Re: CHAT of oghams & runes (was Celtic alphabet? )

Ray wrote:
>But I still hold that the saner theorists connect oghams with runes (but
>not the tree runes  :)   As you rightly say, in the 4th cent. the common
>Germanic futhark was still being used in Scandinavia and the Vikings were
>still some four centuries in the future.
>
>Some of the earliest oghams are found in Scotland and are, apparently,
>'Pictish'.  We also know from archaeology that there had been trading
>relations between northern Scotland and Norway from very early times.  The
>theory, advanced by H. Arntz (and I believe some others) is that a Pict (or
>Picts), having been to Scandinavia, were minded to fashion writing for
>their own people.  Now script borrowing through trade is not at all
>uncommon; it is thought, e.g. that the Greeks aquired their alphabet via
>(bilingual) trading comunities on Crete where Greeks & Phoenicians met.
>
>The arguments put forward to support the theory are, in brief:
>1. Both scripts were used for magical purposes as well as just writing.
>2. The Old Germanic runes were divided into four 'rows of eight' (ættir);
That should be three _ættir_ - there were only 24 runes!

>the letters of the oghamic script were similarly divided into four
>'families' (aiccme) [tho in the case of the oghams each 'family' was
>composed of five members, not eight]*.
Is four _aiccme_ correct, or should it be three?

>3. Both scripts are written from left to right as well as from right to
>left.
>4. There is a certain similarity in the naming of the letters.
>
>*Arntz assumes that _ætt_ [the first letter is 'ash'], which originally
>meant "eight", was understood as _ætt_ meaning "family" and was thus
>reproduced by the Irish word of similar meaning.
In modern Swedish litterature the word used is _ätter_, which is certainly
interpreted as "families" by the casual reader.

                                           Andreas

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