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Ogham has twenty letters in four groups of five. Each one carries a tree name from medieval scholarship.
What is ogham?
Ogham is the earliest form of writing in Ireland. From roughly the fourth century, it was cut along the edges of standing stones, and around 400 of those stones survive today, most of them in the south-west.
Nearly every inscription is a name. Many use the word MAQI, “son of”, which later became Mac in Irish surnames.
Strokes sit on a central line: to one side, to the other, straight across or slanted. Stone inscriptions are read from the bottom up. In medieval manuscripts, scribes added a mark at the start and end so the direction was never in doubt, and this app draws those marks.
Ogham has no K, V, W, Y, J, P or X. This app uses the usual stand-ins, and tells you whenever it swaps a letter.