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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.
Irish language. Spoken Irish. The first chapter of Mo Sgéal Féin, read by native Irish speaker Mairéad Uí Lionáird in the Muskerry Gaeltacht. Problems playing this file? See media help.
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- History of The Discipline
- Consonants
- Vowels
- Phonotactics
- Phonological Processes
- Stress
- Samples
- Comparison with Other Languages
- Notes
- External Links
Until the end of the 19th century, linguistic discussions of Irish focused either on the traditional grammar (issues like the inflection of nouns, verbs and adjectives) or on the historical development of sounds from Proto-Indo-European through Proto-Celtic to Old Irish. The first descriptive analysis of the phonology of an Irish dialect was Finck ...
Most dialects of Irish contain at a minimum the consonant phonemes shown in the following chart (see International Phonetic Alphabet for an explanation of the symbols). The consonant /h/is neither broad nor slender.
The vowel sounds vary from dialect to dialect, but in general Connacht and Munster at least agree in having the monophthongs /iː/, /ɪ/, /uː/, /ʊ/, /eː/, /ɛ/, /oː/, /ɔ/, /aː/, /a/, and schwa (/ə/), which is found only in unstressed syllables; and the diphthongs /əi/, /əu/, /iə/, and /uə/. The vowels of Ulster Irishare more divergent and are not disc...
The most notable aspects of Irish phonotactics revolve around the behaviour of consonant clusters. Here it is important to distinguish between clusters that occur at the beginnings of words and those that occur after vowels, although there is overlap between the two groups.
Vowel-initial words
Vowel-initial words in Irish exhibit behaviour that has led linguists to suggest that the vowel sound they begin with on the surface is not actually the first sound in the word at a more abstract level. Specifically, when a clitic ending in a consonant precedes a word beginning with the vowel, the consonant of the clitic surfaces as either broad or slender, depending on the specific word in question. For example, the ⟨n⟩ of the definite article an ('the') is slender before the word iontais ('...
Lengthening before fortis sonorants
Where reflexes of the Old Irish fortis sonorants appear in syllable-final position (in some cases, only in word-final position), they trigger a lengthening or diphthongization of the preceding vowel in most dialects of Irish.The details vary from dialect to dialect. In Donegal and Mayo, lengthening is found only before ⟨rd, rl, rn⟩, before ⟨rr⟩ (except when a vowel follows), and in a few words also before word-final ⟨ll⟩, e.g. barr /bˠaːɾˠ/ ('top'), ard /aːɾˠd̪ˠ/ ('tall'), orlach /ˈoːɾˠl̪ˠax/...
Devoicing
Where a voiced obstruent or /w/ comes into contact with /h/, the /h/ is absorbed into the other sound, which then becomes voiceless (in the case of /w/, devoicing is to /fˠ/). Devoicing is found most prominently in the future of first conjugation verbs (where /h/ is spelled ⟨f⟩) and in the formation of verbal adjectives (where /h/ is spelled ⟨th⟩). For example, the verb scuab /sˠkuəbˠ/ ('sweep') ends in the voiced consonant /bˠ/, but its future tense scuabfaidh /ˈsˠkuəpˠəɟ/ ('will sweep') and...
General facts of stress placement
In Irish, words normally have only one stressed syllable (ˈ◌), namely the first syllable of the word, e.g. d'imigh /ˈdʲɪmʲiː/ ('left' [verb]) and easonóir /ˈasˠən̪ˠoːɾʲ/ ('dishonor'). However, certain words, especially adverbs and loanwords, have stress on a noninitial syllable, e.g. amháin /əˈwaːnʲ/ ('only'), tobac /təˈbak/('tobacco'). In most compound words, primary stress falls on the first member and a secondary stress (ˌ◌) falls on the second member, e.g. lagphortach /ˈl̪ˠaɡˌfˠɔɾˠt̪ˠəx/...
The nature of unstressed vowels
In general, short vowels are all reduced to schwa (/ə/) in unstressed syllables, but there are exceptions. In Munster, if the third syllable of a word is stressed and the preceding two syllables are short, the first of the two unstressed syllables is not reduced to /ə/; instead it receives a secondary stress, e.g. spealadóir /ˌsˠpʲal̪ˠəˈd̪ˠoːɾʲ/ ('scythe-man'). Also in Munster, an unstressed short vowel is not reduced to /ə/ if the following syllable contains a stressed /iː/ or /uː/, e.g. eal...
The following table shows some sample sentences from the Aran dialect. The first eight chapters of Peadar Ua Laoghaire's autobiography Mo Sgéal Féin at Wikisourceinclude recordings of the text being read by a native speaker of Muskerry (Munster) Irish.
Scottish Gaelic and Manx
Many of the phonological processes found in Irish are found also in its nearest relatives, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. For example, both languages contrast "broad" and "slender" consonants, but only at the coronal and dorsal places of articulation; both Scottish Gaelic and Manx have lost the distinction in labial consonants. The change of /kn̪ˠɡn̪ˠmn̪ˠ/ etc. to /kɾˠɡɾˠmɾˠ/ etc. is found in Manx and most dialects of Scottish Gaelic. Evidence from written manuscripts suggests it had begun in Scot...
Hiberno-English
Irish pronunciation has had a significant influence on the features of Hiberno-English. For example, most of the vowels of Hiberno-English (with the exception of /ɔɪ/) correspond to vowel phones of Irish. The Irish stops [t̪ˠd̪ˠ] are common realizations of the English phonemes /θð/. Hiberno-English also allows /h/ where it is permitted in Irish but excluded in other dialects of English, such as before an unstressed vowel (e.g. Haughey /ˈhɑhi/) and at the end of a word (e.g. McGrath /məˈɡɹæh/)...
^1 Scanradh is pronounced as if spelled *⟨scamhradh⟩; see Irish orthographyCaint Ros Muc, a collection of sound files of speakers from RosmuckOld Irish is the ancestor of all modern Goidelic languages: Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx . A still older form of Irish is known as Primitive Irish. Fragments of Primitive Irish, mainly personal names, are known from inscriptions on stone written in the Ogham alphabet.
The history of the Irish language begins with the period from the arrival of speakers of Celtic languages in Ireland to Ireland's earliest known form of Irish, Primitive Irish, which is found in Ogham inscriptions dating from the 3rd or 4th century AD.
Caibidil a Seacht Déag. Irish Orthography (Litriú na Gaeilge) The orthography of Irish is at first a bit confusing. In addition, the pronunciation and written Irish are not identical, especially the pronunciation varies from dialect to dialect. Although, the order in which letters appear is not random, but follows specific rules.
[i] Indo-European language was possibly the speech used from as early as 2400 BC-2000 BC within Ireland. It evolved over centuries to archaic during third or fourth centuries, old Irish from the fifth whilst middle Irish began during the sixth century. [ii]
