Question (on Goidillic units and names)

[Riadach]

I'd like to begin by congratulating you on your excellent mod for Rome total war. It really is an achievement in itself. One of the best elements of this is the historical accuracy, and peculiarities you have given to each faction. Excellent work, Kudos.

However, sorry, my area of expertise is Irish history and Irish language, and I have noticed something rather odd. For a start, the Goidillic units are not supported by any source I have ever read, worse still is that their Irish names look like something dragged out of the dictionary. Daernaght, Ordmhornaght, Deaisbaird and Uachtarach Dubgaoscacha show a distinct misunderstanding of the Irish rudiments of the Irish language. A lot of the names are complete gibberish in that regard. Not to mention laecha is said to be pronounced lusha, when in fact it's pronounced lay-uk(as in ch in the loch) uh.

Further to this, the quotes you have added to the loading menus include references to the cycle of don? the cycle of telam? and reference to names which begin as dua or uí as well as including spellings which were more welsh when it was clear an Irish reference was intended. There were four cycles in Irish legend, fenian, mythological, kings and ulster. No other exist. And I'm unfamiliar with such quotes from them.

I know that this mod was created because of a lust for historical accuracy, and fair play. But what I can't understand is where this info comes from, and it's a small mark on an otherwise excellent mod, and I don't think you would have willingly added fraudelent information.

I apologise for being so pedantic.

[bovi]

I read this post before somewhere. In the goidilic hammers thread perhaps?

[Riadach]

I did write something like that before, but I deleted it considering it was impolite. I then downloaded the game, and realised that this was the only flaw i could see, so felt I was doing the decent thing by informing you.

[bovi]

Ah, that must be it. Someone who knows this will probably answer, I have no clue .

[Riadach]

Good good. I just want to gently advise, not to insult by the above post.

[russia almighty]

Riadach a friendly heads up , the EB team has access to stuff that you can only find at a university or that hasn't even been published.

[Riadach]

Well I am a university graduate from Trinity College Dublin, in both Irish and History. I have a good working knowledge of old and middle Irish as well and I have never come across such terminology, also referenced it to the RIA DIL. I can say. though, hand on heart, that the irish is completely wrong. One source on the site doesn't exist for certain, is Luachmharlenbhan. I have never heard of such and am surprised the title is in modern Irish, not to mention not conforming to grammatical rules.

[Ludens]

I haven't seen any of the team's Celtic experts lately, so I am afraid your question won't be answered. However, as I understand it, the quotes have been taken from a work that one of them is currently translating. I also know that many of the "barbarian" units have been created based on archeological finds rather than written or oral history. However, I do admit I am puzzled about the Uachtarach Dubgaoscacha as well.

[abou]

We talked about this about a month back. This is an excerpt of what our Celtic expert had to say on the issue:

Sorry, didn't see. He's pretty right, actually, none of those names were intended to stick (placeholders until more appropriate primitive Irish names could be used), but, they're not gibberish, they're just rather hastily done. However, I did try to get some of them changed a while ago, I forget who I was trying to get a hold of though. They need to be in 'Primitive Irish', but Ran didn't have a good theoretical dictionary for it yet (it's extremely fragmentary, mostly based on Ogham), but I got one a few months ago, though now I can't find it.

So there you have it. The names are placeholders for now; time is just needed to complete everything.

Also, the Uachtarach DuboGaiscaocha unit was based on a grave find. Now, whether that was published or not, I don't know.

[Riadach]

I haven't seen any of the team's Celtic experts lately, so I am afraid your question won't be answered. However, as I understand it, the quotes have been taken from a work that one of them is currently translating. I also know that many of the "barbarian" units have been created based on archeological finds rather than written or oral history. However, I do admit I am puzzled about the Uachtarach Dubgaoscacha as well.

As far as I am aware, there are no tracts left to be translated in Irish, excpt perhaps some obscure legalistic poetry from the 6th century. It however seems unlikely as the names used do not conform to grammar. One character was call telam Uí Manawydan. Any one with any understanding of Irish would understand that A manawydan is a welsh name, not an Irish one and B Uí is the genitive and plural form of Ua and does not occur in one individuals name. Anyone truly translating a tract would have no difficulty understanding this. In fact most 6th year students of Irish would understand it too. It leaves me to think that those aren't as proficient as they say the were.

