Deaf Pagan Crossroads

Did the Celts know sign language? In this post, Ocean discusses a theory that suggests that this ancient culture of the British Isles used a manual alphabet based on the Ogham, an Early Medieval alphabet.

Being that I am Celtic myself, I have always had a strong interest in the ancient Celts – their history, their legends and myths, how they lived, and what their beliefs and practices were. In addition, the Celts and the ancient religions of the British Isles have played a significant role in the development of modern day Paganism.

While there are many things about the Celts that interest me, there is one subject that I find particularly fascinating -

The theory that certain members of the Celtic social classes did know and utilized a non-verbal manual communication system based upon their alphabet.

In another words, the Celts knew sign language.

According to certain sources, it is believed that the ancient druids and bards (also known as fili) used an oghamic sign language to communicate with each other secretly.

The Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to represent the “Old Irish” language. There are twenty principal ogham letters, known as feda – fifteen representing consonants and five representing vowels. These feda formed four groups of five letters, and each group was known as an aicme. In addition to these twenty, six more letters, known as forfeda, were added later. Each letter is named for a tree, hence we get the Celtic Tree Alphabet.

The original twenty letters of the Ogham are represented in script by lines or scores for the consonants and notches for the vowels, while the six additional letters have more distinctive glyphs. (see this link for examples). Examples of Ogham script can be found in ancient stones all over Ireland and the United Kingdom, known as Ogham Stones.

However, not only was the Ogham written in such script, it is also believed to have been communicated manually. In fact, some scholars believe that ogham script actually was developed from the Celtic sign language – that originally the different lines represented the different placements of the fingers on the leg or nose to express different letters.

For example, in cossagam (leg-ogham) the druid or fili (bard) would sit and use the fingers of his hand in various positions along his shin (lower leg) to indicate the letter. Much like modern day signs, the placement of the fingers and the actual fingers used would represent specific letters – letters in the b-aicme would be made to the right of the shinbone, while letters in the h-aicme would be made to the left…and so on for the other aicmes as well. The number of fingers used would represent the letter itself.

So for example, the letter luis would be “signed” as two fingers placed on the leg on the right side of the shinbone. (Luis represented the letter L and in the tree alphabet, the rowan tree.)

In much the same way, the nose was used in sron-ogham, or nose-ogham. In fact, it was said that the reason the nose is ridged was to make ogham signalling easier!

But by far the most fascinating use of the Ogham in nonverbal communication is the finger ogham, where the fingers were used to express the letters.

In the manual alphabet of British Sign Language (BSL) some of the consonants are “drawn” by the fingers of the right hand on the “page” of the left – almost literally for j. Others are created by the fingers of the right hand touching the left hand in specific ways. But all the vowels – a, e, i, o, u – are indicated in a systematic, rather than graphic, way: by touching the right index finger to the tips of the left thumb and fingers.

In much the same way, it is believed that the druids and fili of the ancient Celts used a wholly systematic way of signing the Ogham on their fingers.

The thumb and finger tips became b, l, f, s, n… while the vowels – in the order a, o, u, e, i, as represented in the Ogham – were the base of the thumb and fingers. The other two aicme were indicated by touching the first and second joints of the thumb and fingers.

By using such a system, the druids and fili could easily communicate with each other in a secret and inconspicuous way.

One could perhaps compare the left hand to the keypad of a modern day mobile phone; people who send SMS text messages have become quite skilled at doing so… and it can be assumed that in a similar manner, the druids and fili became equally skilled in signalling in this ancient way.

BSL fingerspelling itself provides more accurate parallels. Fingerspelling is a very small part of BSL: the bulk of any conversation uses signs for whole words and short phrases. Nevertheless, those who are good at fingerspelling alone can go amazingly fast. The limiting factor is the other person’s ability to “read” fluently enough to keep up.

Finger-ogham seems to be more nuanced than BSL finger spelling. Nevertheless, it’s not unreasonable to think that skilled druids and filí could converse with finger-ogham at more than 30 words per minute.

So did the ancient Celts know and use a manual alphabet for communicating with each other? In my research and my conversations with others, there appears to be some debate over this issue, with valid arguments on both sides of the debate. There is no question that the Ogham existed – we can still find examples of it today. Whether or not it was in fact actually used by the ancient Celts as a nonverbal mode of communication… or whether this was a romanticized notion created by later writers and scholars is the big question. In reality, we know little about the Celts, and much of what we do know are educated guesses and speculations based upon what evidence is available.

Nevertheless, I find the research regarding the Ogham to be quite interesting, and the idea that the Celts did in fact use a manual-visual system of communication to be quite appealing. My goal is to do further study on this topic, and hopefully through contact with others learn more about the signing forms of the Ogham and its possible use in ancient history.

thanks to “Ant Allan” – whose articles on his website regarding the Ogham provided much information used for the writing of this post