Irish language

Irish or Modern Irish Gaelic (in Irish, Gaeilge) is a Goidelic language of the Celtic branch of the Indo-European family of languages originating on the island of Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. The number of people on the island who speak it as a native language is estimated to be between 20,000 and 80,000, predominantly in the rural western regions. Irish was the main language of the island before the conquest. English from Ireland during the Middle Ages.

Since 1922, with the independence of the Republic of Ireland (originally called the Irish Free State), it has been the official language alongside English. In 1998, with the Good Friday Agreement, it was officially recognized as a minority language in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. On June 13, 2005, it was approved and included as a working language in the European Union, which came into force on January 1, 2007. On January 22 of the same year, Minister Noel Treacy used it for the first time in a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the European Union.

Currently, it is an official language in all the territories belonging to Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The Ireland Gaeltacht Department of Rural and Community Affairs estimated in 2003 that around 1,500,000 people claimed to have knowledge of the language. In 2007, out of 4.3 million people of the republic, 40.8% were able to speak it.

The communities and regions where Irish is spoken are called Gaeltachtaí (Gaeltacht singular) and the largest of these is Connemara, in County Galway, including the Aran Islands.

With Irish being a requirement of study in the country's public schools, many speak it fluently as a second native language. Although the main language of the island is English, there are several newspapers, magazines and radio stations in Irish, especially in the Gaeltachtaí. Since 1996 there has been a television channel called Teilifís na Gaeilge (Irish Language Television) or TG4.

The three main Irish dialects are Ulster in the north, Munster in the south and Connacht in the central and western part of the island.

A bilingual sign at Dublin Airport in Irish and English

Origin and classification

Irish is part of the Insular Celtic group of Celtic languages. Insular Celtic is in turn divided into two sub-branches: Brittonic and Goidelic, which includes Irish.

Language names

Irish

In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil (the official writing standard for Irish), the name of the language is Gaeilge (pronounced [ˈɡeːlʲɟə] in Irish).

Before the 1948 simplification, this form was spelled Gaedhilge; originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in Classical Modern Irish. Earlier spellings of it include Gaoidhealg ([ge:ʝəlg]) in Middle Irish and Goídelc ([goiðelg]) in Old Irish. The modern spelling results from the removal of the letters 'dh' move in "Gaedhilge".

Other forms of the name found in various modern dialects of Irish, besides Gaeilge which belongs to southern Connacht, include Gaedhilic/Gaeilic/Gaeilig ([ˈɡeːlʲɪc]) or Gaedhlag ([ˈɡeːl̪əɡ]) in Ulster Irish and North Connacht Irish and Gaedhealaing/Gaoluinn/Gaelainn ([ˈɡˠeːl̪ˠɪŋ/ˈɡˠeːl̪ˠɪn1]) in Munster Irish.

English

In English it is usually called Irish ("Irish"). The term Irish Gaelic is often used when English speakers discuss the relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx) or when the discussion may cause confusion with Hiberno-English, the type of English spoken in Ireland. In English, Scottish Gaelic is generally known simply as Gaelic ("gaelic"). Outside of Ireland, and also among native speakers on a regular basis, the term Gaelic is still used to refer to the language. The archaic term Erse (from Erische), originally a Scots form of the word Irish applied in Scotland (by the Scottish Lowlanders) for all Goidelic languages, is no longer used for any of them, and in most current contexts it is considered pejorative.

History

The earliest evidence of written Irish is the 4th century AD Ogam inscriptions. C. This stage of the language is known as Paleo-Irish. These scripts have been found throughout Ireland and on the west coast of Great Britain. Paleo-Irish shifted towards Old Irish throughout the 5th century. Old Irish, beginning in the 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is found mainly in marginalia of Latin manuscripts. By the 10th century Old Irish evolved into Middle Irish, which was spoken throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is the language of a large body of literature, including the famous Ulster Cycle. Beginning in the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into Modern Irish in Ireland, Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and Manx on the Isle of Man. Modern Irish emerged from the literary language known as Early Modern Irish in Ireland and as classical Gaelic in Scotland; this was used through the 18th century. Dating back to the 13th century, Early Modern Irish was the literary language in both Ireland and the Gaelo-speaking part of Scotland, and authors like Geoffrey Keating attest to it.