As for archeological finds, perhaps you are correct. I haven't heard of any hammer warriors though, though in the Lebor Gabála(it's a real book i promise you) when one of the TDD meet the firbolg they remark on their spears(craísech MIr, craoiseach Mod.Ir) which they use for smashing and breaking as opposed to the TDD whose spears were used for cutting and slicing. But the name is way off. As regards Uachtarach Dubgaoscacha, it's source is non-existant, and ceannlann does not mean fish scales. It would mean headscale/blade.

[Urnamma]

As far as I am aware, there are no tracts left to be translated in Irish, excpt perhaps some obscure legalistic poetry from the 6th century. It however seems unlikely as the names used do not conform to grammar. One character was call telam Uí Manawydan. Any one with any understanding of Irish would understand that A manawydan is a welsh name, not an Irish one and B Uí is the genitive and plural form of Ua and does not occur in one individuals name. Anyone truly translating a tract would have no difficulty understanding this. In fact most 6th year students of Irish would understand it too. It leaves me to think that those aren't as proficient as they say the were.

As for archeological finds, perhaps you are correct. I haven't heard of any hammer warriors though, though in the Lebor Gabála(it's a real book i promise you) when one of the TDD meet the firbolg they remark on their spears(craísech MIr, craoiseach Mod.Ir) which they use for smashing and breaking as opposed to the TDD whose spears were used for cutting and slicing. But the name is way off. As regards Uachtarach Dubgaoscacha, it's source is non-existant, and ceannlann does not mean fish scales. It would mean headscale/blade.

I'll state from the get-go that I am no linguist (though I could fairly claim to be a philologist, if I were inclined to do so), and I cannot comment one way or the other on your claims in that area, aside from a small point.

To reiterate, I am no expert on language from that area, but you are very mistaken when you say there is nothing left to translate. When I studied at Harvard for a summer, their Celtic Languages and Literatures dept had several manuscripts actively being worked on. That's just at one place. No offense, but your awareness may be a bit narrow, as I know of people at University College Cork who're also working on texts.

As to the Uachtarach, the archaeological source is quite real, at least the armor anyway. A segment of composite scale (akin to the later Roman Plumata) was pulled out of a bog in what had been Ivernis. Use of all-iron javelins is similarly attested, as remains have been found as far north as Connaught. Long spear hafts are well attested too.

Most of the other units have very much in-period equipment for that area, judging from bog finds and actual weapon counts. 'Archaeology' hardly ever uses mythology, as we're concerned largely with hard physical evidence, which is certainly present in the case of the equipment.

As far as things being in private collections... This is even worse of a problem today, as archaeological looting and theft is even more prevalent today than it was then. Many of us who study ancient economics have basically had to beg to get tiny pieces of pots in order to try to derive their previous contents, to speak only of pottery. Literally thousands of texts remain untranslated, and in what I do (Hittites and Assyrians) over 70% are just sitting waiting for the dwindling number of people who can read them to do so.

The names though, can you explain to me how they're ungrammatical? Keep in mind, I do have a lot of experience with language and formal structure, so I'm really interested in the, to use a vulgate expression, nitty gritty of what you're talking about.

[Riadach]

The assumption within the names given urmama, is that the adjective precedes the noun, when in fact the reverse is true. A rather basic mistake do you not think? A similar mistake is made with luachmharleanbhan. Indeed luachmhar is modern Irish word as luach comes from early modern Irish lógh, meaning value or price. In MIr or Oir this would have been represented as Lóg, hence lóg n-enech, honour price. Luachmhar would not represent precious is the sense that children are precious but rather in the sense that gems are precious or valuable.

As well as that, many of the names mentioned in the cycle of don or dyrma, have names which do not conform to Irish orthography. For example there is no y in Irish, in fact the only gaelic language in which it occurs is manx. There are no k's, indeed names do not begin with H's except for certain grammatical reasons (possesive or genitive), so a name beginning h would not be found in the nominative. Hence Hannon could not be an Irish name. I also remember a Cuinn, Cuinn is the genitive of Conn and is not to be found in the nominative as Conn, all translators would know that.

