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Irish orthography is the set of conventions used to write Irish. A spelling reform in the mid-20th century led to An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, the modern standard written form used by the Government of Ireland, which regulates both spelling and grammar.
The Irish Times, referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse, quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but the number now is between ...
- Syntax
- Nouns
- Articles
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
- Verbs
- Pronouns
- Numbers
- Phonology
Word order in Irish is of the form VSO (verb–subject–object) so that, for example, "He hit me" is Bhuail [hit-past tense] sé [he] mé[me]. One distinctive aspect of Irish is the distinction between is, the copula (known in Irish as an chopail), and tá. Is describes identity or quality in a permanence sense, while temporary aspects are described by t...
Irish is an inflected language, having four cases: ainmneach (nominative and accusative), gairmeach (vocative), ginideach (genitive) and tabharthach (prepositional). The prepositional case is called the dative by convention. Irish nouns are masculine or feminine. To a certain degree the gender difference is indicated by specific word endings, -án a...
The Irish definite article has two forms: an and na. An may cause lenition, eclipsis, or neither. Na may cause eclipsis, but the only instance of lenition with na is with the genitive singular of the word céad meaning first. An is used in the common case singular for all nouns, and lenites feminine nouns. In the genitive singular, an with lenition ...
Irish adjectives always follow the noun. The adjective is influenced by the case, number and gender of the noun preceding it. 1. An cailín beag"The small girl" – masculine singular nominative 2. An bhean bhocht"The poor woman" – feminine singlar nominative 3. Na buachaillí óga"The young boys" – masculine plural nominative Adjectives in Irish have t...
Irish adverbs are used to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. An adverb can be created from an adjective by adding go before it, e.g. go mall, go tapaidh, go maith, etc. If the adjective begins with a vowel, ⟨h⟩ is added before it, e.g. go hálainn, go híseal, go háirithe, etc. Adverbs can often be created from nouns by putting a preposition...
There are two conjugations and 11 irregular verbs. Tenses or moods are formed by inflecting the stem, and in the past and habitual past tenses and the conditional mood also by leniting any initial consonant. The inflected tense and mood forms are: present indicative, present habitual indicative (differs from present only in the verb bí "to be"), fu...
Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns in Irish do not inflect for case, but there are three different sets of pronouns used: conjunctive forms, disjunctive forms, and emphatic forms (which may be used either conjunctively or disjunctively)
Prepositional pronouns
As the object of a preposition, a pronoun is fused with the preposition; one speaks here of "inflected" prepositions, or, as they are more commonly termed, prepositional pronouns.
Possessive pronouns
The possessive determiners cause different initial consonant mutations. Notes 1. L= causes lenitionon the next word. 2. H= adds h- to the next vowel sound. 3. E= causes eclipsisof the next word. These forms (especially a and ár) can also blend with certain prepositions: The object of a verbal noun is in the genitive case: 1. Tá sé ag plé a rothair."He's discussing his bicycle" (lit.: He is at the discussing of his bicycle) Similarly, if the object of the verbal noun is a pronoun, then it is a...
There are three kinds of cardinal numbers in Irish: disjunctive numbers, nonhuman conjunctive numbers, and human conjunctive numbers.
A notable feature of Irish phonology is that consonants (except /h/) come in pairs, one "broad" (velarized, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender" (palatalized, pronounced with the middle of the tongue pushed up towards the hard palate). Diphthongs: /iə/, /uə/, /əi/, /əu/.
Orthography. As with most medieval languages, the orthography of Old Irish is not fixed, so the following statements are to be taken as generalisations only. Individual manuscripts may vary greatly from these guidelines. The Old Irish alphabet consists of the following eighteen letters of the Latin alphabet:
Irish Orthography. The Irish language was a mode of the Goidelac branch of Celtic language, it was known also as ‘ Q-Celtic. ‘ It was closely related to Manx ( Gaelg / Gailic ), or Scottish Gaelic ( Gáidhlig ): it is distantly related to Welsh Cymraeg also Cornish Keenewek & Breton Brezoneg. These form the Brythonic brand of Celtic ...
The Viking invasions of the ninth & tenth centuries led to the destruction of several early manuscripts. Gaelic script was known as ‘ An Cló Gaelach ‘ in Irish. It may also be known as Irish character, Irish type, Gaelic type, Celtic type or the uncial alphabet. Notable features included type of writing system, numeracy, eighteen letters.
He is credited with Sanas Cormaic (Cormac's Glossary). Lexicography evolved in order to serve one of two needs i.e. in order to explain in a simple way difficult words and expressions or in order to explain the words and expressions of one language in another. In this case we can trace the tradition of lexicography in Irish back to the 8th century.
