52-726: Eibbán Abbán of Corbmaic ( Old Irish : Abbán moccu Corbmaic , Latin : Abbanus ; d. 520?), also Eibbán or Moabba , was a saint and abbot . He is associated, first and foremost, with the Mag Arnaide (Moyarney or Adamstown, County Wexford , near New Ross ). His order was, however, also connected to other churches elsewhere in Ireland, notably that of his alleged sister Gobnait . Three recensions of Abbán's Life survive, two in Latin and one in Irish. The Latin versions are found in
104-444: A broad labial (for example, lebor /ˈLʲev u r/ "book"; domun /ˈdoṽ u n/ "world"). The phoneme /ə/ occurred in other circumstances. The occurrence of the two phonemes was generally unrelated to the nature of the corresponding Proto-Celtic vowel, which could be any monophthong: long or short. Long vowels also occur in unstressed syllables. However, they rarely reflect Proto-Celtic long vowels, which were shortened prior to
156-429: A consonant ensures its unmutated sound. While the letter ⟨c⟩ may be voiced / ɡ / at the end of some words, but when it is written double ⟨cc⟩ it is always voiceless / k / in regularised texts; however, even final /ɡ/ was often written "cc", as in bec / becc "small, little" (Modern Irish and Scottish beag , Manx beg ). In later Irish manuscripts, lenited f and s are denoted with
208-461: A second visit to Rome. Other churches said to have been founded by him include Cell Ailbe (Co. Meath) and Camross (Co. Laois), as well as a monastery at Nurney, County Carlow of which an early high cross survives. The Bollandists argued that the Abbán of Mag Arnaide and the Abbán of Cell Abbáin were originally two distinct saints, one commemorated on 16 March, the other on 27 October, but that
260-459: A sound / h / and a letter h , there is no consistent relationship between the two. Vowel-initial words are sometimes written with an unpronounced h , especially if they are very short (the Old Irish preposition i "in" was sometimes written hi ) or if they need to be emphasised (the name of Ireland, Ériu , was sometimes written Hériu ). On the other hand, words that begin with
312-426: Is forebear to Modern Irish , Manx and Scottish Gaelic . Old Irish is known for having a particularly complex system of morphology and especially of allomorphy (more or less unpredictable variations in stems and suffixes in differing circumstances), as well as a complex sound system involving grammatically significant consonant mutations to the initial consonant of a word. Apparently, neither characteristic
364-674: Is identified in the Lives as his death-date. John Colgan and Ó Cléirigh's Martyrology of Donegal only mention Abbán for 16 March. Other sources cite 13 May. His entries in the Félire Óengusso praise him as an "angelic bush of gold" ( doss óir ainglech ) and "an abbot fair and train-having" ( abb cain clíarach ). Old Irish language Old Irish , also called Old Gaelic ( Old Irish : Goídelc , Ogham script : ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; Irish : Sean-Ghaeilge ; Scottish Gaelic : Seann-Ghàidhlig ; Manx : Shenn Yernish or Shenn Ghaelg ),
416-489: Is known as Primitive Irish . Fragments of Primitive Irish, mainly personal names, are known from inscriptions on stone written in the Ogham alphabet. The inscriptions date from about the 4th to the 6th centuries. Primitive Irish appears to have been very close to Common Celtic , the ancestor of all Celtic languages , and it had a lot of the characteristics of other archaic Indo-European languages. Relatively little survives in
468-562: Is known of Abbán's early life. The Lives tell that he was expected to succeed his father in Leinster, but that his devotion to God and the saintly miracles which he wrought while still in foster care soon made clear that he was destined for a career in the church. The boy was sent to his maternal uncle, the bishop Íbar, with whom he travelled to Rome. In Italy, Abbán's saintly powers proved to be of much use in warding off any danger presented by men, monsters and supernatural phenomena. Throughout
520-750: Is known to have been a native of this area, but his own commentary as apparently preserved in the Dublin Life identifies the connection more nearly: "I who gathered together and wrote the Life am a descendant [ nepos ] of that son" However, the immediate circumstances which prompted the composition of the Life are likely to have been political, relating to the Norman presence in the diocese of Ferns. To support his case, O'Molloy made much of Abbán's wider connections to other churches and saints, making him travel all across
