Auraicept na n-Éces
Auraicept na n-Éces ([ăurakepʲtʲ nˠa nʲeːkʲesʲ], "the scholars' primer") is claimed as a 7th-century work of Irish grammarians, written by a scholar named Longarad.
The core of the text could indeed date to the mid-7th century, but much material will have been added over the five centuries preceding the text as recorded in the earliest surviving copy (12th century).
If indeed dating to the 7th century, the text is the first instance of a defence of vernaculars, defending the spoken Irish language over Latin, predating Dante's De vulgari eloquentia by 600 years and Chernorizets Hrabar's O pismeneh by 200 years.
Manuscripts
TCD H 2.18. (Book of Leinster), ca. 1160
TCD H 2.16. (YBL), 14th century
RIA 23 P 12 (Book of Ballymote), foll. 169r–180r, ca. 1390
BM E.g. 88, 1564
Contents
The Auraicept consists of four books,
The author argues from a comparison of Gaelic grammar with the materials used in the constructions of the Tower of Babel:
(note the discrepancy of nine materials vs. eight parts of speech). As pointed out by Eco (1993), Gaelic was thus argued to be the only instance of a language that overcame the confusion of tongues, being the first language that was created after the fall of the tower by the seventy-two wise men of the school of Fenius, choosing all that was best in each language to implement in Irish. Calder notes (p. xxxii) that the poetic list of the "72 races" was taken from a poem by Luccreth moccu Chiara.
