Ogam QWERTY

Should not the "beth luis nion" have its own Feda QWERTY ?

While Vowels are seen in Stones druim or spine as a combination of dots or very short horizontal slashes. Which would seem much easier to make.

I believer there must be more to the layout of the aicmi than this.

Why is the Ogam shown as the first twenty letters divided into three sets of five consonants and one set of five vowels, instead of having vowels first.

Does this have something to do with the Phonetics and letter frequency of Old Irish compared to English.

Or is there something missing here ?






Modern QWERTY typewriter  layout, which has been in use for over a century by now:

 Ref. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a-history-of-keyboard-layouts-is-qwerty-lagging-behind/



Letter frequency

e it san hurdm wgvlfbk opxcz jyq (Morse Code)

 etaoin shrdlu cmfwyp vbgkjq xz (Linotype Machines)

Ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency
>>
The frequency of letters in text has been studied for use in cryptanalysis, and frequency analysis in particular, dating back to the Iraqi mathematician Al-Kindi (c. 801–873 CE), who formally developed the method (the ciphers breakable by this technique go back at least to the Caesar cipher invented by Julius Caesar, so this method could have been explored in classical times).<<
 >>
Modern International Morse code (generally believed to have been developed by Alfred Vail based on English-language letter frequencies of the 1830s) encodes the most frequent letters with the shortest symbols; arranging the Morse alphabet into groups of letters that require equal amounts of time to transmit, and then sorting these groups in increasing order, yields e it san hurdm wgvlfbk opxcz jyq. Similar ideas are used in modern data-compression techniques such as Huffman coding. <<


Letter Frequency in:

Irish: a i h n r e t s c o l d g u m b á f í é ú ó p v j w y k q z (x)


Welsh: a y n d r e i l o g h w t f u s c m b p â ô y^ w^ j ï ê á q v î (k x z)


Gaelic: a i h n d e r c s g l o u t m b à f p o` ù é i` è ó (j k q v w x y z)
Ref. http://letterfrequency.org/


Letter Frequency in Old Irish
Ref. http://www.sttmedia.com/characterfrequency-irish



A most interesting little article:

NOTICES OF THE PROCEEDINGS
AT THE MEETINGS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE
Royal Institute of Great Britain
WITH ABSTRACTS OF THE DISCOURSES
DELIVERED AT THE EVENING MEETINGS
VOLUME XVI 1899—1901

>>
The origin of the Ogam symbols (Fig. 8)—for letters they cannot be called—is lost in an obscure past. In this respect they are in a position very different from that of Eunes, where the only question is from which of two closely related classes of alphabet the actual Knnic letters are derived ; that is, the early Italian form or the early Greek form of the Phoenician alphabet. It is usual to say of the Ogams that they have evidently been invented for the sake of ease in cutting upon wood or stone. That view can scarcely be maintained in face of the facts that the letter i, which in the alphabets connected with the Phoenician is as simple as a letter can be, is in tlie Ogam script one of the four most laborious symbols, the three which share with it this distinction being n, q, and r, these four letters being as often used in Ogam inscrip tions as any other four letters which can be named ; and that the letter h, which is not in- contestably present in any one of the large number of Ogam inscriptions known to tho pub lic as in existence at the present time, and is at least excessively rare, is one of the four least laborious of the Ogam symbols, the three which share with it this distinction being a, b, and m, b being of rare occurrence as compared with any one of the four heaviest symbols. Without making any assumption as to the language for which the Ogam symbols were originally used, it is fairly safe to say that in no known lan guage is the relative frequency of occurrence of the several letters such that it should be mado five times as easy to cut the four letters a, li, A, m, as to cut the four /', n, q, r. In the Gaelic languages, while still in an inflectional stage, for which we find the ogams actually used, the relative frequency points rather tho other way, if anything. That the Runes reached the state of develop ment in which we find them in the earlier periods, by means of alterations in the rounded and curved and horizontal lines of letters, with a view to making them easy to cut on wood with a marked grain, may be taken as certain. The result accounts for and justifies the change. But convenience of cutting has not been the ori ginal cause of the assignment of Ogam symbols. I shall not enter upon the question, what is the reason for the order of the Ogams. It is in fact, so I am assured, the actual order of the Irish alphabet If this be so, the connection is of course certain ; but which gave to the other this order, and where the one which gave it to the other got it from, are pertinent questions. On the latter question, where the order ori ginally came from, I have—as I have said—no intention of entering. The performances of the champions in that field are not an encourage ment to others. This much is certain ; it is not an order which grew up unawares, nor is it an order which came from tho Semitic alphabet, or from any other known primitive alphabet in any part of the world. No early alphabet =r

