Ifín

Ifín Unicode|ᚘ (also spelled "iphin") is one of the "forfeda", the "additional" letters of the Ogham alphabet. Its sound value according to the "Auraicept na n-Éces", "De dúilib feda" and "In Lebor Ogaim", are "io", "ía", and "ia", respectively.The Auraincept glosses the name according to the "arboreal" tradition as "spinan no ispin" "gooseberry or thorn".The letter's invention dates to the Old Irish period, several centuries after the peak of Ogham usage. Since the Ogham alphabet dates to the Primitive Irish period, it had not sign for [p] in its original form. "Ifín" may originally have been added as a letter expressing [p] , called "Pín" (probably influenced by Latin "pinus"). Due to the "schematicism of later Ogamists" (McManus 1988:167), who insisted on treating the five primary forfeda as vowels, [p] had again to be expressed as a modification of [b] , called Peithe, after "Beithe", also called "beithe bog" "soft "beithe" or, tautologically, "peithbog", and the earlier letter designed to express "p" was renamed to "i-phín", and considered as expressing an "i-" diphthong.

Unicode

Both Ifín and Peith have Unicode allocations:
*Ifín Unicode|ᚘ U+1698
*Peith Unicode|ᚚ U+169A

References

*Damian McManus, "Irish letter-names and their kennings", Ériu 39 (1988), 127-168.