Ancient Celtic Writing Systems

Terminology

• Epigraphy/epigrapher: Study of inscriptions, which are composed of graphemes. These are the basic units of a writing system such as a letter or character or hieroglyph.

• Paleography: The study of ancient writing, including the dating of manuscripts. Archaeologist don’t usually study these things, but instead call in specialists.

Forms Graphemes may Assume

• Ideograms: represents a concept.

Example: Chinese character.

• Logograms: represents the sound of a syllable.

Example: Mayan glyph.

• Alphabet: represents a phoneme.

Example: Roman letters.

Tartessian

Phoenicians establish trading colonies on the Iberian peninsula c. 800 BC.

Inscriptions begin in the mid 7th century BC.

The script uses the Phoenician alphabet. Phoenician was a Semitic language.

The Tartessian script varied the symbols they used for a single consonant depending upon the following vowel.

They are found engraved upon warrior stelae.

The inscriptions commemorate the dead.

John Koch has decided that the language transmitted by the scipt was a Celtic language – and if true, it becomes the earliest attested Celtic language.

Koch further proposes that Iberia was the original Celtic heartland.

Ogam

Ogam is the earliest form of writing found in Ireland. It was inscribed upon stones dedicated to a deceased individual.

Ogam stones were erected from the fourth to eighth century AD.

The script is based upon late Roman Latin. The language of the inscriptions is Archaic Irish.

• Thanks to ogam inscriptions we know about the phonetics of Archaic Irish.

• We also know something about changes in group identity from the Iron Age to the Early Medieval period. E.g. a people lived on the Dingle peninsula in the Early Middle Ages called the Corcu Duibne, “The Seed of Dub.” In the Iron Age they claimed to be descended from a goddess named Dovinias (Maqqi Muccoi Dovvinias).