' and
the Ifin character from the forfedha "io" using #). Please note the ....
for the letter "i."
> >
> >> Larry
> >> has been proposing the use of an Ogham script which contained no
> >> vowels.
> >
> >Larry has said that no matter how the strokes are made in his BI-1
> >corpus, they can only be transliterated as consonants.
>
> For the purpose of his trial, that is correct.
He's certainly welcome to count the strokes in any grouping that he has
chosen to correlate. The rationale for these groupings of strokes must
be explained and identified to be considered a form of Ogham. If the
rationale doesn't fit the existing Ogham forms then some additional
proof of them being an Ogham form must be provided. I have not problem
with Larry or Fell calling the forms they've created using their
imaginations as Fellisms or Larryisms. So far, all the evidence points
to them being just that. The definition of "Ogham Consaine" as reported
to have been seen there by Jones and Pennick (but not actually verified
to be there by my own inspection of the texts available to me) does not
describe the ways that Larry or Fell grouped the strokes of the
inscriptions and other parallel markings they've attempted to
transliterate or translate.
> >
> >> You seem now to be saying that this vowelless script could be
> >> used to encode vowels and therefore is not vowelless.
> >
> >I'm not sayingthat at all. What I am saying is that the vowels are
> >said to be encoded or represented in the form known as Ogham Consaine
> >with paired strokes. If these paired strokes were transliterated
> >singly, then they would be transcribed as being consonants.
>
> That's fair enough then. The first step is to transliterate the
> characters - all consonants. Larry did not proceed to the next stage
> which is the translation of possible vowelled consonant pairs to
> vowels. All he was doing was a simple caharcter count with all the
> single characters bein consonants.
>
Larry transliterated the strokes according to his own ideas of forms,
which he calls classic Ogham and in some cases Ogham Consaine. How he
has applied these names and the encoding they contain to the groups of
strokes has long been the point of controversy and discussion here.
> >The
> >transliteration is the key to determining if there are vowels or not
> >in an inscription of this sort. A great deal of how the rules are
> >applied depends on whether meaning can be had from selecting a vowels
> >or consonants transliteration. It's not a strictly one way or the
> >other process. It depends on the intelligence that can be derived
from
> >applying either approach. That's the way of it with any Ogham
> >tranliteration and/or translation. There are about 90 different Ogham
> >forms/alphabets that can be used to transliterate an inscription.
Most
> >inscriptions are in the two or three most prevelant forms.
> >
> >> Are you agreeing
> >> with Larry about there being an Ogham script which did not use
vowels
> >> butb which could be used to encode vowels?
> >
> >I have plainly stated tha the form (Ogham Consaine) reported by Jones
> >and Pennick to be in the BB can be used that way. I don't think this
> >is what Larry is saying or what he has done however.
>
> He certainly has been long claiming the existence of a vowelless
> Ogham, irrespective of whther or not it could be used to encode
> vowels.
Ogham Consaine is not a "vowelless Ogham" as you and Larry are saying.
It encodes vowells as pairs of strokes that when taken individually
would be tranliterated as consonants. In teh example above for "idiot"
Ogham Consaine would express it thusly:
Instead of: .....'' # '''
It'd be: ,,,,,''''' '' ,,,,,''''' ,, '' '''
Both reported Ogham forms use symbols for the vowels (albeit different
symbols and stroke groupings)
I hope the example for "idiot" I've described for you will serve to
instruct you in the reported usages and forms of Ogham Consaine. I've
taken a cursory look at Larry's BI-1 corpus and have not seen clearly
that he's used its forms for his transliterations. Do you think that's
what he's done? If so, where is it like the application of the letters
in the word "idiot" above?
> >
> >> Are you also disagreeing
> >> with Larry when you say this script was not used in the ordinary
> >> course of events to write messages without vowels?
> >
> >I don't know of any recognized Ogham inscriptions on stone that have
> >been done using this Ogham form. I don't agree with what Larry has
> >said about the BI-1 corpus.
>
> OK, but I didn't ask those question is.
Sorry, I thought you said that Larry used Ogham Consaine in his
transliterations. I don't agree with how Larry seems to be using or
describing this *reported* form of Ogham. Maybe he's not using Ogham
Consaine at all? Maybe it's a form that has been hypothesized or
invented instead?
In general, Maclister was an expert of Ogham transliteration. He also
wrote several treatises on the use of Ogham in encryption and went to
great lengths looking for ant possible meanings. He was a scholar in the
field and seems to have been very much aware of what was written in
Ogham and about Ogham by his contemporaries (including Dinneen). I'll
see if I can get my wife to mail me his books on _The Secret Languages
of Ireland_ or Irish Archaeology.
> > ... and did not find any instances of Ogham
> >Consaine in his CIIC inscriptions. Judging from the amunt of work he
> >did on Ogham and its usages in encryption, I'm convinced that he most
> >probably considered Ogham Consaine for those inscriptions and
rejected
> >it because using it to decode the strokes did not supply viable
> >translations after transliteration.
>
> One possible explanation is that he was using the wrong script.
True enough though unlikely.
> >
> >>
> >> >One would think that Fell and even Larry would have made
> >> >mention of such notable support for their theories if it had every
> >> >occurred by one so acknowledged for skill and knowledge about
Ogham.
> >>
> >> Which has no bearing on the matter of support for Ogham consaine in
> >> the Book of Ballymote.
> >>
> >
> >Of course not but it does say a lot about their lack of rigorous
> >scholarship and study in the matter.:-)
>
> You are welcome to debate that in another thread.
>
I've already done that.
Searles
JMB
Well, if that's the case, he can say so if he wants.
> In any case, you can call it what you like. It's the
> fact that there is ancient precedent for a vowelless Ogham script
> which interests me.
There isn't. Did you actually read what Kevin wrote? There are vowels in
that form of Ogham.
> >
--SNIP--
> >
> >Eh, yes it does. It means that vowels are present. Do you even know
what
> >form Fell's 'Ogham Consaine' takes?
>
> So you are arguing that coding ASCII in hexadecimal makes hexadecimal
> coding ASCII?
No, I'm saying that a form of Ogham that has a specific way of writing
vowels means that it is not a vowelless form. The fact that it goes into
detail about how to represent vowels should be a bit of a hint to you that
there are vowels in the script.
> All I can say is the message is not the medium and in
> this case we are discussing the medium - a vowelless Ogham script.
What vowelless Ogham script are we discussing? I thought we were discussing
the script that Kevin Jones (and Searles) told you about.
> You
> can code latitude and longitude in it for all I care but that does not
> make it a chart.
>
> At the moment we should confine ourselves to Larry Athy's clearly
> stated vowelless Ogham.