The argument wasn't necessarily that all legendary prose tracts have been translated, although I still believe they have, but rather that a whole cycle of literature could be completely untranslated. Old Irish is less obscure than Hittite and Assyrian, therefore there is much less guesswork involved. As far as I am aware, sterling work has been done over the past 100 years, and all that is left to translate is obscure judicial tracts, and 500 dán díreach (metrical based later-medieval poems, one of which I hope to translate for my thesis). But if there is one, even if it's unpublished, it will be catalogued either under RIA, TCD, UCD or indeed Bodleian library Oxford. It would first be listed as a collection before it could be translated and published. Does anyone have this information in regards to these alleged tracts.

As for the composite armour reference, I am quite interested in such, and if you could provide further reference to it, (its site, location, archaeologists involved) I could see if I could garner more information from the archaeology wing of TCD. If indeed it is published, I do try to keep up to date with the JRSAI, the RIA and the Irish sword, and am surprised no mention, even in passing, has been made of it. However, ceannlann (head-armour or head-blade?) does not mean what it has been asserted. (in fact the ea gliding vowel, does not really occur in writing until the 15th century in Irish writing, mod ir ceann was rendered cenn, peann pen scéal sgél etc), and likewise for leanbhan above.

[paullus]

"annon" with a prefix has several Galatian parallels, so perhaps Hannon is mainland Celtic?

[Urnamma]

The assumption within the names given urmama, is that the adjective precedes the noun, when in fact the reverse is true. A rather basic mistake do you not think? A similar mistake is made with luachmharleanbhan. Indeed luachmhar is modern Irish word as luach comes from early modern Irish lógh, meaning value or price. In MIr or Oir this would have been represented as Lóg, hence lóg n-enech, honour price. Luachmhar would not represent precious is the sense that children are precious but rather in the sense that gems are precious or valuable.

As well as that, many of the names mentioned in the cycle of don or dyrma, have names which do not conform to Irish orthography. For example there is no y in Irish, in fact the only gaelic language in which it occurs is manx. There are no k's, indeed names do not begin with H's except for certain grammatical reasons (possesive or genitive), so a name beginning h would not be found in the nominative. Hence Hannon could not be an Irish name. I also remember a Cuinn, Cuinn is the genitive of Conn and is not to be found in the nominative as Conn, all translators would know that.

The argument wasn't necessarily that all legendary prose tracts have been translated, although I still believe they have, but rather that a whole cycle of literature could be completely untranslated. Old Irish is less obscure than Hittite and Assyrian, therefore there is much less guesswork involved. As far as I am aware, sterling work has been done over the past 100 years, and all that is left to translate is obscure judicial tracts, and 500 dán díreach (metrical based later-medieval poems, one of which I hope to translate for my thesis). But if there is one, even if it's unpublished, it will be catalogued either under RIA, TCD, UCD or indeed Bodleian library Oxford. It would first be listed as a collection before it could be translated and published. Does anyone have this information in regards to these alleged tracts.

As for the composite armour reference, I am quite interested in such, and if you could provide further reference to it, (its site, location, archaeologists involved) I could see if I could garner more information from the archaeology wing of TCD. If indeed it is published, I do try to keep up to date with the JRSAI, the RIA and the Irish sword, and am surprised no mention, even in passing, has been made of it. However, ceannlann (head-armour or head-blade?) does not mean what it has been asserted. (in fact the ea gliding vowel, does not really occur until the 15th century in Irish writing, mod ir ceann was rendered cenn, peann pen scéal sgél etc)

I will look into getting Archive numbers for the materiel.

Our celtic guys have gone on record as saying the language was 'quick and dirty' and 'temporary' till a permanent solution could be found. That, I think, should be emphasized.

As to the scale, the find was in 1993, and it should be in the National Museum in Dublin, albeit locked storage somewhere (as I'm sure you're aware most military finds are anywhere... there's not enough professionals who actually study arms and armor for the ancient period...). I will find the name of the fellow who pulled it. I know he was at one time on the bard of directors of IAI, but that's not of much help.

