Talk:Primitive Irish

According to the consensus at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Ivernic language, I merged the content from Ivernic language. --Deathphoenix 03:24, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Old Arguments Re-Forming???

Primitive Irish is Old Celtic in character ... It is barely recognisable as Irish. I doubt the former, and the latter is incorrect! Can anyone show a link to where this idea was obtained? Also: It is likely that Primitive Irish was an extremely conservative formal, ceremonial register of the language used by the learned and religious class of pagan Ireland, the druids. However, as Ireland converted to Christianity, the druids and their rituals and teachings were marginalised, replaced by a new language of learning: Latin. No longer restricted in its scope for change by the conservative druidic register, the vernacular register of Irish changed rapidly and radically. I think this, and the Ivernic stuff, is all as result of people confuseing all this with the Iarnbearla of the poets. Irish has being spoken in Ireland for at least five thousand years. No one has yet come up with any definitive evidence of any pre-Irish languages. Fergananim

And no-one is attempting to in this article. Primitive Irish is Irish, the direct ancestor of the modern language, but hadn't developed most of the distinctive characteristics of the modern language such as broad and slender consonants, initial mutations, consonant clusters etc. Transcribed ogham inscriptions look like Latin, Greek or Gaulish (without the letter p). All languages change, and the evidence is that Irish changed unusually quickly following the conversion. I will expand the article and try and make it clearer.

In any case, there's no way Irish has been spoken in Ireland for five thousand years. It's an Indo-European language, and Proto-Indo-European is barely that old. There must have been pre-Irish languages, we just can't say for certain what they were.--Nicknack009 07:33, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On the first paragragh, okay. However, it is recognisably Irish - and by that I mean the earliest written forms, found on Ogham stones.

As to the second .... Well we'll just have to revise what we know of Indo-European then, and how our language fits into it. Because I genuinely believe that while there indeed may have being pre-Irish languges here, Irish - or its ancestral forms - has being spoken here for a very, very long time. Long before the first thousand years B.C. at any rate. Fergananim

Do you have any evidence for that, or do you just believe it? --Angr 05:31, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sure. Let me get back to you on it. Personally? I am inclined to believe it, but am open to the suggestion that I may be wrong. Maybe I should be more strident! "No, I AM RIGHT!!!" Nah .... My position is to try and get to the truth, even if it means abadoning positions of my own in the face of facts. Fergananim

There are conflicting theories as to when the Irish Celts arrived in Ireland. I've seen everything from 350 BC to 1,000 BC. 5,000 years doesn't seem possible, however.Celsiana 03:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Cite your source for Irish having been spoken in Ireland for at least five thousand years, a claim which seems implausible, to say the least, on the basis of the linguistic evidence. CecilWard

speed change

No longer restricted in its scope for change by the conservative druidic register, the vernacular register of Irish changed rapidly and radically."

But one is comparing the Old Irish to a very archaic, and possibly very old form. We know from subsequent gaelic history, the offical orthography and written forms to by anywhere up to 8 centures behind speech. Is it not more likely the chnages in irish (lention/eclipsis, first phonological, later morphological) occured at a slower place, but only entered the historical record later? Sure, cultural upsets, such as the changes in leadership around 500-600AD to the classical Gaelic Septs (O'Neill, O' Rourke etc) may have increased linguitic chnage, but alingining it with the introduction of christianity etc is only constructing a dubious argument.

Also, the broad/slender distinction was accompanied by a 'neutral' set of consonants in Old Irish, and this continued even into the modern period in some places, however, it had lost its phonetic import perhaps in the late OI period. Why not argu it too existed in the primitive irish state? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.93.5.45 (talk • contribs) 16:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to be sure whether there were really three sets of consonants in Old Irish; AFAIK most modern scholars believe there were actually only two: the same broad and slender sets as in Modern Irish. At any rate, the above claim certainly needs to be sourced, as it sounds like amateur speculation without a source. User:Angr 13:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

3 sets of consonants

Hi, twas me who wrote about the 3 sets due to a confusion after reading a paper by possibly Ní Chasáide (its a long time ago, but will try to find reference), comparing Irish and Russian phonology, where a comment is made about a 'neutral/plain' set of consonants. If I find the original, I can re-read it and get some clarity on the issue.

Triple consonants

Thurneysen, "A Grammar of Old Irish", (page 113-114, section 182 in my edition) makes mention of a third set, but adds their not of "etymological" significence. In previous pages, he speaks of, if I am reading it correctly, consonants with what he calls 'u quality' as precursors to velarised consonants, as opposed to true velars, and that they developed from plain consonants.

Perhaps this may be relivant to the discussion