Kevin Jones on Ogham Consaine
Searles O'Dubhain
the newsgroup *as if* it supports Larry Athy's or Barry Fell's take on
Ogham Consaine, I have been in email contact with Kevin. He's very busy
in his personal, scholastic and financial life right now and may not get
actively involved in our discussions. Here are excerpts from our latest
email exchange which he has kindly given me permission to present here:
"I'd disagree with Fell on almost anything he proposed,
at least unless I could look at his original data, and
the original artefacts, and come to the same
conclusion independently. I mentioned as much to Eric.
My argument was with the notion that Ogham Consaine
was Fell's invention. I remarked on the Book of
Ballymote and, if memory serves me correctly, the
passage is in the Auraciept - it is however a brief
passage and easily missed. I also mentioned to Eric
that I first learnt it back in the mid to late 70s,
which was probably before Fell had published his
stuff, and certainly before he became well-known in
some circles - and he's still hardly a household name
outside academia. As it happens, I know people who
learnt of it in the 40s - one guy, now dead, learnt it
back in the 20s. Now given that, and the fact that the
stuff associated with it had no resemblance whatsoever
to any of Fell's arguments, I think we can say that
the association is independent, and that Fell just
picked up on the name and ran with it. Hmm! come to
think of it, I think one of the early 19th century
academics may have mentioned it, but I'd not put my
money on my recollection for once."
"In fact, the way I learned things, Ogham Consaine
wasn't intended to be a written script - it was used
as an explanation of how the Ogham was created (i.e.
the how and why of it), rather than it being the
'first' Ogham. In short, A is not represented by BH,
but B and H are obtained from A. The vowels are the
source, which means that some file has written things
backwards. This was a common trick for the filidh when
being misleading; the Auraicept in fact starts off
with the declaration that things had deliberately been
made misleading for the uninitiated. One might
usefully have a look at the Auraicept on the divine
nature of vowels."
Kevin goes on to say later in this particular email:
"I'll join in this punch-up when I've had time to do
some research and track down relevant quotations. I'm
not taking sides one way or the other as regards
Athy's arguments, because I haven't seen his data or
his methodology. It's an interesting notion, but I'll
wait until I can look at his data. Fell I personally
think is a loon and, from what I've seen of his stuff,
shouldn't be taken seriously. I first ran into his
stuff at some point in the 80's - mid to late 80's
maybe, before I'd got interested in archaeology, let
alone studied it. Even then it was pretty soon
apparent, despite my then lack of knowledge, that he
was talking twaddle, and I wound up hurling the book
into the corner in irritation. "
"The principal problem in any venture such as this is
that you could wind up interpreting any collection of
horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines as Ogham, when
it may in fact be badly scratched tally marks or
pseudoalphabetic marks. OTOH, Ogham does not
necessarily take the standard form - some can look
quite ornamental. Again, there's the assumption that
you'd only find it chiselled or scratched on stone,
whereas the sources concentrate on it largely being
painted on a surface or carved onto wood, neither of
which is likely to be preserved. Even in wet
conditions scratchings on wood may not be apparent
without some serious examination (e.g. the Vindolanda
tablets). Chiselling it on stone might in fact be a
later innovation due to cultural influences from Roman
Britain."
"Meantime, you can post this if you feel the need."
I hope that these remarks by Kevin Jones add some clarity to the "Ogham
Consaine" controversy and the misuse of the term by some to describe an
unsubstantiated form of markings as being an early form of Ogham.
In summary:
1. Kevin says that Fell is using the name Ogham Consaine in a
non-substantiated manner "... that Fell just picked up on the name and
ran with it."
2. His opinion of Fell's works is " ... that he was talking
twaddle..."
3. That the use of Ogham Consaine by the Filidh and according to
the Book of Ballymote is consistent to the approach that is expressed
within the Auraicept " ... that things had deliberately been made
misleading for the uninitiated."
Searles O'Dubhain
Eric Stevens
<odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Since Kevin Jones's name and a paper of his has been presented her on
>the newsgroup *as if* it supports Larry Athy's or Barry Fell's take on
>Ogham Consaine, I have been in email contact with Kevin. He's very busy
>in his personal, scholastic and financial life right now and may not get
>actively involved in our discussions. Here are excerpts from our latest
>email exchange which he has kindly given me permission to present here:
>
>"I'd disagree with Fell on almost anything he proposed,
>at least unless I could look at his original data, and
>the original artefacts, and come to the same
>conclusion independently. I mentioned as much to Eric.
I've been in discussion with Kevin Jones since before your most recent
bout of correspondence. In response to Kevin mentioning Fell and some
business of Fell finding Ogham on coins, I had replied:
"I'm not a fan of Barry Fell and don't know anything about the
coins you referred to. "
... just for the record
Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
>
> 2. His opinion of Fell's works is " ... that he was talking
>twaddle..."
Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
>
> 3. That the use of Ogham Consaine by the Filidh and according to
>the Book of Ballymote is consistent to the approach that is expressed
>within the Auraicept " ... that things had deliberately been made
>misleading for the uninitiated."
By which stage an advanced standard of scholarship had been attained.
But what about the primitive roots? As my earlier quote from Kevi
showed, the history of Ogham reaches far back from the Book of
Ballymote.
Eric Stevens
Searles O'Dubhain
"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
news:98kopvsv223cc8upt...@4ax.com...
<snip>
> >In summary:
> >
> > 1. Kevin says that Fell is using the name Ogham Consaine in a
> >non-substantiated manner "... that Fell just picked up on the name
and
> >ran with it."
>
> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
>
Sure it is relevant. Larry used vowel markings as consonants because he
accepts an incorrect version of Ogham Consaine based on Fell's work.
> >
> > 2. His opinion of Fell's works is " ... that he was talking
> >twaddle..."
>
> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
Well, Larry is also talking twaddle, so it has a great deal of "twaddle
relevance" :-)
> >
> > 3. That the use of Ogham Consaine by the Filidh and according to
> >the Book of Ballymote is consistent to the approach that is expressed
> >within the Auraicept " ... that things had deliberately been made
> >misleading for the uninitiated."
>
> By which stage an advanced standard of scholarship had been attained.
> But what about the primitive roots? As my earlier quote from Kevi
> showed, the history of Ogham reaches far back from the Book of
> Ballymote.
>
I don't think Kevin was saying that at all. You've misunderstood him.
The history of Ogham is linked directly to the history of the scholars
as a group who wrote, used and studied the Book of Ballymote's Ogham
Tract. There is no before for them. They invented it.
Searles
Eric Stevens
<odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>news:98kopvsv223cc8upt...@4ax.com...
>
><snip>
>
>> >In summary:
>> >
>> > 1. Kevin says that Fell is using the name Ogham Consaine in a
>> >non-substantiated manner "... that Fell just picked up on the name
>and
>> >ran with it."
>>
>> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
>>
>
>Sure it is relevant. Larry used vowel markings as consonants because he
>accepts an incorrect version of Ogham Consaine based on Fell's work.
Well then, if there truly was a 15 character Ogham script not using
vowels, what were the individual characters?
>
>> >
>> > 2. His opinion of Fell's works is " ... that he was talking
>> >twaddle..."
>>
>> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
>
>Well, Larry is also talking twaddle, so it has a great deal of "twaddle
>relevance" :-)
>
>> >
>> > 3. That the use of Ogham Consaine by the Filidh and according to
>> >the Book of Ballymote is consistent to the approach that is expressed
>> >within the Auraicept " ... that things had deliberately been made
>> >misleading for the uninitiated."
>>
>> By which stage an advanced standard of scholarship had been attained.
>> But what about the primitive roots? As my earlier quote from Kevi
>> showed, the history of Ogham reaches far back from the Book of
>> Ballymote.
>>
>
>I don't think Kevin was saying that at all. You've misunderstood him.
>The history of Ogham is linked directly to the history of the scholars
>as a group who wrote, used and studied the Book of Ballymote's Ogham
>Tract. There is no before for them. They invented it.
Hmm - what then do you take Kevin meant when he wrote:
"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 ... "
I took him to mean exactly what he wrote: that what is in the Book of
Ballymote can be traced back into the distant past. There is certainly
nothing to suggest that the entire usage of Ogha was invented at that
time.
Eric Stevens
JMB
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:31:08 -0500, "Searles O'Dubhain"
> <odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> >news:98kopvsv223cc8upt...@4ax.com...
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >> >In summary:
> >> >
> >> > 1. Kevin says that Fell is using the name Ogham Consaine in a
> >> >non-substantiated manner "... that Fell just picked up on the name
> >and
> >> >ran with it."
> >>
> >> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
> >>
> >
> >Sure it is relevant. Larry used vowel markings as consonants because he
> >accepts an incorrect version of Ogham Consaine based on Fell's work.
>
> Well then, if there truly was a 15 character Ogham script not using
> vowels, what were the individual characters?
There was no 15 character Ogham script not using vowels that anyone has ever
shown to exist. There was a 20 character Ogham script that inscluded
vowels, but that only used 15 marks to represent the 20 letters.
Now, you are just being a prat. This must be a deliberate misunderstanding
of what Searles wrote, because he didn't use particularly big words, and he
just repeated what has been said many times to you before.
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
--
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.
Searles O'Dubhain
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:31:08 -0500, "Searles O'Dubhain"
> <odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> >news:98kopvsv223cc8upt...@4ax.com...
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >> >In summary:
> >> >
> >> > 1. Kevin says that Fell is using the name Ogham Consaine in a
> >> >non-substantiated manner "... that Fell just picked up on the name
> >and
> >> >ran with it."
> >>
> >> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
> >>
> >
> >Sure it is relevant. Larry used vowel markings as consonants because
he
> >accepts an incorrect version of Ogham Consaine based on Fell's work.
