The intellectual background of the earliest Irish grammar

Abstract

Auraicept na nÉces appropriates Latinate grammatical concepts to vernacular language and is the earliest preserved text from the medieval West to do so. It enhances the Babel narrative to strengthen the status of Irish and consequently stands out from the Hiberno-Latin grammars that date from roughly the same period. The present article challenges the traditionally accepted date (c.700) of this text and suggests a date in the ninth century. The mytho-grammatical profile of Auraicept na nÉces might either be seen as a vernacular continuation of developments in Hiberno-Latin grammatical writing, or the result of myth channelled into the text through glossing or through a merger of separate compositions. An understanding of textual development is crucial to assessment of the function of myth in the text and its place in the history of linguistic thought. A calibrated date therefore has considerable implications for Early Irish intellectual and literary history at large.