Indeed. And his clearly stated vowelless Ogham is not what Kevin Jones has
described to you as Ogham Consaine. In fact, it could be considered almost
the exact opposite.
> >
--SNIP--
> >
> >We are discussing Fell's form of Ogham Consaine, Larry has stated that in
> >the past.
>
> Is that all you have to hang an argument re Fell on? Not even a
> reference?
Please Eric, you couldn't be that dumb. If you want to continue discussing
Larry's vowelles Ogham, then I suggest that you check what he means by it.
In fact, you've just posted on another post exactly what Larry does to get
his vowelless Ogham, and it is exactly what Fell does.
>
> >He just reckoned that Fell used the wrong language.
>
> Maybe Fell did. But what's that got to do with whether the Book of
> Ballymote mentions an ancient vowelless form of Ogham?
The BoB doesn't mention anything about an ancient vowelless form of Ogham.
It mentions a vowelled form, and goes into a bit of detail as to how to
read/write those vowels.
--SNIP--
> >
> >You need to read the introduction to his dictionary before you presume to
> >say what he did and didn't know.
>
> Quite right. What does he say?
He gives a nice list of some specific sources for some of the words he uses,
plus abreviations that he uses to mark words that come from them. I can't
remember the exact abreviations, but let's say he uses an "s." to signify
words from Ua Suileabain's collection (which Dineen actually edited for
publication), he also uses something like "r." to mean the same source as
the previous word. Then, when you go to the section containing Ogham, there
are several phrases translated (although not four IIRC). On one, he puts
the "s.", and on the very next (the Ogham consaine) he puts the "r.". That
means that the Ogham consaine was taken from Ua Suileabains collection, not
the book of Ballymote, or anywhere else. If the word existed anywhere else
that Dineen knew off, he wouldn't have to class its source, as he could just
consider it an unusual Irish word.
--SNIP--
> >
> >No, I mean the form of Ogham that Kevin Jones, and Searles, have told you
> >about is not the same as the form the Fell, Larry et al refer to as
'Ogham
> >Consaine'.
>
> Then what is its form - the one you used to maintain did not exist?
The easiest way to explain this is simply to give an example. Let's use the
english alphabet and the phrase "TO BE OR NOT TO BE". Using Larry et al's
form, that would be written as:
"TBRNTTB", and you would have absolutely no way to know what vowels are
supposed to be there, but you would be expected to add them (Fell also added
extra consonants whenever he felt like it, but this example will suffice to
give the general idea).
In the Ogham script that Kevin and Searles has told you about, it would be
written as:
"TLDBSCLDNLDTLDBSC", all you'd have to know is the cipher being used, and
you'd know that "LD" is actually "O" and "SC" is actually "E". (I'm working
off memory, and may have the vowel sequences wrong, but it is enough to get
the general idea).
As you can see, this form is nearly the exact opposite of the form Larry
uses. According to Larry, vowels should be considered to be "M" group
consonants, yet according to the form you have been told about, it is
actually pairs ofwhat would normally be "B" and "H" group consonants that
should be transliterated as vowels.
--SNIP--
> >
> >Which doesn't exist. All Ogham scripts have vowels, they just can take
> >different forms.
>
> OK, you continue to absolutely deny the existence of scripts without
> vowels.
Only Ogham scripts, because nobody has provided any references to such a
script.
>
> You may now be trying to say that vowelless scripts have vowells
> encoded but then you willl have to prove that claim.
Its in the BoB, or have you forgotten already?
> Can you be
> entirely sure (knowing you, of course you can!) that no ancient
> sinscriptions were ever made with vowelless scripts without using
> vowels?
Some inscriptions don't have vowels, that doesn't create a vowelless script.
The "BBC" doesn't contain vowels, but they didn't create a new vowelless
alphabet to write it.
> Logically you can't, but I don't expect that will stop you.
Logically, one has nothing to do with the other. Just because a particular
inscription doesn't use certain letters (any, not just vowels) doesn't mean
that those letters don't exist in the script used to write the inscription.
--SNIP--
> >
> >Which caused him to ignore clear vowels. No Ogham script classes vowels
as
> >consonants, but there is one that classes consonants as vowels.
>
> So you are NOW saying he should have looked at these various vowelless
> inscriptions, decided what character pairs were really meant to be
> vowells and then counted them as vowels?
No, I'm saying he was wrong to ignore vowels, and he had no justification
for doing so.
> But why should he? Ultimately
> this would make no difference to his statistical analysis.
Actually it would make a big difference, as it would reduce the number of
consonants and increase the number of vowels in his BI-1 corpus. It
wouldn't have any effect on the HP-1 corpus.
--SNIP--
> >We can't. The Ogham Consaine that Larry uses is Fell's creation.
>
> So you say. Prove it.
He was the first person that I have ever seen bring up the subject, if he
didn't create it, he certainly pioneered it.
>
> Even if you are right, so what?
If he created it, how can we leave him out of a discussion about it?
> >
> >> The question is the conclusions that can
> >> be drawn from your years of sustained denial of an an authentic and
> >> ancient vowelless Ogham.
> >
> >You have picked up someone using a term to refer to a type of Ogham about
> >which you know nothing. If you really want to learn, I suggest you stop
> >making assumptions and find out more about that form of Ogham that Kevin
was
> >talking about.
>
> Kevin Jones was pretty clear when he wrote:
>
> > "The earliest form of the Ogham, according to
> > tradition, was composed of the fifteen letters of the
> > consonants, Ogham Consaine. "
I doubt it was the earliest form, but the form in question only uses 15
distinct marks, that correspond to the consonant marks used in the common
alphabet.
>
> Not a mention of coded vowels. Just a simple, bald statement that "The
> earliest form of the Ogham, according to tradition, was composed of
> the fifteen letters of the consonants, Ogham Consaine".
>
> No fudging. No beating around the bush.
Maybe he didn't realise how uninformed you actually are. He gave you a
brief description, now go do some research. Only 15 marks are used, but
they are used to signify 20 letters, 5 of which are vowels.
--SNIP--
> >
> >When did I do that? Nobody has mentioned a vowelless Ogham, they have
just
> >mentioned a type of Ogham that uses consonant marks as vowels.
>
> Bullshit. Thats one of your attempts to fudge.
No its not. Its a fact. If you actually read the relevant Auraicept you
would see that there are vowels there. The "A" is represented by a single
line below the stem, next to a single line above the stem, and so on (it may
be the other way around, but the general idea is there).
> >
> >> and you didn't use Larry's example of his Figure 1, what then
> >> did you base your transliteration upon?
> >
> >I transliterated according to the common Ogham script, and to get Larry's
> >numbers I assumed that any vowel marks were "M" group consonants. It
didn't
> >work.
