Texts
Auraicept na n-éces‘The scholars'/poets' primer’
- Old Irish, Middle Irish
- prose
- Irish legendary history, Irish texts on language and literature
A grammar, or primer, of Old Irish
Manuscripts
- Canonical partThe so-called ‘canonical part’ of the Auraicept does not survive as an independent text in the manuscripts.
- Short recension
- M =
- BB = Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 P 12 (536) = Book of Ballymote (Leabhar Bhaile an Mhóta) [1384 x 1406]f. 170v ff
- E =
- L(ec) =
- Intermediate recension
- T = Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1363 14, pp. 159-210 [s. xv]pp. 167–186, 197–198, 187–210Intermediate between the shorter and longer recension (Calder); does not contain the poem on the Trefhocul. See Calder, pp. 159-207.
- Long recension
- YBL = Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1318 15, cols. 500-572 = YBL section [1408]cols 504–549does not contain the poem on the Trefhocul
- Eg = London, British Library, MS Egerton 88 [c. 1564]ff. 63–76does not contain the poem on the Trefhocul
- Other
- Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1319 (H 2. 17) [various]pp. 195 ffImperfect copy. See Hofman and Smelik below
- Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1432 (E 3. 3) [s. xv-xvi]ff. 3–16A copy not consullted by Calder. Ends incomplete.
Language
- Old Irish Middle Irish
Date
The core of the text has been dated to “a fairly early stage of the Old Irish period” (Ahlqvist).(1)n. 1 Anders Ahlqvist, The early Irish linguist: an edition of the canonical part of the Auraicept na n-éces (1983): 47–48.
Form
prose (primary)
verse (secondary)
Textual relationships
Related: In lebor ollamanIn lebor ollaman
Associated items
Uga Corbmaic meic CuilendáinUga Corbmaic meic CuilendáinEarly Irish religious poem (29qq) attributed to Cormac mac Cuilennáin. What appears to be a full copy of text is attested in a single manuscript, while fragments of it also turn up as citations elsewhere.
Sources
Notes
Anders Ahlqvist, The early Irish linguist: an edition of the canonical part of the Auraicept na n-éces (1983): 47–48.
Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.
[ed.] [tr.] Calder, George [ed. and tr.], Auraicept na n-Éces: The scholars’ primer, being the texts of the Ogham tract from the Book of Ballymote and the Yellow book of Lecan, and the text of the Trefhocul from the Book of Leinster, Edinburgh: John Grant, 1917.
Secondary sources (select)
Acken, James, Structure and interpretation in the Auraicept na nÉces, Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008.
Acken, James, “Lexical specificity in the Auraicept na nÉces”, in: Sarah Sheehan, Joanne Findon, and Westley Follett (eds), Gablánach in scélaigecht: Celtic studies in honour of Ann Dooley, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013. 116–130.
Ahlqvist, Anders, “An Irish text on the letters of the alphabet”, in: A. M. Simon-Vandenbergen (ed.), Studies in honour of René Derolez, Ghent: Ghent University, 1987. 3–16.
Ahlqvist, Anders, “Latin grammar and native learning”, in: Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Liam Breatnach, and Kim R. McCone (eds), Sages, saints and storytellers: Celtic studies in honour of Professor James Carney, 2, Maynooth: An Sagart, 1989. 1–6.
Hofman, Rijcklof, and Bernadette Smelik, “An unnoticed copy of the Auraicept na n-Éces in MS TCD H.2.17”, in: Bernadette Smelik, Rijcklof Hofman, Camiel Hamans, and David Cram (eds), A companion in linguistics: a Festschrift for Anders Ahlqvist on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Nijmegen: Stichting Uitgeverij de Keltische Draak, 2005. 63–65.
Hofman, Rijcklof, “Latin grammars and the structure of the vernacular Old Irish Auraicept na nÉces”, in: Mary Garrison, Arpad P. Orbán, and Marco Mostert (eds), Spoken and written language: relations between Latin and the vernacular languages in the earlier Middle Ages, 24, Turnhout: Brepols, 2013. 185–198.
McLaughlin, Roisin, “Fénius Farsaid and the alphabets”, Ériu 59 (2009): 1–24.
abstract:
This paper examines evidence for the existence of an alternative tradition to that found in Auraicept na nÉces concerning the role played by Fénius Farsaid in the invention of the alphabet of Irish and those of the three sacred languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The sources to be considered are Auraicept na nÉces, In Lebor Ollaman, a Middle Irish text in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud 610, glosses on the copy of Auraicept na nÉces in TCD MS E 3.3 (1432) and the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville.
Poppe, Erich, “Latinate terminology in Auraicept na nÉces”, in: David Cram, Andrew Linn, and Elke Nowak (eds), History of linguistics 1996: selected papers from the Seventh International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences, Oxford, 12–17 September 1996, vol. 1: Traditions in linguistics worldwide., Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1999. 191–201.
External links
CODECS: Calder's edition in parallel. Transcribed and tabulated by Rijcklof Hofman
web page identifiers
page name: Auraicept na n-éces
page url: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/Auraicept_na_n-%C3%A9ces
redirect: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/Special:Redirect/page/2270
numerical alternative: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/index.php?curid=2270
page ID: 2270
page ID tracker: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/index.php?title=Show:ID&id=2270
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
April 2011, last updated: September 2022