nGéadal

nGéadal (Ngéadal or Ngeadal) is the Irish name of the thirteenth letter of the Ogham alphabet, ᚍ.

Ogham letters
Aicme Beithe Aicme Muine
ᚁ[b]Beith ᚋ[m]Muin
ᚂ[l]Luis ᚌ[ɡ]Gort
ᚃ[w]Fearn ᚍ[ɡʷ]nGéadal
ᚄ[s]Sail ᚎ[st], [ts], [sw]Straif
ᚅ[n]Nion ᚏ[r]Ruis
Aicme hÚatha Aicme Ailme
ᚆ[j]Uath ᚐ[a]Ailm
ᚇ[d]Dair ᚑ[o]Onn
ᚈ[t]Tinne ᚒ[u]Úr
ᚉ[k]Coll ᚓ[e]Eadhadh
ᚊ[kʷ]Ceirt ᚔ[i]Iodhadh
Forfeda (rare, sounds uncertain)
ᚕ[k], [x], [eo]Éabhadh
ᚖ[oi]Ór
ᚗ[ui]Uilleann
ᚘ[p], [io]Ifín ᚚ[p]Peith
ᚙ [x], [ai] Eamhancholl

The Bríatharogam (kennings) for the letter are:

  • lúth lego "sustenance of a leech"
  • étiud midach "raiment of physicians"
  • tosach n-échto "beginning of slaying"

Its meaning is probably "[the act of] wounding". In Old Irish, the letter name was Gétal. It may be a verbal noun of gonid 'wounds, slays'. in which case is related to Welsh gwanu 'to pierce, to stab', which comes from the root was *gʷhen- 'to pierce, to strike'. Its original phonetic value in Primitive Irish was [ɡʷ], the voiced labiovelar. In Old Irish, this phoneme merged with g (gort), and the medieval manuscript tradition assigns it Latin ng [ŋ], hence the unetymological spelling of the letter name with initial n-.

References
  • Damian McManus, Irish letter-names and their kennings, Ériu 39 (1988), 127-168.
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