>
> Well then, if there truly was a 15 character Ogham script not using
> vowels, what were the individual characters?
These are the 20 different encoded slash groups for one example of an
Ogham script. This one happens to be the Ogham Consaine mentioned by
Jones and Pennick:
, B
,, L
,,, F
,,,, S
,,,,, N
' H
'' D
''' T
'''' C
''''' Q
/ M
// G
/// NG
//// ST
///// R
,' A
,,'' O
,,,''' U
,,,,''''' E
,,,,,'''''' I
There's another Ogham form in the BB that uses only the usual stokes for
d, t, l and f. This is Ogam ar abairtar cethrur:
'' B
'' '' L
'' '' '' F
'' '' '' '' S
'' '' '' '' '' N
''' H
''' ''' D
''' ''' ''' T
''' ''' ''' ''' C
''' ''' ''' ''' ''' Q
,, M
,, ,, G
,, ,, ,, NG
,, ,, ,, ,, ST
,, ,, ,, ,, ,, R
,,, A
,,, ,,, O
,,, ,,, ,,, U
,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, E
,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, I
I hope you can see that the strokes are both positionally and
numerically emcoded in their associations to what are normally vowel and
consonant markings in mormal ogham usage.
That's what is being said about them by most people in this thread,
Jones and Pennick, the BB included.
The people who invented, developed, taught, used and understood the
Ogham are co-resident with the Ogham from the present to the past and
even before the invention of Ogham. These are the scholars, Filidh and
Draoithe of Ireland. Just because some of their knowledge was recorded
in a book in the past 1000 to 1500 years and then re-copied over and
over again in no way negates their invention of and their long
association with Ogham. They are its authors. What is in the Book of
Ballymote is merely the knowledge and the teaching of a class of
scholars in Ireland who were known and are known as the Filidh.
COPYING of MATERIAL doesn't negate COPYRIGHT or AUTHORSHIP.
THE FILIDH INVENTED THE OGHAM as a form of writing, speech and encoding
long before it appears in the Book of Ballymote's pages.
THAT"S WHAT I AM SAYING. THAT"S ALSO WHAT KEVIN is SAYING.
Is that plain and clear enough for you?
Searles
Kevin Jones
Thought I might take a brief breal from my commitments and take up the
invitation to post a few comments on the matter. I must admit that I've not
seen as much excitement as the time when Grandad got his tie caught in the
mangle, so I'll see if I can introduce a bit of illumination to the subject.
:-)
The argument can be broken down into several questions:
1) Is there a documented tradition of representing the vowels (Aicme A)
by pairs of consonants
Yes, this appears in the Book of Ballymote and is quoted again in the
Auraicept. When I have some time I'll dig up the reference and post it. Must
admit the last time I looked for it, it took me several runs (with much
muttering under my breath!) to locate it; it is easily missed. It's buried
in the text; you have to have the sort of mind that doesn't mind putting up
with legal documents on a big scale, otherwise the sheer denseness of the
language will distract you. Like most of these works, you have to read every
word.
2) Was this referred to as Ogam Consaine?
Now thinking about it, and if I'm being exact, I can't recall for certain
that the specific term Ogam Consaine was used, and it's a point on which
I'll check - there are limits on my memory! :-) However, the mechanism is
certainly described, although whether it is given the name is another
matter. This might however be a bit of hair splitting. After all, the term
means Consonant Ogham, i.e. a method by which the vowels are represented by
consonants, so it's an accurate description of the method described in
Ballymote in which the symbols in Aicme A are substituted from the symbols
in Aicme B and H.
I know that Pennick uses it, as obviously does Fell. However I suspect
neither of them invented it. I vaguely recall one of the many 19th century
academic writers on Ogham making reference to it, though it would take a lot
of time to track down which one (you any idea how many 19th century
authors - and earlier - wrote about it?!). I seriously doubt that either
Pennick or Fell invented it. Searles could, BTW, check if 'consaine' is good
Old or Middle Irish.
Of course, it could be argued that if it's not widely mentioned it was
unimportant. However, these are the filidh you're dealing with, and it's a
dangerous assumption to make. In my experience it is what they don't mention
that's interesting.
3) Exactly how should it be understood?
Ah, now you're talking. :-) You're dealing with the filidh and ambiguity
here! :-) The guys had minds like corkscrews. There's more than one
interpretation of what they're talking about, and they're not about to tell
you which one is right. Presumably they expect you to know.
Basically it says that the vowels (Aicme A) could be represented by pairs of
consonants from Aicme B and H; thus BH=A, LD=O, NT=U, FC=E and SQ=I. As I
mentioned, this is positional encryption, and it's nothing particularly new.