>
> Not surprising, in view of your continued denial of the "earliest form
> of the Ogham, according to tradition, [was] composed of the fifteen
> letters of the consonants".
So now you are trying to change the subject. Someone gave you a description
of a different type of Ogham that has nothing to do with the type Larry has
discussed. You asked, and I told, how I repeated Larry's count. What has
your reply got to do with that particular subject?
>
> >But then, some new revelations have come out about the accuracy of
> >Larry's references.
>
> Some very new ones have come out about the reliability of your claimed
> expertise and scholarship.
Yes, I happen to know about a form of Ogham that you know nothing about, but
rather than try to learn something, you decide to make incorrect assumptions
about it, with only a very simplified description that you hope to twist to
back you up.
>
>
> >
> >> >
> >> >> It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
> >> >> details of a script, the existence of which he denies.
> >> >
> >> >And the existence of which has still to be supported by anyone other
than
> >> >Fell et al.
> >>
> >> Red herring again. Have you forgotten the Book of Ballymote so
> >> quickly?
> >
> >The BoB does not say anything about this form of Ogham.
>
> Tell that to Kevin Jones.
Why? He hasn't mentioned anything of a form of Ogham that Larry, Fell et al
used being in the BoB. If he did make that claim, then I'd like to see him
back it up, but he didn't, he referenced a completely different type of
Ogham.
--SNIP--
> >> But, as I have just pointed out above, it is impossible for you to
> >> have got them entirely right except by chance.
> >
> >??? This doesn't make sense. It is not impossible. If the Ogham form
> >mentioned in the Auraicept is used, then its just a matter of applying
the
> >cipher.
>
> But if the original Ogham was not described in the Auraicept then you
> are left floundering.
??? What are you discussing now? The form that Kevin and Searles has told
you about, or Larry's form, or some other form?
--SNIP--
> >>
> >> Wiggle wiggle little man.
> >
> >Eric, you really need to reseach the form of Ogham you have been told
about
> >if you want to continue using condescending words and phrases, otherwise
it
> >will just make you look more and more foolish.
>
> Who is the fool. You are the one who has made blanket denials of any
> authority for the existence of vowelless Ogham.
Which still stand. There are no vowelless forms of Ogham in the Auraicept.
> >
> >> You have been hoist on the petard of your
> >> own absolute certainty with the ultimate revelation of your ignorance
> >> being the fuse.
> >
> >You have latched upon someone's usage of a term to describe an actual
form
> >of Ogham, and have tried to claim that this proves the existence of a
> >fictional form of Ogham which others have used the same phrase to
describe.
> >That's just foolish. Not only does it show that you have done no
research,
> >it shows that you are ignoring what you have been told. Its a case of
you
> >putting your fingers in your ears and shoutinhg "NAH, NAH, NAH" when
> >something is being explained to you.
>
> You will have to take that up with Kevin Jones. he strikes me as far
> more knowledgable than you in these matters.
Take what up with him? He has not claimed that Larry's vowelless Ogham is
in the BoB. He has told you of an entirely different form of Ogham, and
that type has vowels.
--SNIP--
> >>
> >> That the form of Ogham is what is important, is what I have been
> >> saying all along.
> >
> >Well then, why are you harping on about Larry being vindicated due to an
> >entirely different form of Ogham using the same term?
>
> Vowelless Ogham?
Where?
> >
> >> I presume that is why you have spent so much time
> >> arguing about the name 'Ogham Consaine'.
> >
> >No, I have always used the term 'Ogham Consaine' in reference to Fell's
> >creation. When we have discussed it, it has always been in that context.
>
> Are you now saying there is no other form of Ogham Consaine?
The form that Kevin and Searles have told you about exists. I don't refer
to it as Ogham COnsaine, and I'm surprised that anyone else does TBH, but
that it irrelevant, as the only form that matters to Larry's paper is Fell's
form. Any "other" forms, by definition, are other forms, not the same one.
> Maybe you
> will have to read the Book of Ballymote a little more thoroughly.
Why? I've already read the relevant section in the Auraicept.
Searles O'Dubhain
What do you mean by "belatedly?" I made mention of this form back in
Novemember of *LAST YEAR!* That's almost an entire year ago! The form
that is reported as Ogham Consaine by Jones and Pennick has nothing
except an improperly applied or associated name to what Larry or Fell
has done.
> >What I
> >don't buy into is transcribing vowels as consonants when vowels are
> >obviously also present in other forms within inscriptions.
>
> It all depends on how firm your knowledge is of the ancient
> inscriptions and what you understand to be the form of the vowelless
> Ogham.
>
That's true enough.
Barry Fell is the person who popularized the misapplication of the name
Ogham Consaine to the form of transliteration that he invented and that
Larry embraces. It has a lot to do with Barry Fell.
> >
> >> It seems that in spite of the denials of our various 'experts'
there
> >> is an ancient Ogham consaine recognised in the Book of Ballymote.
> >
> >There is a reported mention of an Ogham form to be in the Book of
> >Ballymote that is called Ogham Consaine. I have *YET* to see and
actual
> >reference in the BB itself. That you pronounce things about Ogham
and
> >castigate "experts" seems to be the pot calling the kettle black. :-)
>
> Oh dear. I have been castigated by 'experts' for a long time on the
> grounds that I am discussing something that is not defined by the Book
> of Ballymote.
You're still being and doing so AFAICS. :-)
> Now I find that it likely has been present in the book
> for several centuries.
Ogham Consaine has been *reported* by two peopel to have been named and
defined in the BB. That definition is completely unlike what you, Larry
and Fell sayit is.
> Do you blame me for now retaliating at the
> self-appointed experts who have heaped all kinds of crap on me for so
> long?
LOL! You're just digging a deeper hole AFAICS. It's retaliation now is
it? :-)
//// .... ''' . ,, # ''' # ,,,,, or //// |||| ''' | ,, # ''' # |||||
Some marks for you. At least we know how you characterize criticism and
discussionnow (especially when it does not agree with you).
>You are by no means the worst offender and you may remember the
> number of times I have attempted to draw JMB's attention to the fact
> that the certainty with which he 'knows' things may not be justified.
He only seeks to seek a record of facts associated with use or naming of
forms and techniques related to Ogham and Irish. Most of these facts
have yet to be presented AFAICS.
> >
> >> This negates the attempts to make Larry's vowelless Ogham a figment
of
> >> somebody else's imagination.
> >
> >It certainly does no such thing. Perhaps those who look at the
surface
> >of such things would be misled. I hope you look beyond the surface to
> >what is actually reported about what the Book of Ballymote is saying
as
> >contrasted to what Fell and Larry are saying. If you don't, you will
be
> >looking very foolish indeed.
>
> Stop trying to drag Fell in to the argument. This is the worst kind of
> arguing by innuendo.
