Iodhadh
{{Short description|25th letter of the Ogham alphabet}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Contains special characters|Ogham}}
{{Table Oghamletters}}
{{lang|ga|Iodhadh}} is the Irish name of the twentieth letter of the Ogham alphabet, ᚔ. In Old Irish, the letter name was {{lang|sga|idad}}. Its phonetic value is [i]. The original meaning of the letter name is uncertain, but it is likely an artificially altered pair with {{lang|ga|edad}}, much like Gothic {{lang|got-Latn|pairþra, qairþra}}, and may refer to "yew".
Interpretation
The medieval glossators all assign "yew" as the meaning of the letter name referred to by the kennings, though Idad is not a word attested in its own right. Idad as "yew" is glossed by these later commentators as deriving from a modified form of ibar originally. However, this is unlikely to be the Old Irish word that gave the letter its value of "yew", as the cognate Welsh efwr and Gallo-Roman eburos point to a Primitive Irish *eburas, and ibar was used (with qualifiers) to refer to a whole range of evergreen shrubs.{{Cite book|url=https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/M%C3%A9langes_Lambert|title=Mélanges en l'honneur de Pierre-Yves Lambert|last=Schrijver|first=Peter|publisher=TIR|year=2015|editor-last=Oudaer|editor-first=Guillaume|location=Rennes|pages=65–76|chapter=The meaning of Celtic *eburos|editor-last2=Hily|editor-first2=Gaël|editor-last3=Le Bihan|editor-first3=Hervé}}
It is more likely that the Old Irish word that gave the letter its ascribed meaning was éo, from the Primitive Irish *iwas (cf. Welsh ywen, Gaulish ivo-, Proto-Indo-European *iwo- "yew"). McManus suggests that the original letter names for edad and idad were likely *eburas (or *esox) and *iwas, hence their values [e] and [i] respectively, with confusion arising in the medieval period as the language evolved.{{Cite journal|last=McManus|first=Damian|date=1988|title=Irish Letter-Names and Their Kennings|journal=Ériu|volume=39|pages=127–168|jstor=30024135}}
Bríatharogam
In the medieval kennings, called Bríatharogaim or Word Ogham the verses associated with idad are:
sinem fedo - "oldest tree" in the Bríatharogam Morann mic Moín
caínem sen - "fairest of the ancients" in the Bríatharogam Mac ind Óc
lúth lobair (?) - "energy of an infirm person (?)" in the Bríatharogam Con Culainn.Auraicept na n-Éces Calder, George, Edinburgh, John Grant (1917), reprint Four Courts Press (1995), {{ISBN|1-85182-181-3}}{{Cite book|title=A guide to Ogam|last=McManus, Damian.|date=1991|publisher=An Sagart|isbn=1-870684-17-6|location=Maynooth|oclc=24181838}}
References
{{Reflist}}