572-431: Is subject to u -affection, becoming ⟨éu⟩ or ⟨íu⟩ , while /e₁ː/ is not. A similar distinction may have existed between /o₁ː/ and /o₂ː/ , both written ⟨ó⟩ , and stemming respectively from former diphthongs (*eu, *au, *ou) and from compensatory lengthening. However, in later Old Irish both sounds appear usually as ⟨úa⟩ , sometimes as ⟨ó⟩ , and it
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#1732775673750624-463: 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. The main contemporary texts are dated c. 700–850; by 900 the language had already transitioned into early Middle Irish . Some Old Irish texts date from the 10th century, although these are presumably copies of texts written at an earlier time. Old Irish
676-478: Is the tradition that Saint Gobnait was his sister and that his grave was to be found near her church or nunnery in Bairnech, now Ballyvourney (Muskerry, County Cork). As the later recensions suggest, Ailbe's original Life seems to build on this connection by claiming that Abbán founded Ballyvourney and gave it to his sister. According to his Lives , he began to found a string of churches after returning from
728-594: Is unclear whether /o₂ː/ existed as a separate sound any time in the Old Irish period. /ou/ existed only in early archaic Old Irish ( c. 700 or earlier); afterwards it merged into /au/ . Neither sound occurred before another consonant, and both sounds became ⟨ó⟩ in later Old Irish (often ⟨ú⟩ or ⟨u⟩ before another vowel). The late ⟨ó⟩ does not develop into ⟨úa⟩ , suggesting that ⟨áu⟩ > ⟨ó⟩ postdated ⟨ó⟩ > ⟨úa⟩ . Later Old Irish had
780-674: The Stowe Missal date from about 900 to 1050. In addition to contemporary witnesses, the vast majority of Old Irish texts are attested in manuscripts of a variety of later dates. Manuscripts of the later Middle Irish period, such as the Lebor na hUidre and the Book of Leinster , contain texts which are thought to derive from written exemplars in Old Irish now lost and retain enough of their original form to merit classification as Old Irish. The preservation of certain linguistic forms current in
832-559: The eclipsis consonants also denoted with a superdot: Old Irish digraphs include the lenition consonants: the eclipsis consonants: the geminatives : and the diphthongs : The following table indicates the broad pronunciation of various consonant letters in various environments: When the consonants b, d, g are eclipsed by the preceding word (always from a word-initial position), their spelling and pronunciation change to: ⟨mb⟩ / m / , ⟨nd⟩ /N/ , ⟨ng⟩ / ŋ / Generally, geminating
884-681: The Codex Dublinensis and the Codex Salmanticensis , while the Irish version is preserved incomplete in two manuscripts: the Mícheál Ó Cléirigh 's manuscript Brussels, Royal Library MS 2324–40, fos. 145b-150b and also the RIA , Stowe MS A 4, pp. 205–21. These Lives probably go back to a Latin exemplar written in ca . 1218 by the bishop of Ferns , Albin O'Molloy , who died in 1223. His interest in Abbán partly stemmed from
936-858: The Würzburg Glosses (mainly) on the Pauline Epistles , the Milan Glosses on a commentary to the Psalms and the St Gall Glosses on Priscian 's Grammar. Further examples are found at Karlsruhe (Germany), Paris (France), Milan, Florence and Turin (Italy). A late 9th-century manuscript from the abbey of Reichenau , now in St. Paul in Carinthia (Austria), contains a spell and four Old Irish poems. The Liber Hymnorum and
988-468: The orthography of Old Irish is not fixed, so the following statements are to be taken as generalisations only. Individual manuscripts may vary greatly from these guidelines. The Old Irish alphabet consists of the following eighteen letters of the Latin alphabet : in addition to the five long vowels , shown by an acute accent (´): the lenited consonants denoted with a superdot (◌̇): and
1040-653: The 'Accent of the Saints', while Gobnait of Baile Bhuirne, Cork and Craobh Dearg are mentioned as his sisters in other accounts. The glosses to the two entries for Abbán in the Félire Óengusso associate him with Mag Arnaide (County Wexford), in the territory of the Uí Chennselaig (also Uí Buide), and with Cell Abbáin (County Laois), in the territory of the Uí Muiredaig. However, Abbán's activities were also linked to many other parts of Ireland. Of special note
1092-573: The Church of Abingdon"). As Abingdon Abbey lay in a valley, he prefers the Irish derivation: "For we have learnt from our contemporaries that, according to the language of the Irish, Abingdon is interpreted 'house of Aben'; but according to the language of the English, Abingdon commonly means 'the hill of Aben'." Pádraig Ó Riain proposes that the episode in Abbán's Life was intended to offer some counterweight against English propaganda which asserted that
