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Irish orthography is the set of conventions used to write Irish. A spelling reform in the mid-20th century led to An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, the modern standard written form used by the Government of Ireland, which regulates both spelling and grammar.
Lexicography evolved in order to serve one of two needs i.e. in order to explain in a simple way difficult words and expressions or in order to explain the words and expressions of one language in another. In this case we can trace the tradition of lexicography in Irish back to the 8th century.
The history of the Irish language begins with the period from the arrival of speakers of Celtic languages in Ireland to Ireland's earliest known form of Irish, Primitive Irish, which is found in Ogham inscriptions dating from the 3rd or 4th century AD. [1] After the conversion to Christianity in the 5th century, Old Irish begins to appear as ...
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries: since old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet circa the sixth century AD. Prior to that primitive Irish was written in Ogham . The origin of Gaelic Gael + Ic represents Scots-Gaelic as a derivative of Gaidheal from 1590-1600. [iii]
Modern Irish, as attested in the work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating, may be said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on. From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors:
The Viking invasions of the ninth & tenth centuries led to the destruction of several early manuscripts. Gaelic script was known as ‘ An Cló Gaelach ‘ in Irish. It may also be known as Irish character, Irish type, Gaelic type, Celtic type or the uncial alphabet. Notable features included type of writing system, numeracy, eighteen letters.
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic [1] [2] [3] ( Old Irish: Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; Irish: Sean-Ghaeilge; Scottish Gaelic: Seann-Ghàidhlig; Manx: Shenn Yernish or Shenn Ghaelg ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from c. 600 to c. 900.
