THE OGHAM ALPHABET by Erich Fred Legner, University of California
Various authors investigating different ancient writings have referred to them as "Ogham Script," which has led to some confusion. Probably the most ancient and first true Ogham is the "Stick Writings" of the West African Igbo culture studied by Catherine Acholonu.
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| Ikom Monolith Igboland Nigeria |
Beginning in the last half of the 20th Century, archaeological discoveries have revealed the existence of Pre-Columbian contacts that were made in America by explorers from Europe, Asia and Africa. Many of these explorers left written pictographic inscriptions of their experiences in America using a phonetic “Stick Writing” that is often called Ogham, with its origin in West Africa. These writings are found all over North America.
However, there are few who have the linguistic skills to translate them, prominent among which is Professor Catherine Acholonu. New discoveries of such inscriptions are being made regularly but the academic community has been negligent in giving them the attention they deserve.
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| One of Professor Achonolu's Transliteration |
This is of course history of importance to all of us.
It was only recently that anyone merely suggesting that any form of written language existed in America was labelled a heretic, fool or worse.
However, today we are reading detailed accounts of the Maya and their civilization from numerous inscriptions that were found at archaeological sites in Mexico and the South.
Fell in 1982 submitted detailed translations of Ogam inscriptions in America. He compared American inscriptions with those that had been found in Northern Europe dating back to the Bronze Age. The Horse Creek Petroglyph of West Virginia is the most recent translation of the largest Petroglyph known to exist in North America. The author, Edo Nyland, suggested that Ogam came to Ireland from North Africa with the first Gnostic missionaries who preached early Irish Christianity.
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| Horse Creek Petroglyph |
However, very recent linguistic studies have pointed to the possibility that a phonetic alphabet reached North Africa from visitors from the North Sea and Baltic Sea civilizations much earlier. Indeed Nyland mentions inscriptions found in Ireland on a Bronze Bowl. Nevertheless, the Gnostic missionaries believed in magic, just like the pre-Christian Irish inhabitants did. As Anthony Jackson (1993) discovered, this magic took the shape of numerical wizardry with letters. It is not known if the original Ogam had an organised alphabet but it is likely.
The Gnostic missionaries used the script to spread the Gospel by marking their Biblical phrases on Neolithic standing stones to convert the people to Christianity. Around 650 A.D. Benedictine monks and their grammarians came to Ireland with instructions to create a distinct language to replace the "iron" language of the Irish, which they called Cruithin. They found it necessary to augment the early alphabetic script with five diphthong characters, called Forfeda and further develop it to accommodate their linguistic and literary activities. There is no doubt that these people were linguistic professionals.
To explain how Ogam inscriptions are translated, Nyland has provided a detailed process with examples. Nevertheless, for most persons not trained in linguistics, it is difficult to fully understand. Nyland’s explanation is as follows:
Translation by Calder: “This is their number: five Ogmic groups, i.e., five men for each group, and one up to five for each of them, that their signs may be distinguished.
These are their signs: right of stem, left of the stem, athwart of stem, through the stem, about the stem. Thus is a tree climbed, to wit, treading on the root of the tree first with thy right hand first and thy left hand after. Then with the stem, and against it and through it and about it. (Lines 947-951).”
McManus clarified this: "This is their number: there are five groups of Ogam and each group has five letters and each of them has from one to five scores and their orientations distinguish them.
Their orientations are right of the stem line, left of the stem line, across the stem line, through the stem line, and around the stem line. Ogham is climbed like a tree is climbed..." (McManus 1.5).”
“By the time the fifth column of Forfeda symbols had been added, the script was written horizontally, from left to right but the above quote still appears to record the original way of vertical writing, read from the bottom up. The original 20 symbols are shown in both the original vertical as well as the later horizontal way of writing. Most of the early inscriptions on stone in Scotland and Ireland are written in vertical form. The Ogam texts in books such as the Auraicept and on the petroglyphs in West Virginia are written in the horizontal literary tradition.
At first sight, the peculiar arrangement of the letters in the Ogam alphabet appears to be completely unrelated to the pre-existing Greek and Latin alphabets. McManus searched elsewhere for the origin and found that "there is a clear connection with the North Etruscan alphabets". However, anthropologist Anthony Jackson from Edinburgh University discovered that the arrangement was directly related to the ordinal numbers of the letters in the Latin alphabet.“
“The total of the ordinal numbers in the Latin alphabet is 210. The 20 original Ogam characters were divided into four columns, which, arranged according to a cabalistic system of calculation, totalled 50, 50, 61 and 49 respectively:
“The sequence of the letters within each column appears to be in relation to the primary numbers, but the calculations go further than is presented here.