Looks simple doesn't it? As I said, there's two ways of understanding it. If
you are fairly literal-minded and straightforward (something the filidh were
not) you would interpret it as follows:
I
>-----------< is equivalent to >-------|-----<
I
i.e. B+H sequentially are equivalent to A
However one may also interpret it as follows:
I
>-----------< is equal to >---------|---------<
I
i.e. A is formed from a combination of B and H
There are subtle differences between these two interpretations:
Version 1 is interesting, although I am not aware of any confirmed occasions
where it has been used as a script. There are potential problems with the
sequential combination of BH since that is given in indigenous literature as
the means of transliterating P.
Version 2 is obvious and self-evident if you think about it. It is also more
than interesting; if its turned round (A=B+H, rather than B+H=A), it
partially suggests the derivation of the Ogham itself. It is even more
interesting in view of the Auraicept's assertion of the divine nature of the
vowels; not an unusual position in many cultures of the period. Consequently
this suggests a symbolic derivation of Aicme B and H from Aicme A, the
overall symbolism for which may allude to something else. This goes against
the idea that the Ogham were derived by either numerical manipulation or by
an application of the principals of the late Roman grammarians. Neither, I
think, is tenable for a whole host of reasons, but this would be somewhat of
a digression. In short, what you may have here is an indigenous, albeit
partial, explanation of the derivation of the Ogham, rather than
undocumented methods that seek to reconstruct it on the basis of a priori
assumptions.
Which of the above interpretations apply is left to the understanding of the
reader - fairly typical of the filidh. I would think, on balance, that they
intended Version 2, but Version 1 is possible.
I'm not aware of any other version of Ogham Consaine.
4) Is this vowelless Ogham?
Umm! Now how are you understanding that? Do you mean that it lacks vowels?
No, obviously it doesn't. However, the usual symbol for the vowels would be
missing in Version 1 - you'd have nothing but the symbols for consonants,
and a right mess it would look too! So it's not lacking in vowels except
that the symbols for the vowels are not used, and are replaced by pairs of
consonantal symbols; one might therefore argue that it's lacking vowels in
the sense that it is lacking the symbols for vowels. Of course, this could
have been regarded as vowelless Ogham by the filidh - if they subscribed to
Version 1 being a correct interpretation. Of course, if they didn't, the
whole argument collapses, so let's for the moment entertain the notion that
they did, and that both interpretations were possible. After all, the
authors of Ballymote and the Auraicept are not around to argue the toss, and
their words are ambiguous.
Which leads us to the next bit. Now without doubt Ogham inscriptions exist w
hich use only consonants. Having given it a bit of serious overnight
thought, and having had a look at a few of these inscriptions, I might make
several suggestions.
1) Some may never have been intended to give an intelligible reading;
they may simply be for magical or similar purposes, and based entirely on
non-script associations of the Ogham. There are a whole collection of
symbolic associations in the literature. One might note that the use of
Ogham inscriptions which were illegible to those who could merely read Ogham
turns up in the sources (e.g. Cuchulainn and the withe). In the tales it
invariably needs someone with another layer of training to decipher these;
usually they've been trained by the same person as the author of the
inscription.
In short, if it's gibberish, it may have been intended from the first to be
gibberish and there may have been contemporary rational reasons for it being
gibberish.
2) Alternatively it may be gibberish because it was carved in imitation
of Ogham by someone who had seen Ogham, understood what it was used for, but
couldn't understand it themselves. Similar phenomenon are seen in the Roman
world, where there are inscriptions by the illiterate in imitation of
writing. Again, it may be gibberish, because it was never anything else.
With this possibility there is no intelligible message on any level, not
even symbolic.
3) Some may use agreed abbreviations which are now lost to us. One
might, by analogy note the Roman use of DM (de manibus) on Roman tombstones.
Presumably we know the meaning of DM from a textual reference elsewhere, or
from the fully expanded version on other tombstones. OTOH, if these did not
exist, DM would be mystifying, apart from the fact that it had a funerary
context. No doubt its interpretation would vex many academic minds, and
whole forests would be sacrificed to furthering the various arguments! :-)
Furthermore, many Roman inscriptions appear, to the uninitiated, to be
gibberish because of the use of such abbreviations. You have to learn the
abbreviations to make sense of the inscriptions.
Now it is not improbable that such agreed abbreviations were used in
Ireland; Roman Britain was only next door, there was a moderately brisk
trade going on across the Irish Sea, and cultural influences were no doubt
associated with this trade. However, if such agreed abbreviations were used,
and are undocumented, we may remain forever mystified by such inscriptions.
I might however suggest MM for the common Mac Mucoi, or even MQMC if you
leave out the vowels. It might however be noted that there is a remarkable
lack of Latin influence in the Ogham inscriptions - certainly the early
ones - and the obvious and anticipated loan words such as fili, puer etc are
missing. One would not therefore be expecting Latin abbreviations such as
DM - it might be the idea that was communicated, and not the specifics.
