Transition From Druid Akkadian To Spoken Old Irish (700's-800's CE)

Old Church Latin Text Glosses Catch Spoken Irish Language in the Process of Development

(November 16, 2024) Old Irish seems to be a mix of Akkadian phrases, Indo-European, and Latin with a very high proportion of Akkadian phrases. These Akkadian phrases became Old Irish words in their own right. This transition is shown by how Irish monks mixed in their Old Irish native words with Latin when they wrote Christian commentaries. Most of these old books survive on the continent of Europe where they were preserved by not being read much.

These glosses were collected from Whitley and Strachan and published in 1903. Unfortunately, their transcriptions of the larger text into modern English letters was mostly unsuccessful with it being a pioneering work and the transcriptions being done by a variety of scholars living nearby to the European texts. Photos of most of these early Old Irish texts do not yet exist on the internet.

References

Stokes, Whitley and Strachan, John: editors (1903) Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old Irish Glosses, Scholia Prose, and Verse. Cambridge Universtiy Press. Online at: https://ia802805.us.archive.org/1/items/thesauruspalaeoh02stokuoft/thesauruspalaeoh02stokuoft.pdf

eDIL - Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language. A joint project of Queen's University in Belfast, University of Cambridge: https://dil.ie/

Stokes, Whitley and Strachan, John: editors (1903) Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old Irish Glosses, Scholia Prose, and Verse. Cambridge Universtiy Press. Online at: https://ia802805.us.archive.org/1/items/thesauruspalaeoh02stokuoft/thesauruspalaeoh02stokuoft.pdf

Glosses on Augustine. (Codex Augiensis, No. cxcv.) Page 1 

(November 24, 2024) This manuscript formerly belonged to the Monastery of Reichenau and is now in the Hof und Landesbibliothek at Carlsruhe, where it is numbered Codex Augiensis cxcv. It consists of 47 leaves. This copy is dated to the 800's CE. 

Reichenau Abbey was a Benedictine monastery on Reichenau Island in Lake Constance on the Rhine river trade route in Southern Germany. It was founded in 724 by the itinerant Saint Pirmin, who is said to have fled Visigothic Spain ahead of the Moorish invaders.

The Soliloquies of Augustine is a two-book document written in 386–387 CE by the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo. The book has the form of an "inner dialogue" in which questions are posed, discussions take place and answers are provided, leading to self-knowledge. Hippo Regius (also known as Hippo or Hippone) is the ancient name of the modern city of Annaba, Algeria. It served as an important western maritime city for the Phoenicians, Berbers, and Romans.

This book, or at least this copy, was aimed at Irish monks which explains the heavy use of Old Irish phrases in the text.

The Irish Word and Phrase Glosses

The translation procedure consists of 4 phases:

Irish word or phrase used in main text of book = Book's gloss describing the word = modern eDIL's definition (usually based on these glosses) = Druid Akkadian translation

Irish phrases 2 and 3 above can now be correctly translated together with their Akkadian words as: "Justice, that is, for the (Pagan) foreigners, involves, opening the astrological-fate-powers of the moon-eye (Su) to make ineffective its revelations, for the apostles and of all the righteous to nourish the stickiness of the Moon-Eye's energy by the priests of Alu (God) in the world."

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Stokes, Whitley and Strachan, John: editors (1903) Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old Irish Glosses, Scholia Prose, and Verse. Cambridge Universtiy Press. Online at: https://ia802805.us.archive.org/1/items/thesauruspalaeoh02stokuoft/thesauruspalaeoh02stokuoft.pdf

Glosses on Beda (by Carlsruhe) (Codex Augiensis, No. clxvii) Page 10 

(November 24, 2024)

The Irish Word and Phrase Glosses

The translation procedure consists of 4 phases:

Irish word or phrase used in main text of book = Book's gloss describing the word = modern eDIL's definition (usually based on these glosses) = Druid Akkadian translation