Most scholars agree that ogham was initially as collection of twenty characters, grouped into four sets of five ‘Aicme’. Other characters were added and existing characters were changed or re-ordered as the centuries progressed, and the language developed into the present day version of twenty five (five sets of five) characters.
The Ogham Alphabet
To describe ogham as an alphabet is not strictly accurate in the sense that the Western world uses the Latin alphabet today. Ogham was a group of sounds; the Druids favoured an oral tradition of learning – the written word, and a written alphabet, was of little importance to them.
There are two ‘grammars’ which have shaped our understanding of ogham:
The Auraicept na n-Éces (‘the Scholars' Primer’) is claimed as a 7th century Irish grammar, attributed to the warrior and poet Cenn Fáelad. It is this Primer which describes the correspondence of the ogham letters with the names of trees. It exists only as an inclusion in the fourteenth century Book of Ballymote, and the fourteenth/fifteenth century Yellow Book of Lecan.
In Lebor Ogaim – The Book of Ogams or Ogham Tract a collection of one hundred different ogham ‘scales’. Like the Auraicept, it probably dates to the seventh century AD, though the manuscript we have today is from the 14th century Book of Ballymote.The tract illustrates various ogham forms, providing evidence for methods of counting by grouping items such as livestock or weaponry together in batches of five. These groupings match each aicme of five characters.
Roderic O’Flaherty’s Ogygia (1685), also contains an essay on ogham, with the information purportedly provided by a bard who had direct access to the ancient information. The accuracy of the information contained within this text has been challenged many times. Robert Graves acknowledged this even as he used that information as a source of reference for The White Goddess (1948).
According to O’Flaherty, there are two ‘alphabets’ which relate to the written form of ogham. The Boibel Loth form is included here for interest, but in terms of the development of the language it is something of a dead end. The Beith Luis Nion is the most widely used, and is sourced from the oghams in the mediaeval texts described above.
The Boibel Loth has the following sequence of characters:
B - Boibel
L - Loth
F - Forann
N - Neiagadon
M - Moiria
G - Gath
Ng - Ngoimar
Y - Idra
S - Salia
H - Uiria
D - Daibhaith
T - Teilmon
C - Caoi
Cc - Cailep
R - Riuben
A - Acab
O - Ose
U - Ura
E - Esu
I - Jaichim
The most widely accepted form of the Beith Luis Nion takes the following form:
B - Beith
L - Luis
N - Nion
F - Fearn
S - Saille
H - Uath
D - Duir
T - Tinne
C - Coll
Q - Quert
M - Muin
G - Gort
Ng - Ngetal
St - Straif
R - Ruis
A - Ailm
O - Onn
U - Ur
E - Eadha
I - Idho
This ‘B-L-N’ layout follows the Old Irish word for ‘alphabet’, which is Beth-Luis-Nion. The texts included in the Book of Ballymote, swap the third character to fifth place, so that today, the alphabet usually reads Beith, Luis, Fearn, Saille, Nion etc. In The White Goddess, Graves explains that this change took place around the time that the ban on the public use of ogham was lifted – around the fourth century A.D.
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