I came across this sheet of paper the other day, that I'd forgotten about till now. It was from the first year of the Meitheal summer school in Limerick, and here's what it said (it was done by Garry Shannon, though, so that might explain the silliness):
"Mo Ghile Mear -
Chorus
Proper Spelling:
Sé mo laoch mo Ghile Mear
Sé mo shéasar Ghile Mear
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas fhéin
Ó chuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear
Phonetically:
Shay mo lake mo gilla mar
Shay mo hayzar gilla mar
Soon na Shane Knee voor-ass hen
Oh Hooey ee gain
Mo Gilla Mar!!!"
I would love to understand the Irish language, but I just can't get it. It's not derived from Latin, so presumably people have only been writing it in the Roman letters for the past few hundred years at the most. So what's with all the silent consonants littered about the place? What happened to the "d" in "Bodhrán" and "Fleadh"? If "Niamh" is supposed to be pronounced "Neeve", then shouldn't the Comhaltas be the "Co-vultures" or something?
And the ridiculously long vowel combos? When I first saw, written down, that a girl's name was Aoife, I called her Owfee.
The embarassment, I tell you...
Could somebody please explain all this to me?
It's very confusing...
Actually Irish spelling and pronounciation are much more logical and phonetic than English. Find yourself a good beginner's book that includes an explanation of the spelling and grammar.
In Irish, there are two basic pronunciations for each consonant, broad, and slender. Extra vowels are used to indicate which pronunciation to use. Broad vowels are A, O, and U. Slender vowels are I and E.
Vowels are either short or long- accented vowels are long.
In addition to this there are combinations of vowels and consonants to provide certain sounds. Irish has a lot more sounds than English and only has an alphabet of 18 letters.
For example, there is no W or V, so the combination mh or bh is used to represent these sounds.
Irish is a very old and subtle language, and well worth taking some time to study up on, if only to learn how to pronounce all those names properly.
Latin alphabet came in when I was in school and I am not 1000 years old. We had to draw the letters which did approximate to 18 latin letters but with different font, for want of a better word. Then bh and dh came as the replacements for the b and d with a dot (buailte - ?sp). This was presumably so Irish could be typed on a normal typewriter using the standard keys in a normal font.
"people have only been writing it in the Roman letters for the past few hundred years at the most"!!!
Splutter. Read up a bit of Irish history. That Celtic curly letter form IS Latin- as it was written in the 5th century, when the Irish monasteries started. They just kept writing it that way, and written Irish is older than written English. They passed the script on to England, and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts are written much more readably than mediaeval ones, after they started using that horrible monkish script.
The Irish have tidied up the spelling a bit, and put in H's instead of dots over the letters, but apart from that they spell just as badly now as they did in 500AD.
Just to further clarify Joe's question and elaborate what Murph said about broad v slender.
cOmhAltas has those two broad vowels either side of the "mh"; the "broad" pronunciation of "mh" is like a W, therefore "cowaltas".
nIamh has that slender "I" which means you use the slender pronunciation of "mh", which is like a V, hence "neev".
the silent d is something called aspiration which is either part of the original spelling or is added in certain grammatical instances, e.g when you're addressing someone like myself:
"A Chonán". The A is a bit like saying " Hey ___" but it also aspirates, hence the "H". You'd pronounce it " A honan".
It either softens the consonant or makes it silent and is called seimhú in Irish. It used to be written as a dot above the aspirated letter instead of a H after, as Donough mentioned.
As Murph said; Irish spelling and pronounciation is far more logical than english.
Joe, the fact is-there's no shortcuts. If you want to understand Irish learn it! It IS a different language! I dont see why you find it so shocking that the pronounciation would be different from english...
A Chonán; I thought the "h" would harden the C not soften it. How is it that elsewhere the h can harden the c, though I can't think of a good example right now.
As for my comments on the Latin alphabet, I was referring to it as we came to know it in school before anyone ever mentioned such things as fonts or the like. Didn't actually know that the Irish letters were a 5th century latin script that the Irish had hung onto.
I'll have to clean up my bhowels from now on.
You Irish are so weird...
You Irish are so weird...
I came across this sheet of paper the other day, that I'd forgotten about till now. It was from the first year of the Meitheal summer school in Limerick, and here's what it said (it was done by Garry Shannon, though, so that might explain the silliness):
"Mo Ghile Mear -
Chorus
Proper Spelling:
Sé mo laoch mo Ghile Mear
Sé mo shéasar Ghile Mear
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas fhéin
Ó chuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear
Phonetically:
Shay mo lake mo gilla mar
Shay mo hayzar gilla mar
Soon na Shane Knee voor-ass hen
Oh Hooey ee gain
Mo Gilla Mar!!!"
