LANGUAGES
Linguistically, Old Irish is characterized by a high
degree of morphological complexity especially in its
verbal system. Verbs can be either simple (berid, “she
brings”) or compounded with one or more prepositions
(as-beir, “she says”). Each verb, whether simple or
compound, has parallel independent and dependent
forms, with special accommodations for infixing per-
sonal pronouns. For example, the compound verb ad-
cí(“she sees”) has a dependent form, ní accai(“she
does not see”); with the infixed personal pronoun m
(“me”), it becomes atom-chí(“she sees me”), and with
the corresponding dependent, it becomes ním-accai
(“she does not see me”). In the noun system, Old Irish
preserved the three grammatical genders (masculine,
feminine, and neuter) and the three numbers (singular,
plural, and dual) of Indo-European, though it had a
simplified paradigm of the noun (and adjective), con-
sisting of five cases.
Unique to Goidelic (and Irish) is the phonemic dis-
tinction between nonpalatal (broad) and palatal quality
for all consonants. For example, túath(“territory”)
with broad -thindicates a nominative singular, whereas
with palatal -thit is accusative or dative; the latter is
spelled túaithwhere the glide vowel imarks the
palatalization. Another unusual feature of Old Irish is
the melding of prepositions with a following personal
pronoun; for example, the preposition co(“to”), when
followed by the first person pronoun, has the form
cuccum(“to me”). Perhaps most remarkable about
Classical Old Irish is the consistency of its spelling
and grammar and the apparent absence of dialect
forms. These characteristics suggest that it was a stan-
dardized, literary language somewhat removed from
ordinary speech.
By contrast Middle Irish seems chaotic. The com-
plex verbal system of Old Irish is in the process of
breaking down; the infixed pronouns disappear to be
replaced by independent pronouns, and in the nouns
and adjectives the neuter gender and the dual form
gradually die out. Phonologically, all unstressed final
syllables became “schwa” (/ /), which meant that
inflections based on distinguishing final vowels were
confused and ultimately lost; for example, singular
céile(“a companion”) could no longer be distinguished
from plural céili. This linguistic turmoil is also
reflected in the spelling confusion of Middle Irish
sources as scribes vacillate between the standardized
spelling criteria of Old Irish and the realities of con-
temporary speech. Although the shift from Old to Mid-
dle Irish is dated approximately to 900 C.E., the process
may have already begun in the Old Irish period, as
suggested by spellings in the glosses that deviate from
the classical norm, perhaps reflecting the influence of
contemporary spoken language. The touchstone of
Middle Irish is a work known as Saltair na Rann, a
versified summary of biblical history that is generally
thought to have been composed in 988. Although rel-
atively neglected by comparison with Old Irish, Mid-
dle Irish deserves closer study not only because of its
intrinsic importance but also because much of the ver-
nacular literature of the Old Irish period has been
preserved only in Middle Irish copies.Latin
Although some Latin may have been spoken in Ireland
as a result of trade contacts with the Roman Empire,
its real impact was felt with the arrival of Christian
missionaries (including Patrick) in the fifth century.
They probably came from sub-Roman Britain, which
meant that Ireland received Latin as pronounced in the
British manner (see above). As the official language
of the new religion, enshrined in its liturgy and its
Bible, Latin had to be learned by Irish converts who
aspired to ecclesiastical orders and the monastic life.
But because it was a totally foreign language, the Irish
had to learn it from scratch, with the result that they
became remarkably efficient at mastering its grammar.
Irish writers of Latin such as Columbanus, Adomnán,
and Eriugena bear witness over several centuries to the
continued excellence of the Latin taught in the Irish
schools.
The flowering of Hiberno-Latin scholarship took
place during the seventh century and first half of the
eighth century. Thereafter, it appears that Latin was
gradually displaced by Irish as the language of eccle-
siastical learning. The Viking invasions of the ninth
century may have contributed to this process by dis-
rupting the monastic schools and encouraging the exo-
dus to the Continent of scholars such as Eriugena and
Sedulius Scottus. The Céli Dé movement, which
became very influential in the early ninth century,
mayalso have contributed by encouraging use of the
vernacular in religious writings, perhaps because many
of its adherents were not versed in Latin.
The most enduring witness to the influence of Latin
is the body of words that Irish borrowed from it. Pre-
dictably, many of them are overtly religious in charac-
ter, such as cásc (<Lat.Pascha, “Easter”), and peccath
(<Lat.peccatum, “sin”), though some denote mundane
aspects of daily life, for example, muilenn (<Lat.
molina, “a mill”), and scúap (<Latscopa, “a brush”).
The traditional view holds that all these words divide
neatly into two strata: an earlier group of borrowings
consequent on Patrick’s mission in the mid fifth cen-
tury, and a later, larger stratum resulting from close
ties with British monasticism in the sixth century. That
view is being challenged with the plausible hypothesis
that these Latin loanwords represent a continuum of
borrowing during the fifth and sixth centuries.e