Fell is the one that coined the misuse of the term Ogham Consaine. He is
involved by definition and origination. That you don't see or accept
this says more to your innuendo than anything else.
||||| ,,,,, ,,,,, @ ,,,,, '' ||
Please note the appropriate use of Uileann (@) in the Ogham spelling of
"innuendo."
> >
> >> It also may greatly weaken the various
> >> attempts by JMB to claim that Larry must have 'edited' his
> >> inscriptions to read them with Ogham consaine.
> >
> >I don't think so since Larry most certainly did edit and selectively
> >choose his database. This has been noted and identified by several
> >people here on this newsgroup on more than one occasion.
>
> Several - you and JMB? People who at the time denied even the
> possibility of vowelless Ogham?
I've denied that there have ever been established proofs for a form of
Ogham that does not contain vowels. That Ogham can be written without
vowels is something I've always accepted and maintained to be true.
I've even noted forms where abbreviations are used without vowels in
Ogham as well as Ogham forms were letter orders are transposed as a
means of encryption. I know of no proven form of Ogham writing that is
based on no vowels being present or encoded in the words (as is
sometimes done in other languages). If you know of such a form, please
provide me a *scholarly* reference to the form so that I may become
aware of it.
> >
> >>It certainly opens up
> >> the possibility that others may have 'edited' the inscriptions to
> >> force a reading with the later vowelled Ogham, in which case, Larry
> >> could be correct.
> >
> >
> >That's a very small possibility; what I'd describe as a "Stevens"
> >possibility. These are the remotely possible but highly unlikely
events
> >that can occur in any reality according to probability theory and
> >assuming one has unlimited time for seeking and space in which to
> >explore. :-)
>
> See - here we go. Innuendo again. If the inscriptions really are
> written in a vowelless form of Ogham, someone who only knew a vowelled
> form of Ogham is likely to use every trick in the book that they knew,
> to extract a reading from the inscriptions in the only form of Ogham
> that they knew. I wouldn't blame them. They would be only human to do
> so.
Your innuendo stinks. The possibilities are endless when using
conjecture. When sticking with facts, then the associations are finite
and more clearly defined though they are certainly not inneundo nor do
they stink. :-)
> >
> >> It also shows that JMB's attempts to replicate Larry's work using a
> >> form of vowelless Ogham of his own (JMB's) construction is almost
> >> certainly wrong.
> >
> >It does no such thing at all. I hope you'll eventually remove the
rose
> >colored glasses and the blinders.
>
> Presumably in an attempt to appear to be arguing from a stronger
> position than you have, you have deleted part of what I wrote without
> indicating the fact. Immediately following the above I had written:
>
Now you're reaching.
> "It is obvious that JMB can have no knowledge of the
> details of a script, the existence of which he denies.
> As far as I can tell, JMB's vowelless script is not the
> same as Larry's and is likely to be wrong."
>
> It seems you are wearing the optical filter glasses and you are the
> one who is editing scripts.
Adding verbiage to the quoted material does nothing to ameliorate my
opinion of your "rose colored glasses."
> >
> >> The question of the possible existence of a Ogham consaine is at
the
> >> heart of Larry's paper. Matters of time depth and Larry's theories
as
> >> to where the script came from are secondary considerations. If
Kevin
> >> Jones is correct, and I suspect he may be, one of the major
arguments
> >> used to attack Larry Athy's paper has been demolished.
> >
> >I'm awaiting Kevin's appearance on this newsgroup to provide some
> >clarity on the subject. He and I don't always agree about items
related
> >to traditions and even some things about the Ogham but he is very
> >thorough and fair in his statements and his research. He's also a
person
> >who studies and is degreed in Archaeology that takes the
unconventional
> >and creative approach. I respect him and his opinions very much,
unlike
> >others who don't have much truth in them and/or who can only defend
> >their positions through ignoring logic and making ad hominem attacks.
> >
> Glass houses Searles, glass houses ...
>
Ah yes!!! Your glass house analogy. I see that you have misused that one
as much as anything else that you've done in this discussion. First
stones Eric. Birth stones; Gall stones; Inscribed stones; Stones as
witness; Stones that cry out!
,,, | ,,.
I'd say that it is as easy as 1 2 3 but actually the sequence is 3 1 2,
isn't it?
Or in another Ogham type:
Protection of the Heart
Beginning of an Answer
Delight of Eye
Destiny is what it means and stone is the witness to it (or its
protection in truth through enduring). Truth and knowledge are
considered to reside in the heart by those who invented Ogham.
Revelation and insight are considered to come to a person through the
eye. Glass houses are sometimes used to read destiny. Is that cryptic
enough for you or do I have to spell it out?
|| \\ | \
Look at the patterns: 2 1 2 1 as expressed above and get an idea of
balance in expression as well as how things are put together through
number, sound and form; through Ogam. It is an alphabet, a system, a
language, a key to wisdom, a primer in understanding, and a preserving
shrine of knowledge. all of these uses of Ogam are documented within the
culture that gave it birth, perfected it and continued to use it for
thousands of years. That culture is Irish culture. It has a linguistic,
an archaeological and a traditional connection to Ogam. If you want to
argue for other provenance of origin for Ogam, then as a minimum, you'll
have to do the above. So far its been just one conjecture after another
without any substantiating facts from Larry and his primary supporter on
this newsgroup which is you.
Why are some of the strokes upright in || \\ | \ while others are
slanted?
What does number (2 2 11) have to do with it?
Why are the characters grouped and ordered as they are (i.e. different
Ogham aicme)?
>
> Eric Stevens
Thanks for the opportunity to use the poetical nature of Ogham in my
reply to you. It was refreshing for me and downright fun to boot!
Searles O'Dubhain
Searles O'Dubhain
<snip>
>
> So you are arguing that coding ASCII in hexadecimal makes hexadecimal
> coding ASCII? All I can say is the message is not the medium and in
> this case we are discussing the medium - a vowelless Ogham script. You
> can code latitude and longitude in it for all I care but that does not
> make it a chart.
>
<snip>
How does either system of encoding that you've mentioned above support
the actual existence of letters that are not written in messages? Of
course, one can encode any letter combination using them but to be
understood, I'd expect that a *standard form* should be used. Isn't that
why standards are created and are used? We are discussing Ogham
standards. Where is the support for your usage of Ogham Consaine in a
form that is different from how it is defined in the standards?