174 The Bishop of Bristol [May 19,
would put all tho vowels together. That has certainly been the work of men who had studied language and the means of expres sing articulate sounds. Why, we may ask, should men who cer tainly must have been—I mean no play on the words—men of letters, so far as in those early times any man not of the two great nations of civilisation were, have devised an exceedingly cumbrous manner of writing the language and representing the letters of which they had at least some scientific knowledge ? To say that it was for convenience of cutting on stone or wood is—as I have pointed out—
to disregard the facts ; that is to say, a very much more convenient arrangement of the system of notches could have been made. I do not at all mean to imply that those who speak of convenience of cutting suggest that the idea of rapid work was present to the minds of those who devised the Ogam. The world was young then, and people were not striking for so much an hour. But I think the principle of least effort may be taken as having guided, on the whole, the general conduct of men at all times, to their knowledge or not to their knowledge, and the principle of least effort was not present as the fairy godmother at the birth of the Ogam script. In connection with the runes and the relative labour of cutting runes and ogams, I once took the trouble to count how many scores you must cut to make the Anglian runes which correspond to the 20 ogam symbols. The result is curious. In each set of 5 letters you must cut in ogam the sum of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 scores or notches. In the first of these groups, 15 notches in ogam, b, I, f, e, n, in name, you must cut 15 scores in runes, exactly the same number. For the second group of 5 ogams, that is of 15 notches, you must cut 13 scores in runes. For tho third 15, you have no st in runes ; without it yon cut 11 notches in runes, and with it you cut 15 in ogam. For the last group, 16 in rune and 15 in ogam. That is, it costs you 60 notches to cut the ogam bethlnisnion straight through, and 58 to cut the corresponding runes less st, or 66 in ogam and 58 in nine omitting at in ogam. Of course this is the merest coincidence, but it has its bearing on the question of least effort expended on the whole alphabet, as contrasted with the question of least effort in individual letters. If we make a distinction between long notches and short ones, the runes take much less effort to cut, for 31 of the 58 notches are short. In the ogam only the vowels are short ; and as the m group are all of them more than twice the ordinary length, the shortness of the vowels is more than compensated for. Indeed, if you take an ogam score for & of 3 inches in length as your normal length for ogams and runes alike, you will have to cut 216 inches of notch and 15 dots to make your ogams, and about 97 inches of notch to make the corresponding runes. The fact that he had carefully to fit together the various notches which form a rune would probably be more trying to an early stone-cutter than a much greater length of straight cutting in ogam would have been. I am driven to believe, cither that tho ogam was invented of set purpose as a cryptic alphabet, a set of symbols to be used on wood or on stone instead of letters, on a system known only to a few, or that the ogam was copied directly from some method of notation in which it was just as easy to mark five as to mark one. The two, as you will see, are not inconsistent, and the ogam may have come from some cryptic system of notation in which it was about equally easy to mark one. two, and up to five. Now the tradition is—though no ogams have been found which belong to the earjier stages of which the tradition tells —that there were originally only 10 ogams ; that they were then increased to 12 ; then to 16 ; and finally to 20. That is to say, beginning with 2 sets of 5 ogams, people went on to 3 sets of 4, then to 4 sets of 4, and at last to 4 sets of 5. And it is said that at one change of this kind the man who guided the change ordered that the ogam should no longer be a secret. What can be the explanation of the ringing of the changes on 4 and 5, with apparently no extra difficulty of treat ment ? And what hint can the story of the ogam ceasing to be secret have for us ?