4) Which brings us to the use of cryptic abbreviations such as cend fo
muinne; these are a sort of agreed abbreviation, but differ from, for
example, DM. These cryptic abbreviations appear in scholastic material;
Ogham effectively gets used as a syllabary. For example, the archaic form of
Beli - aka Belinus, Belus etc - (complete with very archaic terminator
indicating a male divinity) would be Belenon, which could be rendered in
Ogham, using cend fo muinne as BLN, simply by using the Gaelic pronunciation
of the first two letters, plus substituting the name of the third letter for
the final syllable - thus be-le-nuinne (or be-le-non). If you chose a later
version of the name, Belos, you'd use BL (be-luis). You could get through a
short inscription without overtly using any vowels that way. However, to
interpret such material you'd have to be very familiar with such cryptic
Oghams, as well as with Old Irish and the serious archaicism seen in Ogham
inscriptions. You do get such abbreviations in Pictish Ogham inscriptions
BTW where, for example, IR may stand for 'irrus'.
Those are the other possibilities. Now you'll need some strict tests before
deciding an inscription is Ogham, let alone Ogam Consaine. It should also be
tested against the possibility that it is not Ogham.
Now I've looked at some material that Eric sent me. It's good as far as it
goes - though I've only seen a couple of pages - but I'd add the following
reservations and tests. I don't think that you can be too rigorous in
looking at this subject.
Ogham stones classically used a distinguishing feature such as a corner for
the stem. With stemless examples you run the risk placing the stem line in
accordance with preconceived ideas that you're dealing with Ogham in the
first place, which is not a good way of doing archaeology. You may be making
order where none exist - in short, it may be an artefact of the methodology.
Again, not every collection of vertical, horizontal and diagonal incisions
are Ogham. Similarly not all Ogham consist of the standard vertical,
horizontal and diagonal incisions; some look positively ornamental. Again,
it should be born in mind that there's always the risk of reading more into
it than the data allows, and it's all too easy to get over-excited. For
example, I know of a 1st-2nd century AD silver cup from the Iron Gates which
may have a form of Ogham scratched on the base (allowing that you read it
from right to left and use cend fo muinne), along with a Greek inscription.
But then again, they could just be meaningless scratches or an imitation of
writing. One artefact does not help you prove it and my methodology may be
making something out of nothing. Now if we had 20 cups, all with the same
scratches on the bottom, we'd be on firmer ground. However, as it stands
you're not going to be getting a paper from me entitled "Ogham inscription
on second century AD religious artefact from the Iron Gates" any time soon.
(If anyone is interested, it's in Diringer's opus on the alphabets of the
world)
One way round it might be to statistically prove that the marks are
non-random. Marks used for writing are more likely to form patterns than,
for example, patterns caused by working the rock face. The grooves may, for
example, be wear marks from sharpening or shaping metal, horn or bone
implements - even stone implements can be polished by rubbing against stone.
What technology were they using? Is there any evidence of stone polishing?
Do any bone or horn artefacts show evidence of rubbing against rock? What
sort of rock?
If you're looking for something written, there's probably going to be some
statistical pattern of it forming a linear series, though in the case of
graffiti, this may be limited to small areas of the wall, with individual
areas having slightly different orientations (i.e. the orientation of
graffiti is not necessarily dependent on the surrounding graffiti, though
the writing itself takes a linear pattern). One might have to take into
account things like boustrophedon, however. You might have problems in
distinguishing possible Ogham from work marks though - a particular worker,
in one session, may make similar repetitive marks by simply moving along the
wall or stone a bit and rubbing the horn against the stone at the same
angle. Before you know where you are, he's accidentally created a stemless
Ogham for Straif; give it a few generations of doing this and you might
accidentally produce the equivalent of 'Kilroy was here' if the right
methodology is used to interpret the marks. This thus has to be examined in
depth, and may require a bit of experimental archaeology to rule out. You're
going to have to seriously widen the study to eliminate work marks; you have
to demonstrate that it could not possibly be anything other than deliberate
patterned marks designed to communicate something.
Having got as far as deciding it has the appropriate linearity for
communication, and that it is not due to work marks, one then needs to
confirm that it is Ogham, rather than tally marks. For all anyone knows,
they may have been counting sheep there - or their local equivalent, which
would also produce repetitive elements. Now numerical repetitive elements
would be different from literate ones if the written string is long enough;
character repetition would be related to the frequency of occurrence of
particular letters, and these differ for each language. The trouble is,
individual Ogham inscriptions usually aren't usually long enough for
meaningful frequency analysis, and the rules may go out of the window if
they are using abbreviation. Again while you can certainly get letter
frequencies for Old Irish, proto-Goedelic and Common Celtic will be very
problematic.
