Primitive Irish language
(Redirected from Ivernic)
Categories: Irish language | Ancient languages | Ancient Ireland
| Language classification |
|---|
| Indo-European Celtic |
Primitive Irish is the oldest known form of the Irish language, known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the Ogham alphabet in Ireland and western Britain up to about the 4th century.
Transcribed Ogham inscriptions show Primitive Irish to be Old Celtic in character, lacking the letter P, and in morphology and inflections similar to Gaulish, Latin, Classical Greek or Sanskrit. It has few of the distinctive characteristics of modern Irish and is difficult to recognise as a form of Irish.
By contrast, Old Irish, written from the 6th century on, is recognisably Irish, complete with initial mutations, distinct "broad" and "slender" consonants, the letter P, consonant clusters created by the loss of unstressed syllables, along with a number of significant vowel and consonant changes.
As an example, a 5th century king of Leinster, whose name is recorded in Old Irish king-lists and annals as Mac Caírthinn Uí Enechglaiss, is memorialised on an ogham stone near where he died. This gives the late Primitive Irish version of his name (in the genitive case), as MAQI CAIRATINI AVI INEQUAGLAS. The development of one to the other clearly shows the loss of unstressed syllables and lenition of certain consonants.
These changes, traced by historical linguistics, are not unusual in the development of languages but appear to have taken place remarkably quickly in Irish. The changes coincide with the conversion to Christianity and the introduction of Latin learning.
All languages have various registers or levels of formality. The most formal register, usually that of learning and religion, changes slowly. The most informal vernacular registers change virtually week by week, but in most cases are prevented from developing into mutually unintelligible dialects by the existence of more formal registers in which speakers also need to be able to communicate.
In pre-Christian Ireland the most formal register of the language would have been that used by the learned and religious class, the druids, for their ceremonies and teaching. It is also likely that memorial inscriptions would have been written in this form. But when the druids were replaced as the learned class by Christian monks, formal Primitive Irish was replaced as the language of learning by Latin. The vernacular forms, freed from the conservative influence of the formal register, changed rapidly, until a new written standard, Old Irish, established itself.
External influences
Before Gaelic dialects evolved in Ireland, some allege that the inhabitants spoke Ivernic (called Iarnnbêlrae, Iarnbêlrae, and Iarmbêrla in the 9th-century dictionary Sanas Cormaic), particularly in Munster. It receives its name from a Gallo-Belgic group known as the Iverni (later Érainn), attested in Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography. This hypothesis may be supported by what seems to be a brief mention of such a language in the 9th-century dictionary Sanas Cormaic, under the names Iarnnbélrae, Iarnbélrae, and Iarmbérla. However, most linguists now explain these Brythonic loanwords as borrowings directly from Welsh, noting that Ogham inscriptions attest to an early Irish presence in Wales. The early 20th century Gaelic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly thus proposed their language, which he called Ivernic, as the source for these loanwords.
Advocates of this hypothesis believe that Ivernic first diverged from Gaulish around 500 BC and survived a proposed Goidelic-speaking invasion of Ireland (sometime between 500 and 100 BC). It was said to be still spoken by a minority in Munster at the time of Bede in about AD 700. However its speakers were eventually absorbed into the Goidelic-speaking population, and by the time the Vikings had established Limerick in about 850, the Ivernic language had evolved into Irish.
See also
References
- John T. Koch (1995), "The conversion and the transition from Primitive to Old Irish", Emania 13
- Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (1995), Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200
- T. F. O'Rahilly in Ériu 13, 1942.
- T. F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946, 1957, 1964, 1971, 1976, 1984, 1999.zh:原始愛爾蘭語