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| Horizontal Ogham |
Written horizontally: Note that the "f" in the horizontal script should be a "v" as it is in the vertical script.
“The reason why all 15 consonants are listed first in the alphabet and the 5 vowels following, has to do with the special arrangement of the words in the monk's dictionary. The primary organization of their dictionary is according to the consonants. Half of the Basque language is made up of words starting with vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV, sometimes VCCV). It is mainly this half of the language that the monks used in the construction of the Romance languages and English.
These words were then arranged according to the first consonants in the words, each consonant was then subdivided again into 25 VCV combinations such as under D: ada, ade, adi, ado, adu; eda, ede, edi, edo, edu; ida, ide ..... etc. Under each such VCV were then listed all those words with their translations which started with these three letters. This arrangement is still the best way for us to decode Ogam's writing.”
Note: The illustration above is just an instance of many viable Yoruba words that should also have been taken into account by Professor Achonolu. I will present many more instances of such illustrations in this article, (S A Akinyemi).
“From this, it must be apparent that such a special arrangement applies only to a language that is organized in the VCV style and Basque is the only language that fits the type. The syntax of modern Irish (i.e. Gaelic or Celtic) is very unsuited to this VCV system and consequently, this language cannot be written in traditional Irish Ogam. Therefore, all Ogam writing anywhere must have been in the Basque language, which means that the "iron" language of pre-Roman-Catholic Ireland was the universal language we call Ogam (= West African) today. This explains why "Celtic" scholars have been unable to translate even one single Ogam inscription correctly.”
FORFEDA REVISION: “The Forfeda revision made by the Benedictines, the addition of the five extra diphthong characters, was almost certainly accomplished in Ireland. Ogam was originally designed for record-keeping and the sending of short messages, not for literary expression. However, this is what the Benedictine monks of Ireland used it for. One of the primary purposes of the Benedictine Order was the replacement of the ancient pre-Christian, gylanic oriented, language with a church-approved one. The syntax of the Basque language was ideally suited for the agglutination of new words, which then appeared to have no relationship to the original language. The VCV formula made this possible.
However, traditions governing this ancient formula did not allow two vowels to be written side-by-side without a space separation, which demanded separate words. This rule created problems and restrictions for those writing in the script. The monks wished to simplify the rules of writing. They created words and names with diphthongs in them, the invention of five new "Forfeda" characters permitting the combination of ea, oi, ui, io and ae, the use of which then also allowed these to be part of the creation of new words starting with eha, ohi, uhi, iho and ahe.
The design of the characters they created was totally out of style with the original script. McManus observed that they "missed the opportunity of completing the symmetry of the system by having the fifth series mirror the third in the way that the second mirror the first" (McManus 1.2).
“The word "forfeda" breaks up into four three-letter VCV roots, ebo-ori-ife-eda, each composed of vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV), with the vowels interlocking to form a chain of interdependent roots. This joining is the main characteristic of Ogam writing, is basic to all Ogam inscriptions and is indispensable in deciphering. Any missing (purposely removed) vowels in the words analysed are represented by a dot until identified.
Forfeda symbols are never eliminated. The monks later overstated this word to "Foirfeadha", to make it look as if the word had originated with the "Celtic" language, which is characterized by an excess of unnecessary vowels and h's. Some remarks in the Auraicept pertain to the creation of Forfeda characters such as: IN LEBOR OGAIM. in.-.le-ebo-oro-oga-ahi-im.; (5465 etc)
Innovate by carefully developing a similar wealth of timeless characters.
Note: there is no break in the interconnected vowels, even though the text is broken into three "words".
TRANSLATION ROUTE: Ogam translation requires the following steps:
Step 1. Transliterate the Ogam characters into our Latin letters,
Step 2. Replace the letters c, q, v, w, y with equivalent Basque letters, c and q become k, v becomes b, the y becomes i.
Step 3. Arrange these corrected letters into the VCVCV format, placing dots where vowels are missing,
Step 4. Fit these letters into the VCV formula,
Step 5. List the various meanings underneath each VCV,
Step 6. Arrange the hidden sentence.
EXAMPLE TRANSLATIONS
“One way to explain the process is with a few examples of real Ogam inscriptions, take for instance:
"Cunovato".(Macalister #11.)
Step 1. The middle part of the inscription was badly damaged, but after much study, Dr Jost Gippert at Frankfurt University decided that it should read:
"Cunavato"
Step 2. All Ogams in Ireland are based on the Basque language, however, Basque does not have a "C" or a "V", so the inscription will now read
"Kunabato"
Step 3. When fitting the letters in the VCVCVCVCV format, it appears that only one, the first vowel, is missing, which must therefore be represented by a dot. The inscription to be translated now reads:
".kunabato".
