The Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda (sing. Irish, Old (to 900);: forfid) are the "additional" letters of the Ogham alphabet, beyond the basic inventory of twenty signs. Their name derives from Irish, Old (to 900);: fid ("wood", a term also used for Ogham letters) and the prefix Irish, Old (to 900);: for- ("additional").[1] [2] [3] The most important of these are five Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda which were arranged in their own Irish, Old (to 900);: aicme or class, and were invented in the Old Irish period, several centuries after the peak of Ogham usage. They appear to have represented sounds felt to be missing from the original alphabet, maybe é(o), ó(i), ú(i), p and ch.
The five "Irish, Old (to 900);: aicme" Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda are glossed in the manuscripts Auraicept na n-Éces ('The Scholars' Primer), De dúilib feda ('Elements of the Letters') and In Lebor Ogaim ('The Book of Ogam'), by several Irish, Old (to 900);: [[Bríatharogam|Bríatharogaim]] ("word oghams"), or two word kennings, which explain the meanings of the names of the letters of the Ogham alphabet.The forfeda letter names and their kennings, as edited (in normalized Old Irish) and translated by McManus (1988), are as follows:
| align=center colspan="3" | Letter | align=center | Meaning | align=center | Bríatharogam Morainn mac Moín | align=center | Bríatharogam Maic ind Óc | align=center | Bríatharogam Con Culainn |
| ᚕ | EA | Irish: Éabhadh | Unknown | Irish, Old (to 900);: snámchaín feda | Irish, Old (to 900);: cosc lobair | Irish, Old (to 900);: caínem éco | |||
| ᚖ | OI | Irish: Óir | Irish, Old (to 900);: sruithem aicde | Irish, Old (to 900);: lí crotha | |||||
| ᚗ | UI | Irish: Uilleann | Irish: túthmar fid | Irish, Old (to 900);: cubat oll | |||||
| ᚘ | P, later IO | Irish: [[Ifín]], earlier Irish, Old (to 900);: Pín | ? | Irish, Old (to 900);: milsem fedo | Irish, Old (to 900);: amram mlais | ||||
| ᚙ | CH or X, later AE | Irish: Eamhancholl | Irish, Old (to 900);: lúad sáethaig | Irish, Old (to 900);: mol galraig |
Four of these names are glossed in the Auraicept with tree names, Irish, Old (to 900);: ebad as Irish, Old (to 900);: crithach "aspen", Irish, Old (to 900);: oir as Irish, Old (to 900);: feorus no edind "spindle-tree or ivy", Irish, Old (to 900);: uilleand as Irish, Old (to 900);: edleand "honeysuckle", and Irish, Old (to 900);: iphin as Irish, Old (to 900);: spinan no ispin "gooseberry or thorn".
The kennings for Irish: Éabhadh point to the sound éo or é, which is also the word for "salmon". The name appears modelled after Eadhadh and Iodhadh. The kennings for Irish: Ór point to the word Irish: ór "gold" (cognate to Latin Latin: aurum). The kenning of Irish: Uilleann, "great elbow", refers to the letter name. Since the Ogham alphabet dates to the Primitive Irish period, it had no sign for pronounced as /[p]/ in its original form and the letter Irish, Old (to 900);: Pín was added as a letter to express it. McManus states that the name Irish, Old (to 900);: Pín was probably influenced by Latin pinus ('pine'), but a more likely explanation is that it derives from Latin Latin: spina ('thorn'), as the kennings indicate a tree or shrub with sweet tasting fruit (therefore not a pine). According to Kelly (1976) the name Irish, Old (to 900);: spín (deriving from the Latin) appears in the Old Irish tree lists as meaning either gooseberry or thorn, so the medieval glosses may be correct on this occasion. The name Irish: Eamhancholl means "twinned Irish: coll", referring to the shape of the letter (ᚙ resembling two ᚉ), and also perhaps referring to its sound being similar to that of Irish: coll (pronounced as /link/ being a fricative variant of pronounced as /link/). The Bríatharogam kenning "groan of a sick person" refers to a value ch pronounced as /[x]/, predating the decision that all five Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda represent vowels.
Apart from the first letter, the Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda were little used in inscriptions, and this led later oghamists to rearrange them as a series of vowel diphthongs, necessitating a complete change to the sounds of Irish, Old (to 900);: Pín and Irish: Eamhancholl (the name Irish, Old (to 900);: Pín also had to be changed to Irish, Old (to 900);: Iphín). This arrangement is how they appear in most manuscripts:
ᚕ (U+1695) Éabhadh: ea, éo ea;ᚖ (U+1696) Ór: oi óe, oi;ᚗ (U+1697) Uilleann: ui, úa, ui;ᚘ (U+1698) Ifín: io, ía, ia;ᚙ (U+1699) Eamhancholl: ae.This arrangement meant that once again the ogham alphabet was without a letter for the pronounced as /[p]/ sound, making necessary the creation of Irish: Peith (see below).
Apart from the first letter Irish: Éabhadh, the Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda do not appear often in orthodox ogham inscriptions. Irish: Éabhadh was in fact frequently used as part of the formula word ᚕᚑᚔ, but with the value pronounced as //k// or pronounced as //x//. KOI means something like 'here' and is the ogham equivalent of the Latin Latin: hic iacet (McManus §5.3, 1991); it is etymologically linked with the Latin Latin: cis ("on this side"). It also appears with its vocalic value in later orthodox inscriptions however. Of the other Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda the next three appear only a few times, and the last letter Irish: Eamhancholl does not appear at all. So rare are the other Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda in inscriptions that it is worthwhile detailing the individual examples (numbering as given by Macalister):
The letter pronounced as /[p]/ appears as an X shape instead of the 'double X' shape of the letter, presumably because the correct letter shape is quite hard to carve.
Again an X shape is used.
However, much of the inscription is broken off and what remains looks like a squat arrowhead. It almost certainly stands for pronounced as /[p]/ however, as the ogham inscription is accompanied by one in Latin which confirms the sound.
Beyond the five Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda discussed above, which doubtlessly date to Old Irish times, there is a large number of letter variants and symbols, partly found in manuscripts, and partly in "scholastic" (post 6th century) inscriptions collectively termed Irish, Old (to 900);: forfeda. They may date to Old Irish, Middle Irish or even early modern times.
Due to the "schematicism of later Ogamists" (McManus 1988:167), who insisted on treating the five primary forfeda as vowels, pronounced as /[p]/ had again to be expressed as a modification of pronounced as /[b]/, called Irish: peithe, after beithe, also called Irish: beithe bog "soft beithe" or, tautologically, peithbog (
ᚚ Irish: Peith, Unicode allocation U+169A).The 7th-12th century Auraicept na n-Éces among the 92 "variants" of the Ogham script gives more letters identified as forfeda (variant nrs. 79, 80 and 81).
The Bressay stone in Shetland (CISP BREAY/1) contains five forfeda, three of them paralleled on other Scottish monuments and also in Irish manuscripts, and two unique to Bressay. One of the latter is possibly a correction of an error in carving and not intended as a forfid. One is "rabbit-eared", interpreted as some kind of modified D, presumably the voiced spirant. Another is an "angled vowel", presumably a modified A. One unique character consists of five undulating strokes sloping backwards across the stem, possibly a modified I. The fourth is a four-stroke cross-hatching, also appearing in the late eighth or ninth-century Bern ogham alphabet and syllabary under a label which has previously been read as RR, but another suggestions is SS. It appears in the Book of Ballymote, scale no. 64.CISP - BREAY/1