Ifín
Encyclopedia : I : IF : IFN : Ifín
Ifín ᚘ (also spelled
iphin) is one of the
forfeda, the "additional" letters of the
Ogham alphabet. Its sound value
according to the
Auraicept na n-Éces,
De dúilib feda and
In Lebor Ogaim, are
io,
ía, and
ia, respectively.
The Auraincept glosses the name according to the "arboreal" tradition as
spinan no ispin "
gooseberry or
thorn".
The letter's invention dates to the
Old Irish period, several centuries after the peak of Ogham usage. Since the Ogham alphabet dates to the
Primitive Irish period, it had not sign for [p] in its original form.
Ifín may originally have been added as a letter expressing [p], called
Pín (probably influenced by Latin
pinus). Due to the "schematicism of later Ogamists" (McManus 1988:167), who insisted on treating the five primary forfeda as vowels, [p] had again to be expressed as a modification of [b], called
Peithe, after
Beithe, also called
beithe bog "soft
beithe" or, tautologically,
peithbog, and the earlier letter designed to express
p was renamed to
i-phín, and considered as expressing an
i- diphthong.
Unicode
Both Ifín and Peith have
Unicode allocations:
- Ifín ᚘ U+1698
- Peith ᚚ U+169A
References
- Damian McManus, Irish letter-names and their kennings, Ériu 39 (1988), 127-168.
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