My theory is this, that the ogams are mere copies of signs made with the fingers of one hand or the other, and that when the ogams were in groups of 4, with 1, 2, 3, 4 notches for signs, the fingers only of each hand were used ; when they were in groups of 5, with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 notches for signs, the thumb of each hand was used as well as the fingers. The ogams which we are accustomed to see, or which I hope my sheets of illustrations are accustoming you to see, run along on a
long line without discontinuity. But of course each could be made separately for practical purposes. We may suppose that tho original operator held up his left hand and applied the point of one finger at right angles for one letter, two fingers for two letters, and so on up to five. Now it really makes no difference, so far as trouble goes, whether you hold out five fingers or one. Then the operator held up his right hand, and applied one, two, . . fingers of his left hand. This accounts for ten letters. Then one finger, two, and so on, laid diagonally across the palm of the other hand, will give you five more. Finally, to apply the point of one finger, two, and so on, to the palm of the left hand, will give you the dots for the vowels ;
or laid from the middle to the side of the palm, that is, short notches. Conceivably, tho knuckles of the clenched fist were touched for vowels. The diphthongs are easy to make with the fingers. There is a curious hint of fingers in the cross-line diphthongs, especially in the fact that there are crosses of one finger each, two fingers each, and four fingers each, none of three. The well-known difficulty of bringing up tho third finger without the help of the second or fourth, seems an almost conclusive explanation of this phenomenon. My guess is that these finger-signs were used for incantation, or for cryptic purposes, and that they wore for long unknown except to a few of tho initiated. They may well Imvo come down from exearlier. I cannot at all think that they are a mere literary invention of Christian times. Passing through many stages they arrived at length at the development in which we know them. Christianity rendered their use for cryptic purposes no longer applicable. The time for medicine-men had gone by. The abolition of the Druids abolished the impiousness of writing down any Druid secret. The ogams were then, for the first time, used for sepulchral purposes, just at their fullest development, and just at the time of transition in religious beliefs, among the people who occupied the limited districts where the survivors of those who had cryptically used them dwelt ;
and in a very short time their use passed away for ever. The know ledge of the key did not die out, and we have a few examples in Scotland probably quite as late as some of even the later runes. You will of course have noticed that while our present finger alphabet for the deaf and dumb, which was only invented about 150 years ago, reproduces as far as fingers can the shapes of the letters, so that anyone looking on can see what several of the letters are, tho ogam entirely avoids that, and is quite inscrutable if you do not know the key. In cutting the ogams on stone, one edge of the stone, or a pro minent ridge on the stone, was taken as the dividing line. In the following illustrations, which are taken by photography from my facsimile rubbings of the stones, the edge is not shown ; it is usually irregular, tho inscriptions being cut on a rude pillar-stone. Pig. 9 shows the inscription on a stone now in the Queen's College at Cork. The ogams are read from the bottom upwards, and they pass round the top and down the other side. The inscription seems to be of comparatively late date, judging by its grammatical form. It has after the first four letters a symbol in form of X, and to this Mr. Brash assigns the function of dividing two parts of the inscription. But such division is unknown elsewhere, and has in this case no meaning, indeed it destroys meaning. The symbol X is given in the Book of Ballymote as representing the consonant ea, and there seems no doubt that on this stone it stands for that or some other letter or combination of letters. <<
(Page 171-176)

Ref.
http://ogamandrunes.blogspot.com/2016/07/r-runic-and-ogam-characters-and.html

Our Facebook study group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/OgamRunicphonograms/

TDK / The Druid King