An Introduction to Old Irish

This handbook was produced with the aim of providing students with an introduction to Old Irish literature as well as to the language. One of the notable Old Irish stories is used as the basic text. Examples of poems, and of the glosses, supplement it. All are thoroughly annotated. The grammatical information provided in these annotations is summarized in grammatical sections dealing with specific constructions and forms. The first fifty of these sections are descriptive; many of the same matters are discussed in the second fifty section from a historical point of view. A final glossary includes references to all words occurring in the texts. The apparatus was accordingly designed to permit a relatively easy approach to a very difficult language.

Ruth Preston Miller Lehmann was a professor at the University of Texas. Her works include Fled Duin na nGedn (1964). Early Irish Verse (1982), and Beowulf: An Imitative Translation (1988). Her last major publication was Blessed Bastard: A Novel of Sir Galahad (1997). Winfred P. Lehmann was an eminent linguist and professor at the University of Texas. His works include Proto-Indo-European Syntax (1974), Syntactic Typology (1981), Historical Linguistics (1992, 3rded.), Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics (1993), and Pre-Indo-European (2002).