Talk:Ogham

Wot no Spain?
I was always under the impression that the earliest Ogham script was found in Iberia. Right now the only references I can find to this fall into the fruitloop category, where this evidence is used to support crackpot theories about missing tribes of Israel or other such stuff. Was the evidence they use to support their theories as imaginary as the conclusions they reach?

After all, thanks to DNA evidence it is now almost beyond dispute that the Gaels did originate in Spain, much in accordance with the mythology, so it is certainly possible that the Gaels came with a primitive Ogham that was perhaps adopted over time... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prof Wrong (talk • contribs) 15:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There are no academically accepted examples of Ogham script inscriptions outside of the British Isles. But because Ogham letters are formed from series of simple linear strokes, some crackpots (notably Barry Fell) have fraudulently claimed that some linear marks carved on stones in America and elsewhere are examples of Ogham writing, when to experts it is patently obvious that thet are not. It would be great to find a genuine example of an Ogham inscription in continental Europe, but no-one has found one yet ... and probably no-one ever will. BabelStone (talk) 18:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There is no proof whatsoever that the Gaels originated in Spain. The DNA evidence referred to has essentially been manufactured by fringe popular writers (Stephen Oppenheimer), from unscientific interpretations of selected data. In fact the R1b of Iberia and the British Isles branch off independently from a Neolithic or Bronze Age continental source. DinDraithou (talk) 19:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Sometime around 2002 or so, I read a paper speculating that Ogham had an Iberian origin not because of crackpot theories (tribes of Israel) or even DNA evidence linking the Celts to Iberia (seems reasonable) but because of the vcvcvcvc... nature of modern Basque. A problem of Ogham is that similar strokes joined together can be confusing: is ||||| representing an 'i' or is it representing an 'ou' diphthong? This suggests that the "language of Ogham" was one with strict vcvcvcv patterns (no diphthongs and no consonant clusters). This, to me, is the most sensible Ogham origin theory, but I can't track down the paper / website that proposed it, and it sure does seem like a lot of the rest of the Iberian origin hypothesis is full of crackpots.

