Letter use analysed to date ancient Irish texts(Via Explorator.)
DICK AHLSTROM, Science Editor, at the RDS (Irish Times)
A DUBLIN-BASED student has taken the Irish language, mashed it through a wringer and in the process has come up with a powerful tool for analysing ancient Irish texts. In particular it looks promising for dating texts of unknown but ancient origin.
Aoife Gregg (16) is presenting her findings at the BT Young Scientists and Technology Exhibition under way at the RDS. Although the exhibition is open tomorrow, it reaches its climax this evening when the young scientist for 2012 is announced.
The transition-year student from Loreto College, St Stephen’s Green, carried out a letter frequency analysis of the Irish language, using a computer to determine which letters occurred most frequently. The top four in order were A, I, H and N, but then she got the idea to measure letter frequencies in older documents to see how the Irish language changed.
She studied 17 documents dating as far back as AD 600 and immediately found changes in the letter frequencies. The letter A is much more frequent today, she said yesterday and also the letter H. This may seem a bit academic but in fact she used these methods to date old Irish texts. She correctly determined the ages of eight out of 10 old texts, she said. “It provides an alternative way of dating Irish documents.”
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As it stands, this sounds like a blunt instrument, but the concept is worth further development. Perhaps it will be useful someday for dating Irish Old Testament pseudepigrapha, of which there are a surprising number. Some of them are being translated for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. My colleague, Grant Macaskill, posted an essay on the subject several years ago for a class we taught together: The Pseudepigrapha in the Irish Church.