What are the letters of the Irish alphabet?
Letters and letter names The traditional Irish alphabet (Irish: áibítir, formerly Beith Luis Nion from the first three letters of the Ogham alphabet) consists of 18 letters: ⟨a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u⟩.
Is there Z in Irish?
This is all by way of a reminder that the traditional Irish alphabet had 18 letters, not 26. The non-traditional letters are: j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z.
Is Irish same as Gaelic?
The word “Gaelic” in English derives from Gaeilge which is the word in Irish for the language itself. However, when English is being used, the Irish language is conventionally referred to as “Irish,” not “Gaelic.”
Why is Irish written so weird?
The reason why Irish spelling looks weird at first is that it makes slender and broad consonants explicit. Instead of using a different character for broad and slender, Irish uses vowels (and sometimes extra consonants) to indicate if a consonant is slender or broad.
How is D pronounced in Irish?
D or like the English word ‘THE’ or the ‘th’ in THRONG. For example, the Irish word drong is pronounced ‘drong’ or ‘throng’ and is the origin of the English word ‘throng’. As noted above, when an ‘h’ is used to change the way a consonant is pronounced, the consonant is said to be ‘aspirated’ or ‘lenited.
What does Caol and leathan mean?
Irish has a very simple spelling rule which is called ‘caol le caol’ agus ‘leathan le leathan’. This basically means ‘slender vowel to slender vowel’ and ‘broad vowel to broad vowel’. It is applied to practically all words in Irish (words that have more than one syllable).
How do you say MH in Irish?
Pronunciation – An Fuaimniú Irish spelling often baffles the beginner. For instance: mh at the start of a word is pronounced as a w; e.g., mo mhála (“my bag”) is pronounced ‘mu wall-ah’ (/mˠʊ ˈwaːl̪ˠə/). mh in the centre of a word is pronounced as a v sound; e.g., nimh (“poison”) is pronounced ‘niv’ (/nʲɪvʲ/)