Alphabet

this prayer-book is exceedingly rare the british museum possesses no copy but has to content itself with photographs showing the title colophon etc of that in the library of trinity college dublin emmanuel college cambridge has one which formerly belonged to archbishop sancroft cotton in his typographical gazetteer says that powell's prayer-book is most creditable to the early irish press it is in the english language and printed in black letter The first book printed in the Gaelic language, though in Roman type, has already been spoken of.

The first Gaelic type was exhibited to the world in a tiny volume of 54 pages printed at Dublin in 1571, and entitled Irish Alphabet and Catechism.

this was compiled by john o'kearney and contained the elements of the irish language the catechism some prayers and archbishop parker's articles of the christian rule the following is a facsimile of the title-page to which a translation is added irish alphabet and catechism precept or instruction of a christian together with certain articles of the christian rule which are proper for every one to adopt who would be submissive to the ordinance of god and of the queen in this kingdom translated from latin and english into irish by john o'kearney awake why sleepest thou o lord arise cast us not off for ever psalm forty four verse twenty three printed an irish in the town of the ford of the hurdles at the cost of master john usher alderman at the head of the bridge the twentieth day of june fifteen seventy one with the privilege of the great queen fifteen seventy one this book was produced by john o'kearney sometime treasurer of st patrick's cathedral and his friend nicholas walsh chancellor of st patrick's and afterwards bishop of ossory and the john usher who defrayed the expense was then collector of customs of the port of dublin its appearance was considered a momentous event by those concerned with it for great benefits were anticipated for the irish people as soon as their national tongue and its own dear alphabet were reduced to print as o'kearney states at some length in the preface he also tells us that the types from which this volume was printed were provided at the cost of the high pious great and mighty prince elizabeth in this connection it is worth while to notice two extant records one among the state papers irish series and the other among the acts of the privy council from the first made some time in december fifteen sixty seven We gather that Queen Elizabeth had already paid 66 pounds, 13 shillings, 4 pence, for the making of characters for the Testament in Irish, and that this Testament was not yet in the press.

The second, August 1587, states that the New Testament was translated into Irish by Walsh and O'Kierney, but never imprinted.

partly for want of proper characters and men of that nation and language skilful in the mystery of printing and partly on account of the cost i can find no other record of the provision of a font of irish types at the queen's expense and having no more definite information at hand on this point and taking into consideration the contents of the book an irish alphabet and directions for reading irish and a catechism etc by way of exercise its diminutive size and the imperfection of its print i venture the suggestion that o'kearney's work was printed as a trial of the new types given by the queen and intended for printing the new testament this view is supported by the first words of the preface here o reader you have the first value and fruit of that great instructive work which i have been producing and devising for you for a long time that is the faithful and perfect type of the gaelic tongue the conclusion seems to be that the types were inadequate for the larger work and that for some reason there was a difficulty about supplying more or finding any one to undertake the printing the preface further says after requesting corrections and amendments as regards the typography and it is not alone that i am asking you to give this kind friendly correction to the printing but also to the translation or rendering made of this catechism put forth as far back as fifteen sixty three of the age of the lord and which is now more correct and complete with the principal articles of the christian faith associated therewith this has led some to think that there was an earlier edition of the alphabet and catechism but it seems plain that o'kearney refers to the catechism only not to the whole book and equally plain that the fifteen sixty three work whatever it was was not printed in irish type for there would have been no special occasion to glorify the fifteen seventy one alphabet and catechism since nothing is known of the catechism of fifteen sixty three it is very possible that it existed only in manuscript and never went to press I have gone into this matter of the Irish Alphabet and Catechism of 1571 somewhat at length because I am not aware that it has ever yet received detailed attention.

The quotations I have given from the preface are from an anonymous manuscript translation inserted in the British Museum copy.

o'kearney's irish alphabet and catechism is so rare that only three copies are known to exist one being in the british museum one in the bodleian library and one in the library of lincoln cathedral the font of types from which it was printed was not quite correct for instance the small roman a is used and an h is introduced a letter foreign to the gaelic alphabet during the seventeenth century and even later most of the irish books were sent to be printed on the continent or in england several books by irish authors chiefly catechisms works on the language and dictionaries bear the names of louvain antwerp rome or paris such as the Catechism of Bonaventure Hussey, printed at Louvain in 1608 and reprinted in Antwerp in 1611 and 1618.

Right here in Florida.

So, so the alphabet deck is a really interesting concept.

This was the first.

So I redid this deck, but this was the first deck I did.

It was a really weird stack.

For example, A is for the letter.

So it says, if you look at the letter of the card, it's an alphabet deck.

N is for nuts, but on the, you know, It's technically A for acorn, B is for bear, and it's T for teddy.

I think you may have both done it before, but I have not had it on the podcast recently.

It is Alphabet.

So Alphabet is...

You guys are going to go through the alphabet.

We're going to just start with A. I saw you guys do it a different way in a show you did the other day that I did enjoy, but we're going to just start with A. So...

So Akira Denny and Quinton Peters from Elsie Book Duke School.

So in our class, or before I took the lead position, I was a teacher, the kids had a uh lesson plan where they actually had to learn different vocabularies they had to break down the syllables then do the sounds now mind you these kids already knew their abc's this is the next up above the as you continue on those abc sounds sounds yes as you continue on learning your um migma language journey so for an example this and the the The end goal or the outcome was once you learn a category and you're confident in doing it, then I want you to build me a resource because resources are so there's there's a lot of resources, but there isn't because a lot of them are not in Elsie Book Duke dialect.

There's a lot in Nova Scotia or, you know, like the different reserves.

Every reserve has a different dialect or the way they say things.