Step 4. There are four consonants so this VCVCVCVCV line is then broken up by hyphens into four three-letter VCV's in which the V's on either side of the hyphens are the same (called interlocking): VCV1-V1CV2-V2CV3-V3CV, which therefore represents four words:
.ku-una-aba-ato
Step 5. With the preliminaries out of the way, the next step in decoding an Ogam inscription is to list the possible meanings underneath each VCV. In the case of the one missing vowel, all five possibilities must be tried (aku, eku, iku, oku, uku) as follows:
Step 6. To discover the hidden sentence we must match up the words that obviously belong together, starting with the complete VCV's. For instance, take the pair aba and ato and immediately out pops priest and come!, "The priest says: Come!". Why would he say come!? "To stimulate" (aku) your "boredom" (una). The translation of CUNAVATO is therefore
"The priest will stimulate your boredom; come!"
“The completed words are: akuilatu (to stimulate) unadora (boredom) abade (priest) ator! (Come!). That is exactly what one would expect a missionary to say, it's his job.”
“Infrequently more than one reasonable meaning appears in which case there is a problem. Postpone this and return to it later as often new insight will be obtained and the proper translation might be obtained. From the following, it will be apparent that this is not an exact science. Guessing the mood of the monk who made up the word can be entertaining.”
Example #2
Following is the decoding of an Ogam inscription that has two vowels missing (Macalister # 364):
Step 1. barcuni
Step 2. barkuni
Step 3. .bar.kuni
Step 4. .ba-ar.-.ku-uni
Step 5. Three VCV's have a vowel missing. Each of those represents five VCV's e.g. .ba can be aba, eba, iba, oba or uba.
”Go to the VCV dictionary and list the possible meanings under each of these five VCV's. Do the same with .ar and .ku
The last one, uni, is complete and only has a few possible meanings.”
Step 6. When assembling the sentence built into the inscription, keep in mind who the people were that carved it. The words that pop out immediately are "evangelist" and "priest" under eba, which goes together with "prayer" under are: "the evangelist's prayers" . What do they do? They give peace of mind, under eku. The sentence, therefore, reads: "The evangelist's prayers (give you) general peace of mind". The four words completed are then: ebanjelari (evangelist) arren (prayer) ekurutasun (peace of mind) unibertsal (general).
Example #3: “The decoding of the more complicated Ogam inscriptions is difficult to fit into the internet restrictions. However, the reader now has an idea of how decoding is accomplished.
A third example is considerably larger and will therefore be presented in a different manner, which has the disadvantage of not being able to show how the missing vowel is recovered.”
Step 1. Bladnach cogradedena and Bladnach cuilen
Step 2. Bladnak kogradedena and Bladnak kuilen.
Step 3. .B.lad.nak. .kog.radedena and .B.lad.nak. .kuilen
Step 4. .B.-.la-ad.-.na-ak. .ko-og.-.ra-ade-ede-ena, and .B.-.la-ad.-.na-ak. .ku-ile-en.
Step 5. This time the given VCV's are placed along the left border:
Step 6. The story of the Cross prepares us for that ultimate remembrance while preparing for the breaking of the bread (for His) suffering (while we) confide in the Lord.
The story of the cross prepares me for that ultimate everlasting peace of mind (which will) come over me.
Discussion: “All words and many names in any invented language have known meanings. This is not the case with the words written in Ogam and this fact does not make the job of decoding any easier. In addition, no effort was made to allow easy pronunciation. On the contrary, all ingenuity was aimed at ensuring that the writing looked as awkward as possible so that only specialists would be able to interpret it. This disguising was done mostly by applying the VCV Code and the removal of as many vowels as possible. This followed the example of Hebrew where often no vowels are left at all; such as the name Talmud (Oral Law) being written as "lmd", originally from tala-muda, tala (watch out) mudatu (to alter): "watch out for alteration", or freely translated: "pass on unaltered", which is what an oral law is all about. The meaning of the word Talmud today has been accepted as something like "instruction".
“In Scotland, several of the Christian Ogams were inscribed aggressively over the pre-existing animal- and geometrical symbols/totems which had been carved in the 7th century. These symbols organized marriages and other cooperative arrangements between groups of (usually) four tribes (Jackson) and ever since had been regarded with great respect by the population. The overwriting was probably done to destroy the "magical powers" of the "heathen" symbols. Deciphering the Ogams usually poses no real problem as long as the inscription is complete and legible.”