Infobox
The infobox contains information that the ogham alphabet is an l-t-r alphabet. This is not true. The majority of ogham inscriptions are read from bottom to top. Some exist written from top to bottom, others from left to write. It would be more accurate to describe it as mixed but I can't find the parameters for this in the infobox. Can someone please amend? Mac Tíre  Cowag  19:14, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Although inscriptions are normally carved up and sometimes down the edge of memorial stones, it's written horizontally left-to-right in medieval manuscripts, and is normally written ltr in modern printed books and on computers, so its primary directionality can be considerd to be ltr. Moreover, the directionality parameter in the infobox is derived from Unicode data for text layout, and is intended to indicate whether a script should be laid out left-to-right or right-to-left in computer rendering, not what possible directions a script may be written in epigraphic contexts. BabelStone (talk) 20:25, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * So why isn't that made clear in the infobox? Do you not think it confusing that it states in the same infobox that it was used in the 4th to 10th century AD and then just a few lines down states it [was] written left to right? That is how anyone without any knowledge of Ogham would read it. As far as I am aware there were no computers or Unicode standards in that century period. The vast majority of people who have an interest in Ogham base their interest on the ancient and historical texts and stones on which the alphabet was written/carved, and not on what is printed in modern books and computers. Secondly, even some historical Ogham texts, such as certain passages in the Book of Ballymote, show a flow in which the first sentence is ltr, the second rtl, third ltr, etc. Mac Tíre   Cowag  21:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Ailm
Ailm is the Elm tree not the 'pine tree'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.231.239 (talk) 09:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Mispronunciation of "ogham"
In the opening paragraph we have: "but in English the spelling pronunciation [ˈɒgəm] is very common." I don't think we should include an incorrect pronunciation, just because it's a common mistake. --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 22:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. It would do to indicate that the pronunciation is incorrect, although one could make a case that it is the "correct" English pronunciation, just as ['pɛɹɪs] is the correct English pronunciation of Paris.--Curtis Clark 22:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * yes, but why mention it? that's just the predictable pronunciation of an English speaker coming accross the written word. Can we cite a dictionary that actually prescribes [ˈɒgəm], or is this "original research"? dab (ᛏ) 12:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Assuming this is truly what is in the American Heritage Dictionary, the first pronunciation given matches the pronunciation formerly given for English in the Wikipedia article. I'll check the OED later. Again, I'm not arguing that the English pronunciation is "right", just that it is what it is.--Curtis Clark 15:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * that's fair enough, and should by all means be in wikt:Ogham, but giving pronunciation details for English words isn't common practice on WP, unless they are nontrivial. dab (ᛏ) 08:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That makes sense to me.--Curtis Clark 14:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think we should just drop the phrase, then. --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 21:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * This issue is up again (Diffs:, ), but now the incorrect pronunciation is prioritized, without any indication that it is incorrect. Kwamikagami, I respect your work on the 'pedia, but I don't understand why you are pushing for this. Rather than revert over it, I'm asking others to weigh in. I thought we had some consensus above that there's no reason to include, let alone prioritize, misinformation here. - Slàn, Kathryn NicDhàna  ♫ ♦ ♫ 00:01, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the description "incorrect". There are two pronunciations in use, that's all. To describe the English one as "incorrect" is a little like insisting on Paree when speaking English. (Not quite, because "Paree" is a conventionally viewed as an error in English whereas the "correct" pronunciation of Ogham is not.) With regard to the point that there is no need to include it as "just the predictable pronunciation" to an English speaker: "gh" is highly unpredictable with more than one pronunciation. It's needed. DeCausa (talk) 07:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * See WP:USEENGLISH, WP:GREATWRONGS. If there are reliable sources which complain that the common English pronunciation is incorrect, then those can be cited to support a statement "source X considers pronunciation Y to be incorrect", but not to support a statement "pronunciation Y is incorrect" when so many dictionaries list the pronunciation without criticism. jnestorius(talk) 14:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * You'd need a pretty good source to dispute the OED. Wells's pronunciation dictionary would be a place to look.  — kwami (talk) 18:11, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I had an idea about úath
It seems to me that a loan into PIr or very early Archaic OIr from Greek via Latin of /jo:ta/ would regularly give us úath, no? Has this already been mentioned anywhere? And it has the big advantage that it starts with the sound itself. CecilWard (talk) 03:03, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

The so-called "sample"
The "sample" of Ogham text that was on the page isn't a real inscription. It isn't even in Primitive Irish. It's just a transliteration of the English text into Ogham letters; see wikt:User:Mahagaja/Ogham, which provides an automatically generated re-transliteration of the Ogham back into Latin letters. There are plenty of samples of real Ogham at the article Ogham inscription. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:22, 11 January 2021 (UTC)


 * You're correct - "example" would be a better word than "sample". The samples of real Ogham on the page aren't easily legible; the photos are great to have, but aren't very clear, imho. WP:NOTPAPER - we gain nothing by removing the example. Would be happy to include one or two of the examples from Ogham inscription instead of this one, if you think that'd be more appropriate? Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 10:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What we gain by removing the example is credibility. It is completely unacceptable – downright absurd and academically dishonest – to have a sample or example that is nothing but modern English written in Ogham letters. Ogham isn't used to write modern English. Some samples from Ogham inscription will be fine. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:20, 11 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Really? I've seen it on cards, jewellery, other art and craft materials, tattoos and social media usernames, all very recently. Tables in wiki aren't my strong point - I'll include the samples from Ogham inscription this evening, when I have more time to avoid messing things up! Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 11:26, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've added two now. I suppose there is of course some modern use of Ogham for fun like you mention, but it's hardly appropriate to include that sort of thing in an encyclopedia article. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:36, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Lead Section
I wanted to note that I feel the opening sentence of the lead has too many parenthetical clauses, and thus is a bit hard to parse. I am suggesting that we would break out the latter two of the parenthetical clauses to follow-up sentences in an effort to simplify the base definition. Happy to put in the work if there is agreement here. Geoff (talk) 01:51, 1 January 2023 (UTC)