From the 18th century the language declined, rapidly losing ground to English, partly due to restrictions imposed by the British government - a clear example of the process known to linguists as linguistic substitution. In the 19th century it lost a large numbers of its speakers due to death and emigration resulting from poverty, particularly during the great famine (1845-1849).

At the end of the 19th century, members of the Gaelic Revival movement made efforts to promote the learning and use of Irish In Ireland.

Official Status

Percentage of Irish speakers per county in the Republic of Ireland.

Irish is recognized by the Constitution of Ireland as the first official language and the national language of the Republic of Ireland (with English being the second official language). Since the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Irish Government required a degree of proficiency in Gaelic for all those who were appointed to positions within the civil service (including postal workers, tax officers, agricultural inspectors, etc.). Having proficiency in only one of the official languages to enter public service was implemented in 1974, partly due to the actions of protest organizations such as the Language Freedom Movement.

While the first official language requirement has also been removed for many public service jobs, Irish remains a compulsory subject in all publicly funded schools within the republic. Those wishing to teach in state primary schools must pass compulsory exams called "Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge". The requirement to pass Irish or English on the Exit Certificate for entry into the Irish Police was adopted in September 2005; however, candidates have classes in the language during the two years of training. All official Irish Government documents must be published in Irish and English or Irish only (according to the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by "an comisinéir teanga", the language ombudsman).

The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on a degree in the UNI federal system to pass the subject of Irish on the Exit Certificate or GCE/GCSE Examinations. Exceptions are made for students born outside the Republic of Ireland, for those born in the Republic of Ireland but who completed primary education abroad, and for students diagnosed with dyslexia.

In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge, Douglas Hyde, was sworn in as the first President of the Republic of Ireland. The recording of his inauguration speech, Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish, is about the only surviving evidence of someone speaking in that dialect.

The National University of Ireland, Galway requires appointment of individuals proficient in the Irish language, provided they meet all other requirements of the vacancy to which they will be appointed. The requirement is based on the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). It is expected to be repealed in due course.

Although modern parliamentary legislation must be enacted in both Irish and English, in practice it is often only available in English. This is despite section 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland which requires an "official translation" of any law in one of the two official languages to the other, unless it has been passed in both languages.

Northern Ireland

A sign for the Department of Culture, Art and Parking in Northern Ireland, in English, Irish and Scots of the Ulster.

Prior to the establishment of the State of Northern Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognized as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some tertiary institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had a degree of self-government. During those years, the political party that held power in the Stormont Parliament, the Ulster Unionist Party (UPP) was hostile to the language. Issues of the Irish cultural minority were not covered in media broadcasts and Irish was excluded from radio and television for virtually the first fifty years of the Northern Irish state. degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and later, in 2001, through the government's ratification in relation to the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The British government promised to legislate in favor of the language as part of the 2006 St. Andrews Agreement.

European Union

Irish has been an official language of the EU since 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs who are fluent in Irish can speak it in the European Parliament and in its committees, although in the case of the latter they have to notify with advance to a simultaneous interpreter to ensure that what they will say is interpreted in the other languages. Although it is an official language of the European Union, and for the moment only the joint decision regulations must be translated into Irish, due to a five-year renewable derogation from what must be translated, requested by the Irish Government when it negotiated the new official status of the language. Any expansion in the number of documents that need to be translated will depend on the results of the first five-year review or if the Irish authorities seek an extension. The Irish government has undertaken to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the necessary costs.

Before Irish became an official language, it had treaty language status, and only the highest order EU documents were available in Irish.

Gaeltacht

Areas gaeltacht officials according to the government of the Republic of Ireland.

