Reading Irish Gaelic, expanded

Posted: August 15, 2008 | Author: Doug | Filed under: Gaelic, Ireland, Language, Travel | 4 Comments »

Having lived in Ireland for more than a month, I’ve become more adjusted to all the signs that read English and Irish Gaelic, or “Irish” as its called here. I think they call it Irish to distinguish it from other Gaelic dialects like Scottish, Manx, Breton and Welsh.* In any case, all the signs here tend to be both Irish and English. When I ride the DART to work (the local train system), the LED signs also flash the destinations in Irish and English. Sometimes they’re almost the same in either language, sometimes they’re wildly different.

Sitting on the train everyday, reading signs, I’ve become more comfortable reading Irish Gaelic, so let me pass on what I know. I wrote on the subject before, but that was based on reading things on the Internet, and on some vague information. Being here now, here’s an expanded explanation of how to read Irish:

Disclaimer

This is not an exhaustive list. Irish has a very complex (but very consistent) set of rules, and being in Ireland for a month hasn’t given me enough experience to cover them all. The best and most definitive site on the subject is Fios Feasa, which has lots of cool sound clips and good grammar explanations.

Also, most of these pronunciations were from Dubliners I knew here, and I hear that other dialects sounds fairly different. Irish doesn’t seem to have completely standardized yet.

Basic Vowels:

• a – sounds like ‘pot’
• e – sounds like ‘pet’
• i – sounds like ‘weed’
• u and o – both sound like ‘pull’
• á – sounds like ‘law’
• é – sounds like ‘day’
• ó – sounds like ‘home’
• ú – sounds like ‘food’

Vowel Combinations:

These are trickier, since Irish doesn’t have a vowel transition (i.e. one sound to another). Two letters put together just make a specific sound. This is not a definitive list, but here are the combos I’ve figured out:

• ea – sounds like ‘pot’ (the ‘e’ is silent). Inside a word, it’s more like ‘ya’ (an extra ‘y’ sound in there).
• éa – sounds like ‘day’.
• ae – sounds kind of like ‘fair’, listen here.
• ai – sounds like ‘hat’ or ‘crack’
• ái – This one’s interesting. Kind of like ‘fight’, but from deeper in the throat. Listen to the sound sample here and compare with the regular ‘ai’ sound. Sounds like this give Irish people their unique accent when speaking English, I believe. When people here say the English word ‘sky’ it retains this same pronunciation.
• ao – This one is also tricky. It sounds like either ‘ee’ or ‘wee’ depending on what letter is in front of it. If you get confused, just remember that ‘ao’ is always an ‘ee’ sound.
• éi – sounds somewhere between ‘day’ and ‘weed’. Another unique Irish sound.
• io – sounds like ‘fish’.
• ui – sounds like the German ü or like the letter ‘u’ while smiling.

Consonants

This parts quite a bit easier, but again this is not a definitive list.

• s – usually sounds like ‘sh’. The name ‘Sean’ (Shawn) is a good example.
• th – this is really just a strong ‘h’ sound. It is not like ‘th’ in English. The Irish word ‘theith’ sounds therefore like ‘heh’. Listen here.
• ch – this is almost like a ‘k’ sound, or like the German ‘ch’ sound.
• dh and fh – totally, totally silent. I think they’re there to help with transitioning from one syllable to another when reading, but otherwise, don’t do anything.
• gh – also silent, except at the end, where it just sounds like a ‘g’.
• bh – usually sounds like a ‘v’. Sometimes a ‘w’.
• mh – usually sounds like a ‘w’. Sometimes a ‘v’.

Anyways, this is not a perfect list, but I hope it helps. Let’s try a few examples that I’ve learned since being here:

• craic – ‘crack’ (fun)
• uisce – ‘ish-keh’ (water)
• bóthar – ‘bow-er’ (road)
• Sath – ‘sah’ (Saturday, the ‘h’ here is pretty strong sounding)
• Eoin – ‘oh-in’ (Owen, a common Boy’s name…the first ‘e’ is silent)
• Sinéad – ‘shih-nayd’ (a common girl’s name)
• Pádraig – ‘Paw-trig’ (Patrick, as in St. Patrick)
• Baile Átha Cliath – ‘Bal-ye aw-ha cli-ah’ (the Irish name for the City of Dublin)
• Dún Laoghaire – ‘Doon leary’ (a city south of Dublin)
• Dumhach Thra – ‘Doowak Hra’ (Sandymount, a district in south Dublin…the ‘mh’ is a ‘w’, remember)

The last one is fun example and a good one to practice on. The word “Dún” is straight-forward enough: doon. But let’s look at Laoghaire. As stated above, ‘ao’ is an ‘ee’ sound. The ‘gh’ is silent, and the ‘ai’ sound sounds like ‘crack’. So you get L + ee + a (as in ‘crack’) + r + e. If you blend it together, you get ‘leary’.

Enjoy! Slán (bye!)

Namuamidabu

* – Some also consider northern Irish, or Ulster Irish, to be a separate dialect more related to Scottish than Irish. Being a newb here, I couldn’t say one way or another, but just wanted to point that out.

---