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AI Grammars
Mayan languages
Anatolia, Caucasus, Iran, Mesopotamia

about

Old Irish

is the oldest attested Goidelic language. The oldest surviving texts are the oldest Ogham inscriptions and glosses in Latin manuscripts (see introduction). The language has a rich consonant inventory with fricatives alternating in a systematic fashion with plosives (see sounds). The language is famous for its massive allomorphy, especially in the verbal system, and its word-initial mutations (see words). Old Irish is a VSO language with a complex system of relative clause formation. It makes broad use of so-called emphatic particles to mark various discourse functions (see structures).

Lecturers

Aaron Griffith

University of Utrecht

David Stifter

Maynooth University

introduction

Old Irish, intro, unit 1

SGA-INT-001

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49233

history of the Irish language: Irish as a Celtic Language, history of Irish

 slides

Old Irish, intro, unit 2

SGA-INT-002

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49234

writing in Ireland: writing, Ogam, Latin alphabet, manuscripts

 slides

Old Irish, intro, unit 3

SGA-INT-003

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49235

influence and handbooks: language contact, secondary literature

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sounds

Old Irish, sounds, unit 1

SGA-PHO-001

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49236

phonemes: consonants, vowels and diphthongs

 slides

Old Irish, sounds, unit 2

SGA-PHO-002

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49237

spelling: overview, consonants, vowels, marking of palatalisation

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Old Irish, sounds, unit 3

SGA-PHO-003

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49238

morphophonemics: stress, mutations, palatalisation, metaphony, syncope

 slides

words

Old Irish, words, unit 1

SGA-MOR-001

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49239

general morphological introduction, nominal inflection and formation

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Old Irish, words, unit 2

SGA-MOR-002

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49240

verbal complex: elements of the verb complex, verb-avoidance strategies

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Old Irish, words, unit 3

SGA-MOR-003

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49241

verbal categories and dimensions, verbal paradigms

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Old Irish, words, unit 4

SGA-MOR-004

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49242

verbal stem: suffixal formation, root modifications, new verbs

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structures

Old Irish, structures, unit 1

SGA-STR-001

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49244

typological profile, head-marking: how to use pronouns, text examples: Táin bó Froích

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Old Irish, structures, unit 2

SGA-STR-002

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49246

word classes: structure of noun clauses, prepositional phrases, text examples: Táin bó Froích

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Old Irish, structures, unit 3

SGA-STR-003

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49248

verbs and verb phrases: finite vs non-finite, alignment, roles, voice and valency, text examples: Táin bó Froích

 slides

Old Irish, structures, unit 4

SGA-STR-004

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49250

negation, tense, aspect, modality, verbal avoidance strategies, clause structure; text sample: Táin bó Froích

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texts

Old Irish, texts, unit 1

SGA-TXT-001

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49243

warm up:
Ad·tlochur indithim dúib!

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Old Irish, texts, unit 2

SGA-TXT-002

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49245

Táin bó Froích
(41–43, 61–62, 64–65, 68–70)

 slides

Old Irish, texts, unit 3

SGA-TXT-003

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49247

Táin bó Froích
(136-145)

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Old Irish, texts, unit 4

SGA-TXT-004

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/49249

Táin bó Froích
(204-205, 237-250)

 slides

references

Lecturers' references

selection out of the lecturers’ references, enriched by Florian Fischer and project members:


general

general introductions, encyclopedias, literature, writing, history, miscellaneous


Fortson, Benjamin W. 2010. Indo-European Language and Culture: an Introduction. 2nd edn. Chichester: Blackwell Wiley. (Chapter on Anatolian pp. 170-201)
Mallory, James P. 2017. The Origins of the Irish. London: Thames & Hudson.
McManus, Damian. 1991. A Guide to Ogam. Maynooth: An Sagart.
Pedersen, Holger. 1909–1913. Vergleichende Grammatik des Keltischen. 2 Vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Russell, Paul. 2008. What was best of every language: the early history of the Irish language. In Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí (ed.), A New History of Ireland: Prehistoric and Early Ireland. Vol 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 405‒450.
University College Cork: Department of Early and Medieval Irish. 2021. Celtic Digital Initiative (CDI). University College Cork: Department of Early and Medieval Irish. (Accessed 2021-07-07.)
Ziegler, Sabine. 1994. Die Sprache der altirischen Ogam-Inschriften. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

See also publications of the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS).


grammar

grammars, treatments of major grammatical domains


Pedersen, Holger. 1909–13. Vergleichende Grammatik des Keltischen. 2 Vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Stifter, David. 2006. Sengoídelc: Old Irish for Beginners. Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press.
Stifter, David. 2009. Early Irish. In Ball, Martin & Müller, Nicole (eds.), The Celtic Languages. 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge.
Thurneysen, Rudolf. 1946. A Grammar of Old Irish. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Ziegler, Sabine. 1994. Die Sprache der altirischen Ogam-Inschriften. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.


lexicon

dictionaries, headword search tools, further sources of information about the lexicon


Kavanagh, Séamus. 2001. A Lexicon of the Old Irish Glosses in the Würzburg Manuscript of the Epistles of St. Paul. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
Kelly, Patricia et al. 2006-2011. Thesaurus Linguae Hibernicae (TLH). University College Dublin. (Accessed 2021-07-07.)
Toner, Gregory (ed.). 2007. Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language. eDIL. Queen’s University Belfast. (Accessed 2021-07-07.)
Vendryes, Joseph. 1959. Lexique étymologique de l’irlandais ancien. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.


text

text collections, corpora, treebanks


Gippert, Jost & Martinez, Javier & Korn, Agnes. TITUS TEXTUS INDEX: Old and Middle Irish. TITUS: Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien. (Accessed 2021-07-07.)
Griffith, Aaron. 2013. Milan Glosses Database. Vienna: University of Vienna. (Accessed 2021-07-07.)
Stifter, David & Bauer, Bernhard & Lash, Elliott & Qiu, Fangzhe & White, Nora & Barrett, Siobhán & Griffith, Aaron & Bulatovas, Romanas & Felici, Francesco & Ganly, Ellen & Nguyen, Truc Ha & Nooij, Lars. 2021. Corpus Palaeohibernicum (CorPH). (Accessed 2021-07-08.)
University College Cork. 1997-2021. CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. (Accessed 2021-07-07.)
University of Oxford. 2020. Digital Bodleian. (Accessed: 2021-07-07.)


teaching material

coursebooks, exercises, materials or introductions supporting teaching


de Bernado Stempel, Patrizia & Slocum, Jonathan. 2006-2007. Early Indo-European Online: Old Irish Online. University of Texas: Linguistics Research Centre. (Accessed 2021-07-07.)
Quin, Ernest G. 1975. Old-Irish Workbook. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.