The areas of Ireland where Irish is still spoken as a traditional mother tongue on a day-to-day basis are the Gaeltacht (plural Gaeltachtaí). Although fluent speakers of Irish, whose numbers Donncha Ó hÉallaithe estimated at twenty to thirty thousand, are a minority of the language's total speakers, they represent a higher concentration of speakers than other areas of the country and only in some parts of the Gaeltacht. (especially those with greater strength in the language), this continues to be the vernacular of the general population.

There are Gaeltacht regions in:

• Galway County (Contae na Gaillimhe), including Connemara (Conamara), the Aran Islands (Oileáin Árann), Carraroe (An Cheathru Rua) and Spiddal (An Spidéal)
• on the west coast of Donegal County (Contae Dhún na nGall); in the part known as Tyrconnell (Tír Chonaill)
• the Dingle peninsula (Corca Dhuibhne) in Kerry County (Contae Chiarraí).

There are some smaller ones in:

To summarize the extent of its survival: Irish remains the vernacular in the following areas: southern Connemara, from a point west of Spiddal, covering Inverin, Carraroe, Rosmuck and the islands; the Aran Islands; North East Donegal in the area around Gweedore, including Rannafast, Gortahork, the surrounding villages and Tory Island; in the village of Rathcarne, County Meath.

Gweedore (Gaoth Dobhair), County Donegal, is the largest Gaeltacht district in Ireland.

The strongest numerically and socially Gaeltacht areas are in southern Connemara, western Dingle Peninsula and north-east Donegal, where most residents use Irish as their first language. These areas are commonly referred to as the Fíor-Ghaeltacht ("the true Gaeltacht") and have a combined population of just under 20,000.

Signal of traffic in Irish for caution by crossing children.

Tens of hundreds of Irish teenagers attend Irish summer schools each year. Students live with families in a Gaeltacht, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe and are required to speak Irish. These activities promote all kinds of aspects of Irish culture and tradition.

According to information from the Irish Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, only a quarter of households in officially Gaeltacht areas are fluent in Irish. The author of the survey's detailed analysis, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe, of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, described the Irish government's language policy as "a complete and utter disaster".

Dialects

There are a number of different dialects of Irish. In general terms, the three main ones coincide with the provinces of Munster (Cúige Mumhan), Connacht (Cúige Chonnacht) and Ulster (Cúige Uladh). Records of some Leinster dialects were made by the Irish Folklore Commission, among other bodies before its extinction. A minor dialect of Irish is spoken in Newfoundland in eastern Canada, much like the Munster spoken in the 16th and 17th centuries (see: Newfoundland Irish).

Munster

Munster Irish is mainly spoken in the Gaeltachtaí of Kerry (Contae Chiarraí), Ring (An Rinn) near Dungarvan (Dún Garbháin) in County Waterford (Contae Phort Láirge) and Muskerry, (Múscraí) and Cape Clear Island (Oileán Chléire) in the western part of County Cork (Contae Chorcaí). The most important subdivision in Munster is between Decies Irish (Na Déise) (spoken in Waterford) and the rest of Munster Irish.

Some typical characteristics of the Munster Irish are:

