settings
Ulysses vocabulary
4 poets mentioned
help & settings
[x]
-
ogham
-
► definition
Definition:an early Irish alphabet, used between the 4th and 10th centuries. It is very similar to the runic alphabet in that the letters consist only of straight lines, likely to make it easier to carve into stone and wood. Some scholars believe it was created as a crude cipher.
image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham#Alphabet:_the_Beith-Luis-Nin, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
► uses
Uses:
Canon Taylor sees in the ogams an adaptation of the runes to the needs of the engraver, "notches cut with a knife on the edge of a squared staff being substituted for the ordinary runes." And he thinks that the derivation of the ogams from runes is shown in the fact that their names agree with the names of runes of corresponding value, and that they are found exclusively in regions where Scandinavian settlements were established. Professor Rhys regards them as "probably, the work of a grammarian acquainted with Roman writing, but too proud to adopt it." The larger number of Ogam inscriptions occur in Ireland; others are scattered over Scotland, Wales, and the south-west of England.
Edward Clodd. The Story of the Alphabet
---
The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions (Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic).James Joyce. Ulysses
help with search