Gibberish is what results when standard encoding are not used and
applied. "Gibberish" now that's a great word. It looks this way in
Ogham:
G I B B E R I S H
/ ||||| , , |||| ///// ||||| ,,,, "
It has a certain symmetry to it when written with straight lines doesn't
it? As a numerical string it is:
G I B B E R I S H
1 5 1 1 4 5 5 5 1
Now, I've only used the amplitudes of the letters and not their
orientations or other positional groupings in the numerical decoding
above. If the Ogham can be viewed as vectors (or even as tensors) then
the Ogham glyph known as Féige Finn supplies us with the vectors:
1/180
5/90
1/0
1/0
4/90
5/180
5/90
5/0
1/270
(Properly speaking, I should have inverted the order of the above
phasors if actually inscribing the Ogham marks vertically, but I felt
that clarity in reading English ASCII on computer screens mandated going
the other direction. The resulting "free body" diagram that comes out of
superpositioning the Ogham characters as vectors would then point 180
degrees out of phase).
Just overlaying one letter phasor on another gives:
7/0
6/180
14/90
Further combination yields:
1/0
13/90
Using Pythagoras's theorem we get:
the square root of (1 + 169 = 170) for the amplitude and
by trigonometry we get:
Arctan (1/169) for the angle.
It seem to me that the word G I B B E R I S H can be interpreted to mean
(when considered as a vector or phasor representation in Ogham):
"One who greatly seeks prosperity through a slight amount of contention
with the facts."
The alternative meaning (if flipped vertically) would be:
"One who seeks knowledge greatly in a slightly poetical manner."
The median meaning between these two positions would be:
"A great amount of entertainment that is just slightly shy of harmony."
It all adds up! :-)
How about that, an alphabet that is orthogonal in more than one way and
can express more than one point of view simultaneously!
Thanks again for the opportunity to have some fun with Ogham.:-)
Searles
Searles O'Dubhain
<snip>
> - It is interesting to suggest that the word "hello" could also be
> written as "Hzzllgg". Perhaps they should start doing that in
Ireland!!
> Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
>
Larry,
If we listened to you then the word "hello" would have been written on
the walls in North America as:
' ,, ,,
Now admittedly, that's an English transliteration of some vertical
scores or lines. Is that what you meant? If you are meaning that one
should substitute one letter for another then that's an entirely
different form of Ogham.
Ogham Craoibh or "classic Ogham" as is reported to be defined in the
Book of Ballymote would have written "hello" as:
' .... ,, ,, .. or as ' |||| ,, ||
So what is it?:
' ,, ,, ' .... ,, ,, .. or ' |||| ,, ,, ||
I'd be interested in seeing which of the other standard Ogham forms you
used for your transliteration of "Hzzllgg." Oh, that's right, you're
using the scores from aicme Muin for those of aicme Ailm aren't you? How
clever! That should be written as:
' //// ,, ,, // and not as you've done (you added extra characters to
your pseudo-Ogham).
There appear to be extra "z" (or "st" for straif) and "g" (for gort) in
your representation. Care to explain these? It gets very confusing when
adding letters that aren't actually there. One needs context, a key or
diacritical markings to distinguish the correct substitutions (in some
languages).
Now "hello" (just to be complete) in Ogham Consaine as reported to be in
the BB would be:
' ,,,, '''' ,, ,, ,, ''
"goodby" would be:
// ,, '' ,, '' '' , |||||
Searles O'Dubhain
Searles O'Dubhain
"Searles O'Dubhain" <odub...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:sKGdnTPP69s...@giganews.com...
< correction alert!!! >
>
> || \\ | \
>
> Look at the patterns: 2 1 2 1 as expressed above and get an idea of
> balance in expression as well as how things are put together through
> number, sound and form; through Ogam.
It's actually 2 2 1 1 for O G A M though 2 1 2 1 could stand for O A M G
(which could be symbolic for "Oh My God!") :-)
Now O G M A the mytho-poetical inventor of O G A M is another play on
letters, numbers and encoding by the Filidh.
O G M A
|| \\ \ | is almost the same as || \\ | \ with just a different
directional association to it from Féige Finn.
That's letter, word and numerical play for you.
Edo Nyland where are you?
In "Ogham Consaine" as re-defined by Fell and Larry, the above words
would be indistinguishable without context or a key. They'd both be
written as:
// / or || | depending on the afore mentioned persons' whims. This
clearly illustrates the problem with their approach.
My apologies for being swept along by the tides.
Searles
JMB
news:5735-3F9...@storefull-2238.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> - We have just witnessed a reversal of position by those who have been
> maintaining that there is no such thing as vowelless Ogam. They now
> admit that there is vowelless Ogam, but also claim that there are two
> types. Perhaps so, perhaps not.
Who has ever said that it is any type (let alone two) of vowelless Ogham?
> - My work has demonstrated that those inscriptions without vowels (that
> use consonant symbols only and can not be read) all correlate with one
> another and thus are all in the same unknown language.
Your correlations prove nothing, as you not only edited those inscriptions
that you used, you also referenced inscriptions that you didn't use.
> They do not
> correlate at all well with the later Ogam with vowels (My BI-2) and are
> thus in a different language.
Language has nothing to do with it, as I have shown previously. When you
use two sets, and one of those sets follows a specific formula which the
other doesn't, then they will not correlate well.
> - It has been suggested that some vowelless Ogam inscriptions use pairs
> of consonants to represent vowels. That may, or may not, be true. One
> wonders why they did not simply use vowels, which would be much simpler.
That is a simplified explanation for those only familiar with the common
script. To the filidh who used it, a ,' did not signify a B and H which had
to be deciphered, it simply meant an A. We just don't have that skill, so
we say it uses consonant pairs for vowels, as that is how we understand it
due to our knowledge of the common script.
> If this premise is correct, it could be extended so that all vowelless
> inscriptions simply have vowels encoded as consonants.
No, as there are examples of abreviations also. Only those inscriptions
that actually gave words when the cipher is applied could be considered
likely to have been written in the cipher.
> Thus they all
> correlate well in their symbol counts.
Only if someone who did absolutely no research into the topic were to make
the symbol counts. It should be right up your alley so.
> - Even if that premise is correct, I can show that the vowelless Ogams
> are definitely not in the same language as the later BI-2 inscriptions.
You can show nothing, you can't even provide your readings of the
inscriptions you claim to have used.
> It is also a fact that the American Ogams are by far the earliest ones.
A claim you can't support.
> I now have additional evidence that they are related to middle eastern
> scripts.
If its anything like the evidence you claim to have on this subject, then it
too is worthless.
> - It is interesting to suggest that the word "hello" could also be
> written as "Hzzllgg".
Who ever suggested that? Oh, Larry did. Yep, that is the type of
suggestion that Larry would make.
> Perhaps they should start doing that in Ireland!!
Why? We have more than enough ways to say hello to people.
> Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Eric Stevens
<odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
You seem to be of the opinion that if it's not referenced in the Book
of Ballymote then it does not exist. Now, after more than a year of
denying there is such a thing you find (at second hand) that the use
of vowelless Ogham is referenced in the Book of Ballymote and now
think you know all about its manner of usage.