Consonant Ratings
“In analyzing Ogam inscriptions and names or words, especially those from which too many vowels have been removed, it may be helpful to know which consonants are easier to decode than others.
Nyland devised a rating system that he found helpful. It involves writing down all the possible VCV combinations and then counting only those that are found in Aulestia's dictionary. For instance, take "F":
“Out of the 25 VCV possibilities of "F", only the six capitalised VCV's in red are the first letters of existing Basque words: afa (pleasing, supper), ifa (north), ife (infernal, hell), ifi (from ibi, to be, to go), ofi (craftsman, official), ufa (panting, blowing, scornful). The rating of the consonant "F" is therefore 6, making it the second easiest of all letters to find meanings for. The ratings of all the consonants are as follows:
IGBO / OGAM VCV DICTIONARY: Catherine Acholonu's Explanation of The Ogam Language
"All the words that Nyland and Fell transcribed were Igbo words, which Dr Catherine Acholonu could easily read and translate. She told Edo Nyland that she had translated the words he transcribed from Ogam stones, but he didn't believe her at first. When Hugo Kennes found Dr Acholonu's work on the Internet and started telling all the Ogam researchers he knew including Nyland, Nyland then asked him to get an Igbo dictionary from her. It was only after her meeting with Pellech in Belgium when she "read "all Acholonu's books and convinced her to write for her site, that it was decided to do the "Igbo Ogam VCV Dictionary
Nyland's use of the word Saharan might not be too far off the mark. He just didn't bother to check West Africa, which has language links with North Africa because the direction of migrations from the Niger has been North-South as well as South-North through the Ages. For example, the Berber etymology of 'Barbarian' is related to Igbo in the sense that (according to Herodotus) the word means 'stranger'.
(The Igbo word for "stranger" is Obiarabia)
"Catherine Acholonu's thesis is that Egypt was the main outpost from where West African Kwa (Kwush/Kush) culture was exported to the rest of the world. Igbo is the Mega-Kwa language - the Kushite mother language. Kush is the major bearer of this civilisation. Ethiopia was not just an East African location but lay West too.
According to Homer, it was in Sunset Ethiopia that the Gods congregated, and the people were called "the Blameless Ethiopians in whose land the gods held banquets". Dr Acholonu's group discovered the lost city of this Pre-historic Civilisation, with its array of beautiful bronze and pottery works, lost to living memory and posing an enigma to African and World History."
"Catherine Acholonu's analyses of the early archaeology of Sumer and of the Akkadian/Sumerian/Canaanite (Semitic) languages shows that all of them without exception were children of the Igbo language and that the earliest inhabitants of Sumer had Igbo lifestyles in religion, architecture, clothing, etc., even in the recipe for soap-making (wood-ash/potash boiled in oil).
Note: Point of correction on Professor Acholonu's assertion that "Akkadian/Sumerian/Canaanite (Semitic) languages shows that all of them without exception were children of the Igbo language and that the earliest inhabitants of Sumer had Igbo lifestyles in religion, architecture, clothing, etc." I have presented to you many instances of Yoruba words via an illustration that are viable as well as other languages in West Africa. My next article will be about the research undertaken to determine the genetic affinity between Igbo and Yoruba tribes.
The reasons for her supposition might be due to her lack of Knowledge of the Yoruba words or she is suffering from Igbo-centricity. Through the creation myths, culture, genes and geographical location the Igbo and Yoruba shared common ancestry. For example, the Igbo creator God is called Erin and the Yoruba version is Obatala.
In fact, I proposed that ogham lines started as facial scarring of the deities, elite or initiates as an early writing system, which can only be understood or written by those privies to the secret. It started as a unifying factor, but later ultimately became a sign of disunity in form of tribal marks. S A Akinyemi.
A STUDY FINDS THAT THE YORUBAS ARE GENETICALLY 99.9% SIMILAR TO THE IGBOS
JULY 22, 2018 by DON JAIDE
Study Finds that Yorubas Are Genetically 99.9% Igbo. Four of the major coastal ethnic groups of Western Africa: the Yoruba, Igbo, Akan and the Gaa-Adangbe are dissimilar at a glance and evidently geographic neighbours, but very closely related when examined at the genetic level. The next subject matter of my next blog.
Publisher: Ohio State University. Middle East Studies Centre. To learn more about Ogam lines please click here
Gnostic Bible, The 34 hidden letters and Messages in Bismillar Al-Rahman Al-Rahim, Islamic Mystical Literature: Initiation and Prophecies of Djehuiti, Thoth, or Hermes and Atum There is a true story behind the Zombie legends.
Edited and illustrated by S A Akinyemi
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