An extra note: the armor in question actually has smaller scales than what is on our depiction. This is 'artistic necessity', largely because the 'real' armor would have scales too small to be seen by the player, and would look like a bronze shirt, which would be rather odd. Terminologically speaking, do you know what I mean when I say composite?

[Foot]

However, sorry, my area of expertise is Irish history and Irish language, and I have noticed something rather odd. For a start, the Goidillic units are not supported by any source I have ever read, worse still is that their Irish names look like something dragged out of the dictionary. Daernaght, Ordmhornaght, Deaisbaird and Uachtarach Dubgaoscacha show a distinct misunderstanding of the Irish rudiments of the Irish language. A lot of the names are complete gibberish in that regard. Not to mention laecha is said to be pronounced lusha, when in fact it's pronounced lay-uk(as in ch in the loch) uh.

Perhaps offering your own thoughts would help ease the bitter pill of criticism, eh? I can't say with complete certainly but I believe that the names may be wip (as everything is in EB), so again if you have something better to offer we will gladly look at it. I mean, how else can we respond? You obviously feel strongly that our approach is wrong here, so perhaps offering an alternative vision would be helpful.

Further to this, the quotes you have added to the loading menus include references to the cycle of don? the cycle of telam? and reference to names which begin as dua or uí as well as including spellings which were more welsh when it was clear an Irish reference was intended. There were four cycles in Irish legend, fenian, mythological, kings and ulster. No other exist. And I'm unfamiliar with such quotes from them.

AFAIK, the cycles that appear in our quotes come from unpublished work, work that a former team-member was able to see (either because he new the translator or because he was working on translating the text himself - I can't remember). As to their origin, I do not know, but I have complete trust in the aforementioned member as to their authenticity.

Basically we are very receptive to well-structured, well researched criticism, but we too often come across people who claim to know better but have are mistaken or plain ignorant on the subject (not their own fault, blame pop culture). You seem genuine enough, however, and much of the aforementioned mistaken criticism comes against the Romans and other such famous factions. Perhaps offer a little of your own knowledge in return for a defence, eh?

Foot

[Riadach]

Perhaps offering your own thoughts would help ease the bitter pill of criticism, eh? I can't say with complete certainly but I believe that the names may be wip (as everything is in EB), so again if you have something better to offer we will gladly look at it. I mean, how else can we respond? You obviously feel strongly that our approach is wrong here, so perhaps offering an alternative vision would be helpful.

That is a fair point. Yes I would be more than willing to provide some expertise in the area of linguistics and history if that helps.

AFAIK, the cycles that appear in our quotes come from unpublished work, work that a former team-member was able to see (either because he new the translator or because he was working on translating the text himself - I can't remember). As to their origin, I do not know, but I have complete trust in the aforementioned member as to their authenticity.

I mentioned before, there are no legendary tracts yet to be translated. All that is left is poetry. And at that cycles are much different kettles of fish altogther. A cycle is any theme which has multitudes of literature written about it's central issue. For example the Ulster Cycle includes all redactions of the Táin, Oidheadh Chlann Uisinigh, Oidheadh Chonchobhair, Coimpert Con Chulainn, Seirglige Con Chulainn. Such a cycle would involve a massive compilation of literature, which would be reflected in poetry ever since. I'm afraid it does not exist. It would not have gone under the radar.

Basically we are very receptive to well-structured, well researched criticism, but we too often come across people who claim to know better but have are mistaken or plain ignorant on the subject (not their own fault, blame pop culture). You seem genuine enough, however, and much of the aforementioned mistaken criticism comes against the Romans and other such famous factions. Perhaps offer a little of your own knowledge in return for a defence, eh?

Foot

I would be happy to provide such as much as possible. I have a copy of the Tain upstairs, as well as access to Trinity's libraries and databases. Considering I'm doing my postgrad in military imagery and motifs in Irish poetry at the moment, I think it would help me to help you as well.