--- extraordinary trail of rubbish snipped ----
I'm giving up arguing with you. I've found several people who are
extremely knoweldgable about Ogham and willing to consider new ideas
and information. Their conclusion may ultimately be the same as your
own but I will know that it has been fairly reached.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
<odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
Circular reasoning. You assume that because Jones and Pennick report
one form, there is no other form and that claims to the contrary must
be false.
--- long tail snipped --
Searles O'Dubhain
<snip>
> >> Yes, belatedly, and with no sign of withdrawing your earlier
> >> criticisms of Larry made on the basis that there was no such script.
> >>
> >
> >What do you mean by "belatedly?" I made mention of this form back in
> >Novemember of *LAST YEAR!* That's almost an entire year ago! The form
> >that is reported as Ogham Consaine by Jones and Pennick has nothing
> >except an improperly applied or associated name to what Larry or Fell
> >has done.
>
> Circular reasoning. You assume that because Jones and Pennick report
> one form, there is no other form and that claims to the contrary must
> be false.
>
<snip>
This is a totally incorrect statement by you. I'm making no
assumptions. I'm relying on waht is known, the facts, the scholarly
lioterature, the examples that are in collections and reported in
works like CIIC. I've studied the Ogham for many years and aside from
the reference in Dinneen's and the one that Kevin Jones and Nigel
Pennick mention for the BB, I've *never* seen a reference to Ogham
Consaine outside of Fell, Larry Athy and their ilk.
That's *why* I say there is no Ogham Consaine as Larry and Fell both
claimed. There is absolutely no reference or example of such that has
been demonstrated conclusively to exist. Larry and Fell have not done
so. Leonard and McGlone have not done so. They've misunderstood what
the term Ogham Consaine means in its proper context. Who is that has
demonstrated the existence of a vowelless Ogham form? I don't mean
*supposed* or *conjectured* about such a form but *actually
demonstrated* and *substantiated* the form itself.
> I'm giving up arguing with you. I've found several people who are
> extremely knoweldgable about Ogham and willing to consider new ideas
> and information. Their conclusion may ultimately be the same as your
> own but I will know that it has been fairly reached.
I'll be interested in hearing what these "extremely knowledgeable"
people have to say about Ogham. I'm extremely interested in the
subject and will pay very close attention to their information,
knowledge and wisdom. I'd love to discover something new about the
Ogham (even if it is very *old*).
Searles
Tom McDonald
<snip>
>
> I'm giving up arguing with you. I've found several people who are
> extremely knoweldgable about Ogham and willing to consider new ideas
> and information. Their conclusion may ultimately be the same as your
> own but I will know that it has been fairly reached.
>
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
Eric,
I've been around long enough to have seen both John Byrne and
Searles O'Dubhain come into this group and get involved in the
evaluation of Larry's paper, both with decent backgrounds in
Ogham, and both with a desire to fairly evaluate Larry's work.
Now, after Larry's obfuscation and abuse, and your own
efforts, you've decided to write them off, and get yourself
some new guys. Perhaps you'll be so good as to let us know
more about these new guys, and not insist that they are
lurking while supporting you in email.
Does it tell you nothing that John and Searles both have
found Larry's work wanting? Or do you agree with Larry that
anyone who doesn't agree with Larry that Larry's shit don't
stink is disqualified from any sort of expertise, knowledge or
ability to evaluate Larry's amateur paper? Or even mentality
enough to breathe on their own?
I wonder at what point you might consider that Larry's paper
might indeed be crap, and that that minuscule percentage of
hope you've been holding on to that it might be seminal is
close enough to zero to be not worth your continued time?
Time. Hell, man; in the time we've been discussing this, and
based on the efforts you have put out yourself, you could have
re-done Larry's work yourself (and with your special access to
Larry, you might have been able to actually get the necessary
data; and with your background, you might have actually been
able to evaluate it correctly); or you might have actually
learned enough Ogham to be able to correctly parse, for
instance, the quote by Kevin Jones that you seem to be hanging
your hopes on just now.
But by all means, bring in your new guys. Let us know what
you can of them, and what they think of Larry's paper. If
they wind up respecting what Larry has done, I'll be happy to
read their thinking. If they wind up otherwise, I'll be
interested in whether you ditch them as you're ditching JMB
and SO, and get yourself yet another bunch of new guys.
Tom McDonald
--
remove 'nohormel' to reply
Larry Athy
meaningless Irish garbage here.
===============
I had written: ++ It is interesting to suggest that the word "hello"
could also be written as "Hzzllgg". Perhaps they should start doing that
---------------------
He replied: ~~ Larry, If we listened to you then the word "hello" would
have been written on the walls in North America as:
' ,, ,, Now admittedly, that's an English transliteration of some
vertical scores or lines. Is that what you meant? If you are meaning
that one should substitute one letter for another then that's an
entirely different form of Ogham.
Ogham Craoibh or "classic Ogham" as is reported to be defined in the
Book of Ballymote would have written "hello" as:
' .... ,, ,, .. or as ' |||| ,, ||
So what is it?:
' ,, ,, ' .... ,, ,, .. or ' |||| ,, ,, ||
-------------
+++ Note that he did not respond to what I had written regarding the
foolishness of using consonants as vowels, rather than using vowels as
vowels. "Nt tht h dd nt rspnd t wht #1 hd wrttn", is just as easier to
read in English than "Nldtsc thbht hsc dnqd nldt rscspldnd tld whbht nr
hbhd wrnqttscn". Not even the Irish as so stupid as to do something
like that!!! Or are they??? They could use any symbols, such as ^, ^^,
^^^, ^^^^, and ^^^^^ as vowels. Why confuse the issue with more
consonants that are not consonants?? +++
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Larry Athy
Ogam and Ogma here without considering context. The statement "gm was
named after gm" would not be difficult for any Ogam scholar to read.
Other people could not read at all in those days.
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Tom McDonald
...and Larry proves once and for all that he invents the
reality around him. It doesn't make sense to him that anyone
might use consonants to encode for vowels; therefore it never
happened. It does make sense to him that Ogham had a
vowelless origin, much like some other scripts; therefore it did.
Larry sees no need to learn anything more; he's an engineer,
and he sees a problem (albeit one that issued mostly from
Fell's perfervid imaginings). Therefore putting numbers to
it, using what makes sense to him (hence the lack of need to
learn much about Ogham), is what he figures will solve the
problem.
One can only hope that he was more rational when he was doing
real engineering.
Tom McDonald
Larry Athy posted again without saying anything meaningful on
any topic, having changed the subject from one he really,
really doen't have a clue about. Why he feels the need to do
this is something that psychologists might profitably ponder.
