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Old Irish () (sometimes called Old Gaelic) is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from c. AD 600–900. The primary contemporary texts are dated c. AD 700–850; by AD 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 composed at an earlier time period. Old Irish is thus the ancestor of Modern Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic.〔 Old Irish is known for having a particularly complex system of morphology and especially of allomorphy (i.e. 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. Initial consonant mutation must have been present in at least late Common Celtic (Proto-Celtic) since this distinguishing feature has survived with grammatical significance in both modern Welsh and Breton, and which the now extinct Cornish language also featured. Since these languages belong to the Brittonic branch of the Celtic language group (so-called "P-Celtic"), initial mutation must pre-date the split in the development paths of the Brittonic and Goidelic languages. Much of the complex allomorphy has been lost, but the rich sound system has been maintained with little change in the modern languages. 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, among them Rudolf Thurneysen (1857–1940) and Osborn Bergin (1873–1950). ==Notable characteristics== The complex systems of allomorphy and consonant mutations – probably the two most salient characteristics of Old Irish compared with other old Indo-European languages — have been mentioned above. Other notable characteristics are: *A system of ''conjugated prepositions'' that is unusual in Indo-European languages (although found in many Semitic languages, e.g. Arabic), e.g. ''dím'' "from me", ''dít'' "from you", ''de'' "from him", ''di'' "from her", ''diib'' "from them" (basic preposition ''di'' "from"). There is a great deal of allomorphy here as well. *Infixed object prepositions, which are inserted between the verb stem and its prefix(es). If a verb lacks any prefixes, a dummy prefix is normally added. *Special verbal conjugations used to signal the beginning of a relative clause Old Irish also preserves most aspects of 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 (e.g. ''o''-, ''yo''-, ''ā''-, ''yā''-, ''i''-, ''u''-, ''r''-, ''n''-, ''s''-, and consonant stems). Most of the complexities of PIE verbal conjugation are also maintained, in addition to new complexities introduced by various sound changes (see below). 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「Old Irish」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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