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#17327756737501144-530: The Continent were much less prone to the same risk because once they ceased to be understood, they were rarely consulted. The earliest Old Irish passages may be the transcripts found in the Cambrai Homily , which is thought to belong to the early 8th century. The Book of Armagh contains texts from the early 9th century. Important Continental collections of glosses from the 8th and 9th century include
1196-602: The Great , Munnu and Moling . One of Abbán's foundations is said to have been repeatedly pillaged by Cormac mac Diarmata ( fl . 2nd half of the 6th century), king of Leinster from the Uí Bairrche , who is portrayed in much Leinster hagiography as a rival to the Uí Chennselaig. Abbán is also made a contemporary of even earlier figures like Íbar , who is claimed to be his maternal uncle, and Saint Patrick . Nothing
1248-489: The Irish genealogies, which appear to have been composed in the interest of Cell Abbáin, suggests that he belonged to the Uí Chormaic (also Moccu Chormaic or Dál Chormaic). It identifies his father as Laignech (lit. "Leinsterman"), son of Mac Cainnech, son of Cabraid, son of Cormac, son of Cú Corb, while an Irish note to the Félire Óengusso (for 27 October) largely agrees if substituting Cabraid for Imchad. The Lives , on
1300-484: The Old Irish period may provide reason to assume that an Old Irish original directly or indirectly underlies the transmitted text or texts. The consonant inventory of Old Irish is shown in the chart below. The complexity of Old Irish phonology is from a four-way split of phonemes inherited from Primitive Irish, with both a fortis–lenis and a "broad–slender" ( velarised vs. palatalised ) distinction arising from historical changes. The sounds /f v θ ð x ɣ h ṽ n l r/ are
1352-473: The Old Irish period, but the short vowels changed much less. The following short vowels existed: The short diphthong ŏu likely existed very early in the Old Irish period, but merged with /u/ later on and in many instances was replaced with /o/ due to paradigmatic levelling. It is attested once in the phrase i r ou th by the prima manus of the Würzburg Glosses . /æ ~ œ/ arose from
1404-504: The broad lenis equivalents of broad fortis /p b t d k ɡ s m N L R/ ; likewise for the slender (palatalised) equivalents. (However, most /f fʲ/ sounds actually derive historically from /w/ , since /p/ was relatively rare in Old Irish, being a recent import from other languages such as Latin.) Some details of Old Irish phonetics are not known. /sʲ/ may have been pronounced [ɕ] or [ʃ] , as in Modern Irish. /hʲ/ may have been
1456-554: The complicated Proto-Indo-European (PIE) system of morphology. Nouns and adjectives are declined in three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter); three numbers (singular, dual, plural); and five cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, dative and genitive). Most PIE noun stem classes are maintained ( o -, yo -, ā -, yā -, i -, u -, r -, n -, s -, and consonant stems). Most of the complexities of PIE verbal conjugation are also maintained, and there are new complexities introduced by various sound changes (see below ). Old Irish
1508-451: The country and in the case of the anecdote about Abingdon (see below), even inventing tradition. Other sources for Abbán's life and order include the Irish genealogies of the saints and the entries for his feast day in the martyrologies. His pedigree is given in the Book of Leinster , Leabhar Breac , Rawlinson B 502 and in glosses to his entries in the Félire Óengusso . His pedigree in
1560-468: The deletion (syncope) of inner syllables. Rather, they originate in one of the following ways: Stress is generally on the first syllable of a word. However, in verbs it occurs on the second syllable when the first syllable is a clitic (the verbal prefix as- in as·beir /asˈberʲ/ "he says"). In such cases, the unstressed prefix is indicated in grammatical works with a following centre dot ( ⟨·⟩ ). As with most medieval languages ,
1612-421: The fact that Mag Arnaide lay within the diocese of Ferns, but as this was only a minor church in his time, more must have been involved. An episode which shows something of O'Molloy's personal attachment to Abbán's order is that where Abbán arrives in the area between Éile and Fir Chell, i.e. on the marches between Munster and Leinster: Abbán converts a man of royal rank from the area and baptises his son. O'Molloy
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1664-433: The following consonant (in certain clusters) or a directly following vowel in hiatus . It is generally thought that /e₁ː/ was higher than /e₂ː/ . Perhaps /e₁ː/ was [eː] while /e₂ː/ was [ɛː] . They are clearly distinguished in later Old Irish, in which /e₁ː/ becomes ⟨ía⟩ (but ⟨é⟩ before a palatal consonant). /e₂ː/ becomes ⟨é⟩ in all circumstances. Furthermore, /e₂ː/