Larry Athy
nonsense here. SOD and JMB know almost nothing about Ogam and have not
claimed to have published anything on any subject. Neither has made any
scholarly criticism of my paper, only foolish claims.
- JMB claimed that my BI-1 corpus was copied wrong; however, I have
shown that his version and mine correlate perfectly if vowels are not
considered (which is per my premise). They try to change my premise and
then show that their version is wrong. That is not scholarship. They
are not interested in learning anything new. That is not scholarship.
They seem to be in the same class as Old Mc.
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Searles O'Dubhain
Larry,
Your reply makes no sense at all. Would you please try again as I think
the subject is important to you, your work and the Ogham themselves. Of
course, I'll understand if you just continue to live by that river in
Egypt. after all, it does flood the plains to renew the land, providing
bounty and a productive cycle.
Searles
Larry Athy
but absolute fiction regarding vowelless Ogam. No Ogam scholar has
published anything disagreeing with my Ogam paper. The only
disagreement has been unsupported claims.
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Searles O'Dubhain
On Sun, Oct 26, 2003, 7:11am (CST+1), Searles O'Dubhain posted more
meaningless Irish garbage here.
===============
<snip>
-------------
+++ Note that he did not respond to what I had written regarding the
foolishness of using consonants as vowels, rather than using vowels as
vowels. "Nt tht h dd nt rspnd t wht #1 hd wrttn", is just as easier to
read in English than "Nldtsc thbht hsc dnqd nldt rscspldnd tld whbht nr
hbhd wrnqttscn". Not even the Irish as so stupid as to do something
like that!!! Or are they??? They could use any symbols, such as ^, ^^,
^^^, ^^^^, and ^^^^^ as vowels. Why confuse the issue with more
consonants that are not consonants?? +++
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Larry,
You have foolishly used vowel markings as consonants. I'd think that
you'd at least want to be an even handed fool and do the same for the
consonants at times. That's right, using the consonants as vowels is at
least as sensible as using the vowels for consonants. Why don't you
count those for a while? It might keep you out of further mischief.
Searles
Larry Athy
about which he knows nothing. He wrote: ~~
Larry sees no need to learn anything more; he's an engineer, and he sees
a problem (albeit one that issued mostly from Fell's perfervid
imaginings). Therefore putting numbers to it, using what makes sense to
him (hence the lack of need to learn much about Ogham), is what he
figures will solve the problem.
One can only hope that he was more rational when he was doing real
-----------------
+++ Old Mc knows nothing about either Ogam or Engineering. I have
extensive libraries on both subjects and have had papers published in
both. As far as he has indicated, he has never done anything of note.
Who is he to judge in this matter??? +++
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E>
Eric Stevens
<tmcdon...@nohormelCharter.net> wrote:
>Eric Stevens wrote:
>
>
><snip>
>
>>
>> I'm giving up arguing with you. I've found several people who are
>> extremely knoweldgable about Ogham and willing to consider new ideas
>> and information. Their conclusion may ultimately be the same as your
>> own but I will know that it has been fairly reached.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric Stevens
>
>Eric,
>
> I've been around long enough to have seen both John Byrne and
>Searles O'Dubhain come into this group and get involved in the
>evaluation of Larry's paper, both with decent backgrounds in
>Ogham, and both with a desire to fairly evaluate Larry's work.
> Now, after Larry's obfuscation and abuse, and your own
>efforts, you've decided to write them off, and get yourself
>some new guys. Perhaps you'll be so good as to let us know
>more about these new guys, and not insist that they are
>lurking while supporting you in email.
Don't be daft. Some of the people may lurk but others most certainly
don't. I'm not interested in an endless argument which is all that we
see to have in this news group. I was some intelligent consideration
of the issues at the core of Larry's paper. I don't seem to be able to
get it here.
>
> Does it tell you nothing that John and Searles both have
>found Larry's work wanting? Or do you agree with Larry that
>anyone who doesn't agree with Larry that Larry's shit don't
>stink is disqualified from any sort of expertise, knowledge or
>ability to evaluate Larry's amateur paper? Or even mentality
>enough to breathe on their own?
>
> I wonder at what point you might consider that Larry's paper
>might indeed be crap, and that that minuscule percentage of
>hope you've been holding on to that it might be seminal is
>close enough to zero to be not worth your continued time?
Not yet.
>
> Time. Hell, man; in the time we've been discussing this, and
>based on the efforts you have put out yourself, you could have
>re-done Larry's work yourself (and with your special access to
>Larry, you might have been able to actually get the necessary
>data; and with your background, you might have actually been
>able to evaluate it correctly);
I don't have the necessary library. I don't have the ability to go
through Larry's sources and discuss them with him. Evaluation of Ogham
is a visual thing and one does not do it merely by seeing what
Macalister etc had to say about it.
>or you might have actually
>learned enough Ogham to be able to correctly parse, for
>instance, the quote by Kevin Jones that you seem to be hanging
>your hopes on just now.
>
> But by all means, bring in your new guys. Let us know what
>you can of them, and what they think of Larry's paper. If
>they wind up respecting what Larry has done, I'll be happy to
>read their thinking. If they wind up otherwise, I'll be
>interested in whether you ditch them as you're ditching JMB
>and SO, and get yourself yet another bunch of new guys.
The ongoing infighting has caused us to lose track of the main point.
I may yet return with it.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
O'Dubhain) wrote:
>> I'm giving up arguing with you. I've found several people who are
>> extremely knoweldgable about Ogham and willing to consider new ideas
>> and information. Their conclusion may ultimately be the same as your
>> own but I will know that it has been fairly reached.
>
>I'll be interested in hearing what these "extremely knowledgeable"
>people have to say about Ogham. I'm extremely interested in the
>subject and will pay very close attention to their information,
>knowledge and wisdom. I'd love to discover something new about the
>Ogham (even if it is very *old*).
I apologise for cutting you off like that but I was feeling extremely
frustrated and you copped some of the back lash. Shortly after I read
some of your more recent posts and gained the impression that you were
trying to be genuinely constructive. By now you may have found that I
have also responded to you by email.
Eric Stevens
Tom McDonald
<snip>
I was some intelligent consideration
> of the issues at the core of Larry's paper.
<snip>
> Eric Stevens
Eric,
What would you say is one key issue at the core of Larry's
paper that you'd like intelligently discussed? Not necessarily
the most important, but one that you'd like to attempt to
resolve. Perhaps we've hared off in too many directions, and
confused and frustrated each other due to that.
I'd welcome fresh input on specifics related to Larry's
paper, as long as the inputters weren't seen as either fresh
meat or potential conscripts.
JMB
news:26752-3F9...@storefull-2231.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> nonsense here. SOD and JMB know almost nothing about Ogam and have not
> claimed to have published anything on any subject.
