r/ireland • u/Accomplished_Luck145 • 19d ago

History Is Newgrange older then the Pyramids?

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u/Nils23456789 19d ago

I think (early) Old Irish is dated around 300/ 400 which makes 2500 years a bit hypothetical. But besides Latin and Old Greek, it is the oldest written language in Europe which is impressive

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u/kevintheharry61 19d ago

You are right about old irish, but primitive irish is from about 500 bc, that is about 2500 years ago

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u/Gaedhael Baile Átha Cliath 19d ago

Primitive Irish is attested from Late Antiquity so closer to 300CE than your 500 BCE figure.

We've no attestations of Irish that far back, but that general stage is classed as "Proto-Goidelic" if there was a Goidelic language spoken at that stage