Auraicept na n-Éces (; "the scholars' [éices] primer [airaiccecht]"; , ) is an Old Irish text on language and grammar. It was historically thought to be a 7th-century work of Irish grammarians, written by a scholar named Longarad. The core of the text may date to the mid-7th century, but much material was added between that date and the production of the earliest surviving copy in the 12th century. If it indeed dates 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. (Yellow Book of Lecan), 14th century RIA 23 P 12 (Book of Ballymote), foll. 169r–180r, ca. 1390 British Library, MS Egerton 88, 1564 Contents The Auraicept consists of four books, I: The Book of Fenius Farsaidh II: The Book of Amergin III: The Book of Fercheirtne Filidh IV: The Book of Cennfaeladh The author argues from a comparison of Gaelic grammar with the materials used in the constructions of the Tower of Babel: Others affirm that in the tower there were only nine materials and that these were clay and water, wool and blood, wood and lime, pitch, linen, and bitumen ... These represent noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle, conjunction, preposition, interjection 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. Ogham The Auraicept is one of the three main sources of the manuscript tradition about Ogham, the others being In Lebor Ogaim and De dúilib feda na forfed. A copy of In Lebor Ogaim immediately precedes the Auraincept in the Book of Ballymote, but instead of the Bríatharogam Con Culainn given in other copies, there follows a variety of other "secret" modes of ogham. The Younger Futhark are also included, as ogam lochlannach "ogham of the Norsemen". Similar to the argument of the precedence of