Mainly because we realise that it is better to publish nothing rather than
publish something as ridiculous as your paper.
> Neither has made any
> scholarly criticism of my paper, only foolish claims.
> - JMB claimed that my BI-1 corpus was copied wrong;
No, I claimed that you deliderately edited it. A different claim
altogether.
> however, I have
> shown that his version and mine correlate perfectly if vowels are not
> considered (which is per my premise).
No you haven't. You have shown that if you edit my vowels into consonants,
then you can improve the correlation, but it is by no means a perfect
correlation.
> They try to change my premise and
> then show that their version is wrong. That is not scholarship. They
> are not interested in learning anything new. That is not scholarship.
> They seem to be in the same class as Old Mc.
> Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
>
>
>
>
Larry Athy
and demonstrated that he did not understand my point when I wrote:
++ Note that he did not respond to what I had written regarding the
foolishness of using consonants as vowels, rather than using vowels as
vowels. "Nt tht h dd nt rspnd t wht #1 hd wrttn", is just as easier to
read in English than "Nldtsc thbht hsc dnqd nldt rscspldnd tld whbht nr
hbhd wrnqttscn". Not even the Irish as so stupid as to do something like
that!!! Or are they??? They could use any symbols, such as ^, ^^, ^^^,
^^^^, and ^^^^^ as vowels. Why confuse the issue with more consonants
that are not consonants?? ++
Searles O'Dubhain
Larry,
Your analogy and example are pointless as well as vowelless. The
inscriptions appear to be encoded in a different way to what you've
attempted to recognize. If you were correlating strokes, you'd be closer
to the truth. However I also note that the ways that you've groups or
even identified stroke types for the BI-1 and HP-1 corpora is also
biased and incorrect. All in all, your analysis is doomed to bias and
failure until it applies a *uniform* standard to stroke recognition and
grouping. That's what McGlone was attempting to do. You should learn a
lesson from him.
Searles
Kevin Jones
On Mon, Oct 27, 2003, 12:26am (CST+1), Searles O'Dubhain posted here
and demonstrated that he did not understand my point when I wrote:
>++ Note that he did not respond to what I had written regarding the
>foolishness of using consonants as vowels, rather than using vowels as
>vowels. "Nt tht h dd nt rspnd t wht #1 hd wrttn", is just as easier to
>read in English than "Nldtsc thbht hsc dnqd nldt rscspldnd tld whbht nr
>hbhd wrnqttscn".
Well, firstly, you're not dealing with English. Different languages,
different rules. I'm not sure even someone whose first language was Gaelic
would make a lot of:
r s cch b brs brth bs h thg
Particularly since an entire word has been deleted by deducting the vowels,
and the end of word spaces would have to be supplied by the reader.
Basically it could be almost anything - no doubt multiple interpretations as
are possible, which somewhat defeats the purpose of it. Maybe someone would
like to provide a few possible Gaelic readings of the above.
OTOH, under the circumstances you might make more of:
bhr is cbhch bfcld bfcsqrfcs brfcth bfcsbh hfc bh thldgbh
You might in the second have more chance of realising that someone has
written (using the Bethluisnion):
Ar is cach beo beires breth besa he a thoga
Which quotation no doubt someone round here will recognise. :-) Searles?
Secondly, the second is not that difficult to read with practice; it's just
a matter of mentally substituting things on the fly. No more difficult than
speaking Thieves Latin (oray antcay oray ateverwhay). The brain can do some
remarkable things as long as its trained to them. :-)
>Not even the Irish as so stupid as to do something like that!!!
Err? Pardon? Not even the Irish? Are the Irish supposed to be the epitome of
stupidity then? <growl! some people's children!>
Kevin
Doug Weller
Hi Searles,
I like that. Larry certainly does live in denial, but without him I
would never had had the impetus to do the research to show, for
instance, that the so-called Plowden Petition does not describe the
Newport Tower, and that Jairhazbhoy's claims about Egyptians and the
Olmecs are based on, to be charitable, an overactive imagination and
his lack of understanding of Egyptology (and distortions of, eg
Sahagun).
Doug
Larry Athy
uninformed nonsense here when he wrote: ~~ ---- Larry certainly does
live in denial, but without him I would never had had the impetus to do
the research to show, for instance, that the so-called Plowden Petition
does not describe the Newport Tower, and that Jairhazbhoy's claims about
Egyptians and the Olmecs are based on, to be charitable, an overactive
imagination and his lack of understanding of Egyptology (and distortions
------------
+++ The problem here is that the cave dweller knows nothing about the
Egyptians and Olmecs, while Jairazbhoy has written several books on
both. Caveman has never written anything of value. +++
Regards, Larry Athy, P.E.
Steve Marcus
Regards youself, moron.
I see that you are still posting drivel that a bright sixth grader would
understand to be nonsense.
Eric von Daniken has written more than several books that implicate Egyptian
civilizations, and several New World civilizations. Do you think that von
Daniken actually knows anything about those civilizations? If so, why does
everyone who knows even a little bit about those topic think that von
Daniken is a no-nothing fraud?
In case you have forgotten, you have never posted a single shred of evidence
supporting anything that you have ever stated on sci.archaeology, on any
topic that you've ever posted on. That you may have "written" something, be
it in this forum, or for publication in a non-peer reviewed publication, or
scribbled on the walls of your padded room, does not mean that you know
anything about anything. You are a self-admitted non-archaeologist,
non-linguist, non-scholar who is qualified to teach PE to fourth graders.
Your performance in the Plowden/New Albion discussions was so pitiful that
anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty or an ounce of self respect
would have admitted his error and withdrawn gracefully. Instead, you choose
to do things such as argue that written words on a posted document said the
opposite of what they did say.
Evidently you have nothing better to do with your time than to generate
reams of meaningless posts to newsgroups, thereby camouflaging your refusal
to post the basis for your vowelless Ogham data. Your failure to post as
asked confirms the fact that in addition to being a nasty blowhard, you are
a coward who is afraid to test what you've "written" in this forum for fear
of being exposed as the idiot that you are.
Steve
--
The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice,
because we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and
should not be construed as either. This posting does not
represent the opinion of my employer, but is merely my personal
view. To reply, delete _spamout_ and replace with the numeral 3
>
>
>
>
Philip Deitiker
<smarcus_...@cox.net> wrote:
>Eric von Daniken has written more than several books that implicate Egyptian
>civilizations, and several New World civilizations. Do you think that von
>Daniken actually knows anything about those civilizations? If so, why does
>everyone who knows even a little bit about those topic think that von
>Daniken is a [k]no[w]-nothing fraud?
And he does know something, he knows how to exploit and
manipulate the masses, folks like Larry Athy.