Dr Katherine Forsyth - Literacy beyond the Limes: Ogham and Pictish symbol writing

Celtic-speaking peoples of Ireland and Scotland first encountered the technology of writing through contact with the Roman world. A similar stimulus in the Germanic North led to the invention of the runic alphabet, but the result in the Celtic ‘Far West’ was two writing systems which reflect remarkable independence from their Mediterranean models. The ogham alphabet exhibits a number of distinctive characteristics: in its earliest forms it is a 3-D script, typically written across adjacent angled faces of an object. Traditionally, it is written vertically not horizontally with letters represented by bundles of identical parallel strokes, differing only in number (1-5) and relative position. The visual appearance of the graphemes reflects their sound value, with vowels in their own separate category. The perceived usefulness of the ogham script is reflected in the variety of media on which it is found (predominantly epigraphic but also to a limited extent, in manuscripts) and the wide extent of its attestations: it was in active use for over 500 years throughout Ireland and Scotland and in areas of Irish settlement and influence in western Britain. In addition to the roman and ogham alphabets, the inhabitants of early medieval Scotland used a unique pictographic writing system (‘Pictish symbols’) which has defied full understanding (Forsyth 1995). It occurs in a range of archaeological contexts which to a large extent mirror those of ogham in Ireland. The two are usefully studied alongside one another. Interdisciplinary examination of the physical and social context in which ogham and Pictish symbol inscriptions are found throws new light on the nature of literacy in the non-urbanized Celtic-speaking societies of the first millennium AD, and on the intellectual and cultural context of the invention of these unique writing systems, providing insight into their unusual form.
This talk was part of the CREWS Project conference 'Exploring the Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Systems', held in Cambridge in March 2019. For more information, visit crewsproject.w....
The CREWS Project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 677758).

[@bmhd6598]

Good explanation of why Ogham looks they way it does and also why it has those certain letter groupings.

[@alexkhavr]

Thank you very much! It's fantastic, that you've made a presentation comprehensible for a non-linguist and even not a historian as me

[@patriciadunford9244]

Superb ,the distribution of Ogam and the range of domestic objects that have carvings on them suggests that Gaelic not Pictish was the language spoken in the Northern Isles prior to the Norse conquest.

[@blueocean2510]

The Standing Stone found in Deelish Aghabullogue, Co Cork with Ogham Script 5th. 6 th. Century, a red sandstone formed in marine waters 380 million years ago, now in British Museum, London they have been invited to return this important Standing Stone with Ogham Script to Ireland.

[@PanglossDr]

Fantastic presentation

[@timflatus]

This is a great talk, but I really don't understand how you can assert that ogham was inspired by the Latin alphabet. That doesn't make any sense.

[@bernardmorgan2590]

Are Pictish symbols multi lingual, I.e. can be read by both Gaelic and Brythonic speakers?

[@christophersmith5691]

You ran out of time though to describe views of Pictish symbol stones, pity they seem more visually mysterious and complex