1. The use of endings to show the person in verbs in parallel with a pronominal subject system; therefore, "debo" is Caithfead, as well as caithfidh méwhile other dialects prefer caithfidh mé (Me means "me"). "I went and you went" is Bhíos agus bhís or Bhi i me agus bhí you in Muster, but the most common thing in other dialects is the second. It is of particular attention that these are strong trends and personal forms Bhíos, etc., are used in the west and north, particularly when the words are in the last clause.
2. The use of independent/dependent verb forms that are not included in the standard. For example, "see" in Munster is Chimwhich is an independent form - the Northern Irish also uses a similar form tchímwhile "I don't see" is ní fheicim, feicim being a dependent form that is used after particles such as - ("no"). Chím replaced by feicim in the standard. Similarly the traditional form preserved in Munster bheirim/ni thugaim (doy/no give) is tugaim/ní thugaim in the standard; gheibhim/ní bhfaighim (with/not with) is faighim/ní bhfaighim.
3. Before -nn, -m, -rr, -rd, -ll, in monosyll words and in the tonic syllable of words polysyllables where the syllable is followed by a consonant, some short vowels lengthen while others become diptongos, so ceann [kjaun] "head", cam [kŭum] "torcid," gearr [gja:r] "corto", Ord [or:rd] "mazo," ♪ "extranjero, no-Gael" iontas [whispering] "a wonder," compánach [kambium'p›:nambix] "compañero", etc.
4. A copular construction that involves ea ("that"). Therefore, "I am an Irish person" can be Éireannach mé and Éireannach is ea mé in Munster; there is a slight difference in meaning, however, the first option can be a statement of a fact, while the second emphasises the word Éireannach.
5. Male and female words are subject to lention after insanity (sa/St.) ("in the one"), den ("from/from) and Don ("for/do the"): sa tsiopa, "in the store", compared to the standard sa siopa (the standard only presents lention in feminine nouns in the dative in these cases).
6. Eclipsis of the f after sa: sa bhfeirm"on the farm" instead of san fheirm.
7. Eclipsis of t and d after singular prepositions and articles with all prepositions except after insanity, den and Don: ar an dtigh ("in the house"), ag an ndoras ("in the door").
8. The accent is usually in the second syllable of a word when the first syllable contains a short vowel and the second syllable contains a long vowel, diptongo, or is -(e)ach, p.e. bioRANin contrast to BIOrán in Connacht and Úlster.

Connacht

The strongest dialect of Connacht Irish is found in Connemara and the Aran Islands. The dialect spoken in the small region on the border between Galway (Gaillimh) and Mayo (Maigh Eo) is closer to Connacht's Gaeltacht. The northern Mayo dialect of Erris (Iorras) and Achill Island (Acaill) is, in grammar and morphology, essentially a Connacht dialect, but bears some similarities to Ulster Irish due to a large scale immigration of dispossessed people after the Settlement of Ulster.

There are some features of Connemara Irish outside the official standard, notably the preference for verbal nouns ending in -achan, e.g. lagachan instead of lagú, "weakening". The exonormative pronunciation of the Cois Fharraige area, with lengthened vowels and strongly reduced endings, gives it a distinct sound. Distinctive features of the Connacht and Ulster dialect include the pronunciation of the closed bg and mh as [w], rather than [vˠ] in Munster. For example, sliabh ("mountain") is pronounced [ʃlʲiəw] in Connacht and Ulster, compared to [ʃlʲiəβ] in the south. Also, Connacht and Ulster speakers tend to include the pronoun "we" instead of using the standard compound form used in Munster; e.g. bhí muid is used of "we were" instead of bhíomar.

As in Munster Irish, before -nn, -m, -rr, -rd, -ll, in monosyllabic words and on the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant, some short vowels are elongated while others are diphthongized, so ceann [kʲaun] "cabeza", cam [kɑum] "crooked", gearr [gʲa:r] "short", ord [o:rd] "gall", gall [gɑul] "foreigner, non-Gael", iontas [u:ntəs] "a marvel", etc.

Today's Meath Irish (in Leinster) is a special case. It belongs mainly to the Connemara dialect. The Gaelo-speaking community in Meath is largely a group of Connemara speakers who moved there during the 1930s, after the campaign for land reform led by Máirtín Ó Cadhain - who subsequently became one of the leading modernist language writers.

The first Irish President Douglas Hyde was one of the last speakers of the Roscommon Irish dialect.

Ulster

Linguistically, the most important Ulster dialect today is that of Rosses (na Rossa), which has been used extensively in literature by authors such as the brothers Séamus Ó Grianna and Seosamh Mac Grianna, locally known as Jimí Fheilimí and Joe Fheilimí. This dialect is essentially the same as that of Gweedore (Gaoth Dobhair = Running Water Inlet/Inlet), and is used by native singers such as Enya (Eithne) and Moya Brennan (Máire Brennan) and her brothers in Clannad (Clann as Dobhar = Family of the Dobhar - a section of Gweedore), Na Casaidigh and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh from another local band, Altan.

