Ferguson, Sir Samuel, 1810–86, Irish poet and antiquary. Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (1887) is his best-known work on Irish antiquities. His major poetic works, which de...

Irish language, also called Irish Gaelic and Erse, member of the Goidelic group of the Celtic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Celtic languages). The history of Irish as...

Alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing, theoretically having a one-for-one relation between character (or letter) and phoneme (see phonetics). Few alphabets have achieved ...

Inscription, writing on durable material. The art is called epigraphy. Modern inscriptions are made for permanent, monumental record, as on gravestones, cornerstones, and building fronts; they...