Assuming that you overcome this problem, you'd then have to eliminate all
the other possibilities of actual documented Ogham use before you get to
Ogam Consaine. OK, assume for the sake of argument that you'd managed to
pass all the above tests. The next problem is to identify the required
consonant pairs - you'd need to get a constant pattern of the pairs given
above (i.e. BH, LD etc). If you've got those, then you may - may have a good
chance of having an example. Don't get too excited though - it might, on
stricter analysis turn out to be hooey. After all, the idea is to hopefully
produce an intelligible reading from it. This is, however, where you may
sail into problems. If the age of the suggested Ogham inscription is much
older than the 4th century AD, it will not be in Old Irish. It will at the
very least be in proto-Goedelic or even Common Celtic. These are very
different, though related, animals. You are going to have to get a very good
linguist just to have a stab at them - they'll have all sorts of
archaicisms.
Of course, if you managed to produce a reading in Gaelic or proto-Goedelic
in America, you've just widened the problem to include an important
discussion - how the hell did it get there? Which then brings you into
things like ship technology, the contemporary weather on the Atlantic (if it
was usually full of howling storms, a successful crossing is unlikely) and
so on. You'd probably also need to discuss why there were no proto-Goidelic
Ogham inscriptions identified in, for example, contemporary Ireland. In
short, you can't stop at just saying 'Hey! Look what I found!" You've got to
take it the extra distance, and maybe even explore what research questions
it might raise.
Now if someone can jump through all those hoops, I'd be quite interested in
seeing the paper. You'd have something that would be fairly solid; people
might hate it, but if it was that solid, it would be difficult to
successfully disagree with it.
Now I'm not being rude about anyone with any of the above suggestions - I've
done my own tilting at well-established windmills myself, and I'm currently
awaiting academic opinions; I've always tried to consider the sort of
objections that opponents could raise. What I would like to see is a
thoroughly exhaustive paper in which every I has been dotted and every T
crossed. If you're going to disagree with everyone, then you need to make
sure that the paper uses unambiguous data, is statistically and
methodologically rigorous (you'd be amazed how many noted senior academics
are lousy at stats, though I'll mention no names<grin!>), is completely
transparent in its treatment of the data, uses as few assumptions as
possible (and those that it does use are logically supported), and above all
demonstrates in a sound, logical way why the current paradigm is incorrect.
As for a Phoenician connection, I rather ruled that out. Unfortunately the
page on Taliere's site neglected to include the companion article which
critically examined past and present academic ideas on the origins of the
Ogham, plus a few crackpot ones such as those of Robert Graves - well,
Taliere neglected to tell me that he was carrying my article, and managed to
lose the references. The second article was carried on a friend's now
defunct page, which may be where Taliere got the current article from.
Personally I'd side with Macalister and reckon it was derived from a
primitive Greek script, which in turn was derived from the North Semitic
script. Any connection is therefore second-hand. However, this in turn opens
up a whole new can of worms. This however is an argument that will no doubt
run and run, and it is not relevant to the current discussion.
Finally, Searles remarked:
"The people who invented, developed, taught, used and understood the
Ogham are co-resident with the Ogham from the present to the past and
even before the invention of Ogham. These are the scholars, Filidh and
Draoithe of Ireland. Just because some of their knowledge was recorded
in a book in the past 1000 to 1500 years and then re-copied over and
over again in no way negates their invention of and their long
association with Ogham. They are its authors. What is in the Book of
Ballymote is merely the knowledge and the teaching of a class of
scholars in Ireland who were known and are known as the Filidh."
<snip>
"THE FILIDH INVENTED THE OGHAM as a form of writing, speech and encoding
long before it appears in the Book of Ballymote's pages."
Well, to throw a bit of illumination on things, I was trying to head off the
potential argument of 'well, since the book is 14th century, then the stuff
in it must be no older than the 14th century." This would be rather
fallacious, given the known characteristics of Irish literature, though a
few antinativists might argue along those lines. It is however on a par with
arguing that because there are no German folk stories in print before the
Brothers Grimm, then the Brothers Grimm invented them all, and that there
were in fact no German folk stories before that time. It's 'argument from
silence' and that has a habit of proving fallacious.
As it happens, we know the Ogham goes back way before the 14th century,
because we've got bloody great stones with the characters carved on them.
They're a bit difficult to ignore! J We can also surmise that Ogham wasn't
static, and that some sort of development went on throughout the period that
the filidh, and their predecessors, existed as orders. Again, that's a
reasonable assumption, given that there are forms of the Ogham that aren't
found chiselled on stones. However, the filidh were a conservative lot, so
you can be fairly sure that they perpetuated traditional knowledge because
that was part and parcel of who the filidh were; amongst other things they
maintained histories, lineages and traditions in order to maintain society
(Mac Con Midhe's poem is a fair example of that philosophy) Again, as
Searles remarks, the Ogham cannot be regarded as distinct from the
intelligencia of Irish society, whatever their label. They were part and
parcel of its origin and development. Mind you chunks of that knowledge was
already pretty hoary by the earliest sections of the Auraicept, as shown by
it already being associated with mythical persons. The best way of regarding
the Ogham is that it was something already ancient by the time of the Book
of Ballymote that had attracted extra accretions to it over time. However, I
would disagree that this antiquity means that it originally had an existence
separate from the druids and later the filidh. It's far too well adapted to
the phonetic requirements of a Q-Celtic language, and an early one at that.
