Editing Primitive Irish (section)

==== Vowels ====

:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
!
! colspan="2" | Monophthongs
! colspan="2" | Diphthongs
|-
![[Close vowel|Close]]
| {{IPA|i}} {{IPA|i:}}
| {{IPA|u}} {{IPA|u:}}
| 
|
|-
![[Mid vowel|Mid]]
| {{IPA|e}} {{IPA|e:}}
| {{IPA|o}} {{IPA|o:}}
| 
| {{IPA|oĭ}}
|-
![[Open vowel|Open]]
| colspan="2" align="center" | {{IPA|a}} {{IPA|a:}}
| colspan="2" align="center" | {{IPA|aĭ}}
|}
There is a certain amount of obscurity in the [[Vowel|vowel inventory]] of Primitive Irish: while the letters ''Ailm'', ''Onn'' and ''Úr'' are recognized by modern scholars as representing {{IPA|/a(:)/}}, {{IPA|/o(:)/}} and {{IPA|/u(:)/}} respectively, there is some difficulty in reconstructing the values of ''Edad'' and ''Idad''.{{sfnp|McManus|1991|pp=36-38}} They are poorly attested, and scholars believe the distinction between them might be arbitrary, in the same way as the [[runes]] ''peorð'' and ''cweorð'' in the [[Anglo-Saxon runes|Anglo-Saxon alphabet]], but they are transcribed as {{Sc|E}} and {{Sc|O}}, respectively, and probably had the respective pronunciations of {{IPA|/e(:)/}} and {{IPA|/o(:)/}}.{{sfnp|McManus|1988|pp=163-165}}<ref name=":1">{{harvp|Stifter|2010|p=58}}</ref> There were also two diphthongs, transcribed as {{sc|ai}} and {{sc|oi}}.<ref name=":1"/>

In later stages of the language, scholastic Oghamist traditions incorporated five new letters for vowels, called ''forfeda'' (supplementary), corresponding to [[Digraph (orthography)|digraphs]] of the orthodox spelling, but these no longer corresponded to Primitive Irish sounds.{{sfnp|McManus|1991|pp=141-146}}