Translating Ogham Stones

As I translated the various stones from the Celtic Inscribed Stones Project (CISP), I began to appreciate the linguists who struggle to interpret these stones correctly. I applaud their devotion in deciphering an old language and its culture. I also learnt how errors creep into people’s interpretations of old languages, and that these interpretations need to be reviewed from time to time.

I had several problems in reading these stones. First, I kept trying to read them in the “English language style” of left to right, top to bottom. As I encountered various stones that wrapped around, I became further confused. I refocused on how to understand the flow of Old Irish and its writing system.

Another problem that I had was the same one that various linguists had. I saw letters differently or ones that were not there. I began to understand why the later experts reread the stones instead of simply accepting Macalister’s translations done in the 1940s. Breakthroughs of the written alphabets of various languages do occur, and it is good to revisit what earlier linguists did.

My final problem was my desire to translate many of the letters into a form of MAQI (son of). I work on pencil puzzles for my brain exercises. As I worked on these stones, I began to think of the Oghams as another version of a pencil puzzle. Therefore when I came to “solve them”, I wanted to fill in the blanks. However, I was surprised that some of the experts were as stumped by the stones as I was. After reminding myself that the Oghams represented a language, I could finish translating.

After translating these stones, I came away with the idea that they were markers of some sort. They all contain male names, usually detailing their lineage. In the small town in the North Woods that my family came from, people commonly referred to each other by their lineage i.e. “He is the son of Mary’s oldest daughter, who was Burt’s youngest child”.

I noticed that place and time were not noted on the stones. I believe that both are modern conventions, since in older times people rarely moved from where they were born. Also, implicit in the listing of the lineage is the time or year.

I was disappointed that more details about the people were not on the stones. I reasoned that if they went to the trouble of inscribing the stones, then why not note the deeds of the person as well. Perhaps, these were famous people, whose deeds were already known. Perhaps as discussed by the scholars they could have been simply boundary markers.

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Stone: Emlagh East EMLGE/1/1
My version: BRUSCCOS MAQQI (son of) C
Correct: BRUSCCOS MAQQI (son of) CAL(I)AC(I)
Notes: I got this one wrong because I read the stone backwards. When I finally reversed my reading, I did get something similar but was not able to read all the letters.

WORKS USED:
------, “Celtic Inscribed Stones Project”, Department of History and Institute of Archaelogy, University College, London, 2000, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/