1716-470: The following inventory of long vowels: Early Old Irish /ai/ and /oi/ merged in later Old Irish. It is unclear what the resulting sound was, as scribes continued to use both ⟨aí⟩ and ⟨oí⟩ to indicate the merged sound. The choice of /oi/ in the table above is somewhat arbitrary. The distribution of short vowels in unstressed syllables is a little complicated. All short vowels may appear in absolutely final position (at
1768-491: The formative occasion for the story was a visit to Abingdon made in 1080 by Lorcán Ua Tuathail (Lawrence O'Toole), Archbishop of Dublin, who stayed there for three weeks before accompanying Henry II to Normandy. Ailbe, being one of the archbishop's disciples, may have been present. In the Martyrology of Tallaght, the Félire Óengusso and the Martyrology of Gorman, Abbán has two feast days: 16 March and 27 October, which
1820-669: The former were trills while the latter were flaps . /m(ʲ)/ and /ṽ(ʲ)/ were derived from an original fortis–lenis pair. Old Irish had distinctive vowel length in both monophthongs and diphthongs . Short diphthongs were monomoraic , taking up the same amount of time as short vowels, while long diphthongs were bimoraic, the same as long vowels. (This is much like the situation in Old English but different from Ancient Greek whose shorter and longer diphthongs were bimoraic and trimoraic, respectively: /ai/ vs. /aːi/ .) The inventory of Old Irish long vowels changed significantly over
1872-422: The letter h ⟨fh⟩ , ⟨sh⟩ , instead of using a superdot ⟨ḟ⟩ , ⟨ṡ⟩ . When initial s stemmed from Primitive Irish *sw- , its lenited version is ⟨f⟩ [ ɸ ] . The slender ( palatalised ) variants of the 13 consonants are denoted with / ʲ / marking the letter. They occur in the following environments: Although Old Irish has both
1924-468: The letter m usually becomes the nasal fricative / ṽ / , but in some cases it becomes a nasal stop, denoted as / m / . In cases in which it becomes a stop, m is often written double to avoid ambiguity. Ambiguity arises in the pronunciation of the stop consonants ( c, g, t, d, p, b ) when they follow l, n, or r : Saint Daman Damán of Tígh-Damáin , in Uí Criomhthannain. He
1976-456: The need for religious and ecclesiastical guidance justified English presence in Ireland; and that, in fact, the linguistic convenience was what made Abbán of an otherwise minor church such a suitable protagonist. More specifically, Ailbe may have written his Life in response to his quarrel with William Earl Marshall , who had seized two manors near New Ross, and Normans rather than Irishmen may have been his target audience. It has been argued that
2028-560: The other hand, states that his father was Cormac son of Ailill, king of Leinster, who died in 435 according to the Annals of the Four Masters , and name his mother Mílla, sister to St Ibar. The Lives confuse the time of Abbán's historical floruit by attributing to him a life span of over 300 years. He is brought into contact with such illustrious saints as Finnian of Clonard , Brendan of Clonfert (d. 577), Columba (d. 597), Gregory
2080-542: The same sound as /h/ or /xʲ/ . The precise articulation of the fortis sonorants /N/, /Nʲ/, /L/, /Lʲ/, /R/, /Rʲ/ is unknown, but they were probably longer, tenser and generally more strongly articulated than their lenis counterparts /n/, /nʲ/, /l/, /lʲ/, /r/, /rʲ/ , as in the Modern Irish and Scottish dialects that still possess a four-way distinction in the coronal nasals and laterals . /Nʲ/ and /Lʲ/ may have been pronounced [ɲ] and [ʎ] respectively. The difference between /R(ʲ)/ and /r(ʲ)/ may have been that
2132-408: The sound /h/ are usually written without it: a ór /a hoːr/ "her gold". If the sound and the spelling co-occur , it is by coincidence, as ní hed /Nʲiː heð/ "it is not". The voiceless stops of Old Irish are c, p, t . They contrast with the voiced stops g, b, d . Additionally, the letter m can behave similarly to a stop following vowels. These seven consonants often mutate when not in
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2184-453: The spurious claim that Abingdon , the town near Oxford, is to be explained etymologically as Abbain dun , "Abbán's town". The aetiological tale goes that the town took its name from Abbán because he had successfully converted the king and the people of the area. The story was not an isolated one. The etymology is also brought up by the author who revised the 12th-century chronicle of the house, Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis ("The History of