I was however being fairly specific about Ogam Consaine and discussing how
'traditional' it was; the original essay was, after all, about the
'traditional history of the Ogham'. One might argue that it was a 14th
century invention, though this would mean that it was 600-700 years old.
Mind you, the work is attributed to an earlier 11th century file. It was not
uncommon for filidh to endlessly recompile earlier works; indeed manuscript
analysis often points to earlier, lost variations of the same material.
Other Irish sources can be reasonably shown to have quite ancient
antecedents - Audacht Morainn is a classic case - and some, like Cath Maighe
Tuired, have downright archaic features. It is therefore not in the least
unlikely that the 11th century file, Mainistreach, was himself compiling
earlier material, which might include the passage on substituting pairs of
consonants for vowels. The problem is, however, demonstrating it, and I was
aware of this when I was writing. The question is, how much of the material
can be shown to be that old? That requires some considerably detailed
textual and manuscript analysis, such as looking for corrupt lines in poems,
preservation of ancient forms and so on. I shall sometime have to look into
it since my curiosity is now piqued - however, in some cases the copier
broke the chain by shifting things into a more modern version of the
language. It is possible that we may never be able to demonstrate that this
mechanism is archaic, although personally I would not be surprised if it
was. There is however a limit to what can be academically demonstrated;
everything else is opinion.
Hope that clears up a few points. Though I suspect that it will just prompt
another round of argument. :-)
Kevin
Searles O'Dubhain
"Kevin Jones" <laig...@nospam.yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bnkhf9$pp7$1...@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...
> Hi Searles,
>
> Thought I might take a brief breal from my commitments and take up the
> invitation to post a few comments on the matter. I must admit that
I've not
> seen as much excitement as the time when Grandad got his tie caught in
the
> mangle, so I'll see if I can introduce a bit of illumination to the
subject.
> :-)
>
Hello, Kevin, it's nice to see you here in this group. I should preface
our discussions by saying that we've known each other for many years and
have a mutual respect (though not always the same) in opinions and
attitudes about many things, including Ogham. I've found that providing
information about Ogham here in this newsgroup generates both positive
and negative results. That is to say, those that are objective and
seeking to learn will learn and make constructive comments on the
subject. Those that are promoting subjective matters and guarding their
egos might well see additional information on the topic as a threat. At
least, that's been my experience here. Be all that as it may, I do know
that we will have a complete discussion of Ogham now that you're here no
matter how much effort is placed in trying to derail or refocus the
thread.
> The argument can be broken down into several questions:
>
> 1) Is there a documented tradition of representing the vowels
(Aicme A)
> by pairs of consonants
>
>
>
> Yes, this appears in the Book of Ballymote and is quoted again in the
> Auraicept. When I have some time I'll dig up the reference and post
it. Must
> admit the last time I looked for it, it took me several runs (with
much
> muttering under my breath!) to locate it; it is easily missed. It's
buried
> in the text; you have to have the sort of mind that doesn't mind
putting up
> with legal documents on a big scale, otherwise the sheer denseness of
the
> language will distract you. Like most of these works, you have to read
every
> word.
>
I've looked in the Auraicept and have not found Ogham Consaine though I
have of course found references to consonants. It doesn't appear in the
lists or forms. In particular, it's not located close to the Collogam
which is contained in the reference by Nigel Pennick.
> 2) Was this referred to as Ogam Consaine?
>
>
>
> Now thinking about it, and if I'm being exact, I can't recall for
certain
> that the specific term Ogam Consaine was used, and it's a point on
which
> I'll check - there are limits on my memory! :-) However, the mechanism
is
> certainly described, although whether it is given the name is another
> matter. This might however be a bit of hair splitting. After all, the
term
> means Consonant Ogham, i.e. a method by which the vowels are
represented by
> consonants, so it's an accurate description of the method described in
> Ballymote in which the symbols in Aicme A are substituted from the
symbols
> in Aicme B and H.
>
That's my understanding of what Ogham Consaine is all about. It is a way
of expressing vowels by using pairs of normally consonantal strokes.
What Ogham Consaine is not is a vowelless Ogham or a script that
contains only consonants and the vowels are implied (or omitted from the
writing). That's what some do when they misuse the name Ogham Consaine.
Other who misuse the idea actually transliterate the vowels scores in
inscriptions as being consonants, even when the Muin Aicme is present in
the inscription. There should be many, many postings here by people
doing just that. I don't agree with most of the efforts to apply this
approach because they lack context and usually provenance as well.
>
>
> I know that Pennick uses it, as obviously does Fell. However I suspect
> neither of them invented it. I vaguely recall one of the many 19th
century
> academic writers on Ogham making reference to it, though it would take
a lot
> of time to track down which one (you any idea how many 19th century
> authors - and earlier - wrote about it?!). I seriously doubt that
either
> Pennick or Fell invented it. Searles could, BTW, check if 'consaine'
is good
> Old or Middle Irish.
