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Ceirt (''queirt'') (unicode:ᚊ) is a letter of the Ogham alphabet, transcribed as Q. It expresses the Primitive Irish labiovelar phoneme. The 14th century ''Auraicept na n-Éces'' glosses the name as ''aball'', meaning "apple tree". Its phonetic value is . The ''Bríatharogam'' (kennings) for the letter are: *''Morainn mac Moín'': ''Clithar baiscill'' ‘the shelter of a lunatic’ *''Maic ind Óc'': ''Bríg anduini'' ‘substance of an insignificant person’ *''Con Culainn'': ''Dígu fethail'' ‘dregs of clothing’ McManus (1991:37) compares it to Welsh ''pert'' ‘bush’, Latin ''quercus'' ‘oak’ (PIE *''perkwos''). The name was confused with Old Irish ''ceirt'' ‘rag’, reflected in the kennings. In the framework of a runic origin of the Ogham, the name has also been compared to the name of the Anglo Saxon Futhorc ''p''-rune, ''Peorð'': This name is itself unclear, but most often identified as ‘pear’, a meaning not unrelated to ‘apple’. The ''p'' letter of the Gothic alphabet has a cognate name, ''pairþra'', alongside the clearly related ''qairþra'', the name for the Gothic labiovelar. Since an influence of Ogham letter names on Gothic letter names is eminently unlikely, it seems most probable that the Proto-Germanic ''p'' rune had a meaning of ‘pear tree’ ('' *pera-trewô''?), continued in the Anglo-Saxon ''peorð'' rune (with the meaning of the name forgotten), and was introduced into 4th century Ireland as the name of a rune named after a pear or apple tree. As ''p'' was nonexistent as a phoneme in Primitive Irish, the ''p'' and ''q'' runes would have been considered equivalent. ==References== *Damian McManus, ''A Guide to Ogam'', Maynooth 1991. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ceirt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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