2236-513: The stressed prefix air- (from Proto-Celtic *ɸare ). Archaic Old Irish (before about 750) had the following inventory of long vowels: Both /e₁ː/ and /e₂ː/ were normally written ⟨é⟩ but must have been pronounced differently because they have different origins and distinct outcomes in later Old Irish. /e₁ː/ stems from Proto-Celtic *ē (< PIE *ei), or from ē in words borrowed from Latin. /e₂ː/ generally stems from compensatory lengthening of short *e because of loss of
2288-862: The text, Abbán can be seen demonstrating his powers, exercising special authority over rivers and seas. Abbán had six brothers who all appear in the Martyrology of Donegal as bishops: Damán Uí Chormaic of Tígh Damhain (Tidowan), in the barony of Marybouragh, County Laois; Miacca Uí Cormaic of Cluain Fodhla in Fiodhmar (borders Uí Duach/Bally Fíodhmor, Ossory); Senach Uí Chormaic of Cillmór; Lithghean Uí Chormaic of Cluain Mór Lethghian in Uí Failge (Barony Ophaly, Co. Kildare); Dubhán Uí Chormaic; Toimdeach Uí Chormaic of Rosglas, Monasterevin, County Kildare. Dár Cairthaind and Ethne are listed as his sisters in
2340-597: The two were conflated from an early period. This conclusion, however, has been rejected by scholars like W.W. Heist and Charles Plummer. There is also a brief biographical reference to Abbán in the official hagiographical compilation of the Eastern Orthodox Church , The Great Synaxaristes for 13 May . This source states that he was baptised in 165 AD, became a missionary in the Abingdon area of England, and reposed in peace. The Life puts forward
2392-518: The u-infection of stressed /a/ by a /u/ that preceded a palatalized consonant. This vowel faced much inconsistency in spelling, often detectable by a word containing it being variably spelled with ⟨au, ai, e, i, u⟩ across attestations. Tulach "hill, mound" is the most commonly cited example of this vowel, with the spelling of its inflections including tulach itself, telaig , telocho , tilchaib , taulich and tailaig . This special vowel also ran rampant in many words starting with
2444-431: The very end of a word) after both broad and slender consonants. The front vowels /e/ and /i/ are often spelled ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨ai⟩ after broad consonants, which might indicate a retracted pronunciation here, perhaps something like [ɘ] and [ɨ] . All ten possibilities are shown in the following examples: The distribution of short vowels in unstressed syllables, other than when absolutely final,
2496-507: The way of strictly contemporary sources. They are represented mainly by shorter or longer glosses on the margins or between the lines of religious Latin manuscripts , most of them preserved in monasteries in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France and Austria, having been taken there by early Irish missionaries . Whereas in Ireland, many of the older manuscripts appear to have been worn out through extended and heavy use, their counterparts on
2548-567: The word-initial position. In non-initial positions, the single-letter voiceless stops c, p, and t become the voiced stops / ɡ / , / b / , and / d / respectively unless they are written double. Ambiguity in these letters' pronunciations arises when a single consonant follows an l, n, or r . The lenited stops ch, ph, and th become / x / , / f / , and / θ / respectively. The voiced stops b, d, and g become fricative / v / , / ð / , and / ɣ / , respectively—identical sounds to their word-initial lenitions. In non-initial positions,
2600-519: Was present in the preceding Primitive Irish period, though initial mutations likely existed in a non-grammaticalised form in the prehistoric era. Contemporary Old Irish scholarship is still greatly influenced by the works of a small number of scholars active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Rudolf Thurneysen (1857–1940) and Osborn Bergin (1873–1950). Notable characteristics of Old Irish compared with other old Indo-European languages , are: Old Irish also preserves most aspects of
2652-488: Was quite restricted. It is usually thought that there were only two allowed phonemes: /ə/ (written ⟨a, ai, e, i⟩ depending on the quality of surrounding consonants) and /u/ (written ⟨u⟩ or ⟨o⟩ ). The phoneme /u/ tended to occur when the following syllable contained an *ū in Proto-Celtic (for example, dligud /ˈdʲlʲiɣ u ð/ "law" (dat.) < PC * dligedū ), or after
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#17327756737502704-574: Was the only known member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages , which is, in turn, a subfamily of the wider Indo-European language family that also includes the Slavonic , Italic / Romance , Indo-Aryan and Germanic subfamilies, along with several others. Old Irish is the ancestor of all modern Goidelic languages: Modern Irish , Scottish Gaelic and Manx . A still older form of Irish
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