[Riadach]

We talked about this about a month back. This is an excerpt of what our Celtic expert had to say on the issue:

Sorry, didn't see. He's pretty right, actually, none of those names were intended to stick (placeholders until more appropriate primitive Irish names could be used), but, they're not gibberish, they're just rather hastily done. However, I did try to get some of them changed a while ago, I forget who I was trying to get a hold of though. They need to be in 'Primitive Irish', but Ran didn't have a good theoretical dictionary for it yet (it's extremely fragmentary, mostly based on Ogham), but I got one a few months ago, though now I can't find it.

So there you have it. The names are placeholders for now; time is just needed to complete everything.

Also, the Uachtarach DuboGaiscaocha unit was based on a grave find. Now, whether that was published or not, I don't know.

Unfortunately there is a rub here. Uachtarach Dubogaisciocha is mentioned in Luachmharleanbhan according to your site. This is obviously untrue, since such a tract doesn't exist. As a historian, I'd find it hard to trust someone who would make up a written source, on their archaeological sources. Very little is known about pre-christian warfare in Ireland, but as far as I'm aware it's based around chariots spears and roman-like shortswords.

As for a dictionary on primitive Irish, since most words can be traced to -o stems -i stems etc which is working backwards from Old irish, it's probably not an impossibility, but all the actual examples of primitive Irish we have are names on ogham stones. But if Ran can't handle modern irish, then he's pretty much screwed for old and primitive Irish.

[abou]

Unfortunately there is a rub here. Uachtarach Dubogaisciocha is mentioned in Luachmharleanbhan according to your site. This is obviously untrue, since such a tract doesn't exist.

...or it does and it just hasn't been published yet like so much material out there. You would be surprised as to what is sitting around in the basement of a museum.

As to the rest you wrote:

[Foot]

I mentioned before, there are no legendary tracts yet to be translated. All that is left is poetry. And at that cycles are much different kettles of fish altogther. A cycle is any theme which has multitudes of literature written about it's central issue. For example the Ulster Cycle includes all redactions of the Táin, Oidheadh Chlann Uisinigh, Oidheadh Chonchobhair, Coimpert Con Chulainn, Seirglige Con Chulainn. Such a cycle would involve a massive compilation of literature, which would be reflected in poetry ever since. I'm afraid it does not exist. It would not have gone under the radar.

I'm afraid that you've just called one of our most respected members a liar, and a falsifier of information. Not a good way to start, really. Ran, unfortunately no longer in our group due to personal reasons, is a world-class scholar, whose depth and breadth of knowledge is vast and countless. Perhaps some old post of his will enlighten us here, but until any further information comes to light I would gladly put my trust in his knowledge.

EDIT: Oh, and I myself am a graduate, in philosophy in fact, and I know too well how little I have read on the subjects I have studied. To be frank, a graduate isn't really a position of honour any more - it can't be I've got one! - if you were a post-grad doing a thesis on this topic I would put my faith in your words. I do not meant to insult you in anyway, I have no reason to suspect that you are anything but a top-notch graduate, but I know full well how little can be read in the three/four years of a university degree, and outside of a university it is even harder to concentrate on academic study!

Foot

[Riadach]

I'm afraid that you've just called one of our most respected members a liar, and a falsifier of information. Not a good way to start, really. Ran, unfortunately no longer in our group due to personal reasons, is a world-class scholar, whose depth and breadth of knowledge is vast and countless. Perhaps some old post of his will enlighten us here, but until any further information comes to light I would gladly put my trust in his knowledge.

Foot

I apologise for that, but on the basis of all the other information, that has to be my conclusion.

[Foot]

I apologise for that, but on the basis of all the other information, that has to be my conclusion.

I know, and I can understand your sentiment, but you must understand that Ran is well respected amongst us and very dear to us. He has proven his knowledge and his worth on far too many occasions to count. Given that information I must disagree with you. If you had a paper or two behind you, or some concrete evidence in contradiction to Ran's work, then we would be more willing to see your ignorance of the cycles and the other citations that Ran has given us as more substantial proof that we need to take a further look. As it is, being a graduate, your lack of knowledge of the works that Ran cites does not outweigh the faith and trust we have put in him.

Yet this is only one part of your first question, perhaps we could focus on a more productive area such as the unit names?

Foot