>
I think Pennick's use may be different from Fell's. Consaine is in the
Dictionary of the Irish Language (DIL) as well as the Glossarial Index
of the Auraicept.
From the Auraicept:
conson f. a consonant, n.s. consain 367, 2753, consoin 2750; n.p.
consaine, -i 2757, consoini 1387; g.p. tri duail na consan 348, na
consaine 2702, 2752.
A partial listing from DIL:
conson a, f. (Lat. consona). Also -a(i)n, -u(i)n, -uine, m. (less freq.
f.) in IGT Introd. np. consains, Auraic. 2757 et pass. consain, BB
317b5. gp connsuineadh, IGT Introd. 23. consonant.
It appears to be a loan word from Latin AFAICS.
<snip of a far reaching, complete discussion of the Ogham that is
similar IMO to what I've been saying about them.>>
The age of a concept in Irish tradition normally is older than its
writing (in Irish, Latin or English) since many Irish traditions
developed when the bulk of the history of the people was preserved in an
oral memory or by Ogham.
>
>
> Hope that clears up a few points. Though I suspect that it will just
prompt
> another round of argument. :-)
>
>
>
> Kevin
>
It's great to have you here. I hope that those who would be wise on the
subject will pay heed. I'm fairly certain that we'll also hear a lot
from those who would not be wise (and who have not been wise).
Searles
Eric Stevens
>"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>news:d5nppvshal1e8kp8u...@4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:31:08 -0500, "Searles O'Dubhain"
>> <odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>> >news:98kopvsv223cc8upt...@4ax.com...
>> >
>> ><snip>
>> >
>> >> >In summary:
>> >> >
>> >> > 1. Kevin says that Fell is using the name Ogham Consaine in a
>> >> >non-substantiated manner "... that Fell just picked up on the name
>> >and
>> >> >ran with it."
>> >>
>> >> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
>> >>
>> >
>> >Sure it is relevant. Larry used vowel markings as consonants because he
>> >accepts an incorrect version of Ogham Consaine based on Fell's work.
>>
>> Well then, if there truly was a 15 character Ogham script not using
>> vowels, what were the individual characters?
Aah - so you disagree with Kevin Jones.
>
>There was no 15 character Ogham script not using vowels that anyone has ever
>shown to exist.
Don't you trust the Book of Ballymote in this?
>There was a 20 character Ogham script that inscluded
>vowels, but that only used 15 marks to represent the 20 letters.
So you do agree there was a 15 character Ogham script but you claim
that when it was used, consonant pairs were used to code vowels. Do
you similarly count dipthongs as letters?
But I was not referring to Searles.
Goodbye.
Eric Stevens
JMB
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 10:27:19 -0000, "JMB" <j...@utvinternet.ie> wrote:
>
> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> >news:d5nppvshal1e8kp8u...@4ax.com...
> >> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:31:08 -0500, "Searles O'Dubhain"
> >> <odub...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> >"Eric Stevens" <er...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
> >> >news:98kopvsv223cc8upt...@4ax.com...
> >> >
> >> ><snip>
> >> >
> >> >> >In summary:
> >> >> >
> >> >> > 1. Kevin says that Fell is using the name Ogham Consaine in a
> >> >> >non-substantiated manner "... that Fell just picked up on the name
> >> >and
> >> >> >ran with it."
> >> >>
> >> >> Which is totally irelevant to the core of Larry Athy's paper.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >Sure it is relevant. Larry used vowel markings as consonants because
he
> >> >accepts an incorrect version of Ogham Consaine based on Fell's work.
> >>
> >> Well then, if there truly was a 15 character Ogham script not using
> >> vowels, what were the individual characters?
>
> Aah - so you disagree with Kevin Jones.
You're replying to yourself here.
> >
> >There was no 15 character Ogham script not using vowels that anyone has
ever
> >shown to exist.
>
> Don't you trust the Book of Ballymote in this?
Yes I do, that's what I'm basing the statement on.
>
>
> >There was a 20 character Ogham script that inscluded
> >vowels, but that only used 15 marks to represent the 20 letters.
>
> So you do agree there was a 15 character Ogham script but you claim
> that when it was used, consonant pairs were used to code vowels.
They weren't used to code vowels, they were used to represent vowels. The
people who used them are highly unlikely to have thought of them as
consonant pairs, they'd just read vowels. It is only people like us who no
longer have that skill, who have to transliterate the Ogham to read it, who
find it easier to think in terms of consonant pairs encoding vowels.
> Do
> you similarly count dipthongs as letters?
I don't think there are any in this form of Ogham, but I'll check later when
I get back home.
You were disagreeing with Searles by quoting Kevin, who said pretty much the
same thing as Searles.
>
> Goodbye.