The Double X and Its Simplified Stand-In

Ifin's letterform is described in the manuscript tradition as a double X shape, two crossing diagonal strokes stacked one above the other over the stemline, distinguishing it visually from the single crossing strokes used elsewhere in the alphabet. Where the letter turns up in the rare inscriptional or informal contexts that use it at all, a plain single X is sometimes substituted for the fuller double form, a simplification rather than a second attested letterform in its own right.

That two tier picture, a fuller manuscript form and a simplified practical stand in, is a useful caution against treating any single drawing of Ifin as definitive. The forfeda were never subject to the stroke discipline that kept the original twenty letters visually consistent across four centuries of inscriptions, and a late, manuscript born letter for a sound the language had only recently reacquired was always going to show more variation than a letter cut by generations of stone carvers working from a shared, settled convention. A line art rendering of Ifin is best read as one reasonable drawing of a documented double crossing pattern, not as a reproduction of a single fixed original the way a core letter's stroke count can be.

Sources A Guide to OgamDamian McManus with Auraicept na n-Eces: The Scholars' PrimerGeorge Calder (ed.)