I would love to understand the Irish language, but I just can't get it. It's not derived from Latin, so presumably people have only been writing it in the Roman letters for the past few hundred years at the most. So what's with all the silent consonants littered about the place? What happened to the "d" in "Bodhrán" and "Fleadh"? If "Niamh" is supposed to be pronounced "Neeve", then shouldn't the Comhaltas be the "Co-vultures" or something?
And the ridiculously long vowel combos? When I first saw, written down, that a girl's name was Aoife, I called her Owfee.
The embarassment, I tell you...
Could somebody please explain all this to me?
It's very confusing...
Joe
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Joe CSS
Re: You Irish are so weird...
Actually Irish spelling and pronounciation are much more logical and phonetic than English. Find yourself a good beginner's book that includes an explanation of the spelling and grammar.
In Irish, there are two basic pronunciations for each consonant, broad, and slender. Extra vowels are used to indicate which pronunciation to use. Broad vowels are A, O, and U. Slender vowels are I and E.
Vowels are either short or long- accented vowels are long.
In addition to this there are combinations of vowels and consonants to provide certain sounds. Irish has a lot more sounds than English and only has an alphabet of 18 letters.
For example, there is no W or V, so the combination mh or bh is used to represent these sounds.
Irish is a very old and subtle language, and well worth taking some time to study up on, if only to learn how to pronounce all those names properly.
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Murph
Re: You Irish are so weird...
BTW the Irish have been using the latin (18 letter) alphabet for over a thousand years.
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Murph
Re: You Irish are so weird...
http://www.leyline.org/cra/languages/IrishPeople/index.html#Less11
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Murph
Re: You Irish are so weird...
http://www.scoilgaeilge.org/lessons/fuaimniu.htm
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Murph
Re: You Irish are so weird...
Latin alphabet came in when I was in school and I am not 1000 years old. We had to draw the letters which did approximate to 18 latin letters but with different font, for want of a better word. Then bh and dh came as the replacements for the b and d with a dot (buailte - ?sp). This was presumably so Irish could be typed on a normal typewriter using the standard keys in a normal font.
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Donough
Re: You Irish are so weird...
"people have only been writing it in the Roman letters for the past few hundred years at the most"!!!
Splutter. Read up a bit of Irish history. That Celtic curly letter form IS Latin- as it was written in the 5th century, when the Irish monasteries started. They just kept writing it that way, and written Irish is older than written English. They passed the script on to England, and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts are written much more readably than mediaeval ones, after they started using that horrible monkish script.
The Irish have tidied up the spelling a bit, and put in H's instead of dots over the letters, but apart from that they spell just as badly now as they did in 500AD.
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by LastToFinish
Re: You Irish are so weird...
Just to further clarify Joe's question and elaborate what Murph said about broad v slender.
cOmhAltas has those two broad vowels either side of the "mh"; the "broad" pronunciation of "mh" is like a W, therefore "cowaltas".
nIamh has that slender "I" which means you use the slender pronunciation of "mh", which is like a V, hence "neev".
the silent d is something called aspiration which is either part of the original spelling or is added in certain grammatical instances, e.g when you're addressing someone like myself:
"A Chonán". The A is a bit like saying " Hey ___" but it also aspirates, hence the "H". You'd pronounce it " A honan".
It either softens the consonant or makes it silent and is called seimhú in Irish. It used to be written as a dot above the aspirated letter instead of a H after, as Donough mentioned.
So it's the H in Fleadh that makes the D silent.
I'm sure that's as clear as mud.
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Conán McDonnell
Re: You Irish are so weird...
As Murph said; Irish spelling and pronounciation is far more logical than english.
Joe, the fact is-there's no shortcuts. If you want to understand Irish learn it! It IS a different language! I dont see why you find it so shocking that the pronounciation would be different from english...
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by double bass
Re: You Irish are so weird...
Shouldn't that be mudh ,Conan?
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: You Irish are so weird...
Go raibh maith agat, a Gheoff!
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Conán McDonnell
Re: You Irish are so weird...
Easy for you to say!
See you at Hammersmith on Saturday.
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: You Irish are so weird...
I've been wondering how the broad/slender vowels worked- thanks
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by I_Fel
Re: You Irish are so weird...
that was a good irish lesson
# Posted on June 9th 2006 by m
Re: You Irish are so weird...
A Chonán; I thought the "h" would harden the C not soften it. How is it that elsewhere the h can harden the c, though I can't think of a good example right now.
As for my comments on the Latin alphabet, I was referring to it as we came to know it in school before anyone ever mentioned such things as fonts or the like. Didn't actually know that the Irish letters were a 5th century latin script that the Irish had hung onto.
I'll have to clean up my bhowels from now on.
# Posted on June 14th 2006 by Donough