Ulster Irish sounds very different, shares many characteristics with Scottish Gaelic, and has many words with characteristics and shades of meaning. However, since the disappearance of the Irish dialects in what was Northern Ireland, it is probably an exaggeration to view Ulster Irish as an intermediary form between Scottish Gaelic and the southern and western dialects of Irish. For example, Northern Scottish Gaelic has many features in common with Munster Irish rather than Ulster.

A notable feature of Ulster Irish and Scottish Gaelic is the use of a negative particle cha(n) instead of the ní of the Munster and Connacht dialects. South Ulster Irish retains ní more pronouncedly, while cha(n) has displaced ní in most dialects north (e.g., Rosguill and Tory Island), although in those areas níl ("is not") is still more common than chan fhuil or cha bhfuil.

An Caighdeán Oifigiúil

An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("the official standard"), sometimes shortened to An Caighdeán, is the standard language taught in most schools from Ireland, although with strong influences from local dialects.

Its development had two purposes. One was to simplify the Irish spelling that had retained its classical spelling, removing many silent letters, and giving the written form a standard that was 'dialect free'. Although many aspects of Caighdeán are essentially those of Connacht Irish, this was simply because it is the central dialect which forms a "bridge" between north and south. In reality, the speakers pronounce the words as in their own dialect, the spelling simply reflecting the pronunciation of Classical Irish. For example, ceann ("head") in Early Modern Irish was pronounced (cenˠː). The spelling was retained, but the word is pronounced variously [caun] in the south, [cɑːn] in Connacht, and [cænː] in the north. Beag ("little") was [bʲɛɡ] in Early Modern Irish, and is now [bʲɛɡ] in Waterford Irish, [bʲɔɡ] in Cork-Kerry Irish, varies between [bʲɔɡ] and [bʲæɡ] in the west, and it is [bʲœɡ] in the north.

The simplification, however, in some cases probably went too far in simplifying the standard to only the west. For example, Early Modern Irish leabaidh, [lʲebʷɨʝ], ("bed") is pronounced [lʲabʷə] as well as [lʲabʷɨɟ] in Waterford Irish, [lʲabʷɨɟ] in Irish from Cork-Kerry, [lʲæbʷə] in Connacht Irish, [lʲæːbʷə] in Cois Fharraige Irish and [lʲæbʷi] in the north. Native speakers from north to south consider leabaidh to be the Caighdean rendering and not actual leaba.

On the other hand, the Caighdean didn't go far enough in many cases. For example, it has retained the Classical Irish spelling of ar ("en, for, etc.") and ag ("a, by, of, etc."). The first is pronounced [ɛɾʲ] throughout the Goidelic-speaking world (and is written er in Manx, and air in Scottish Gaelic), and must be written either eir, oir or air in Irish. The second is pronounced [ɪɟ] in the south and [ɛɟ] in the north and west. Again, Manx and Scottish Gaelic reflect this pronunciation much more clearly than Irish does, Manx ec and Scots aig.

In many cases, however, Caighdean can only refer to the classical language, with each dialect being different, such as the personal forms of ag ("a, for, of, etc.").

• Munster: agùm, agùt, igè, ic, agùing/aguìng (west of Cork/Kerry agùin/aguín), agùibh/agubh, acù
• Connacht: am (agam), ad (agad), aige [eg,], aici [ek,], ♪, Needed., acab
• Ulster: aigheam, aighead, aige [eg,], Aicí [eki], aighinn, aighif, Acoustic
• Caighdean: agam, agat, aige, aici, againn, agaibh, acu

Another purpose was to create a grammatically "simplified" to make it an easier language to learn for the majority of the English-speaking school population. In part this is because Caighdean is not universally respected by native speakers, in that it makes the simplified language an ideal, rather than the ideal that native speakers traditionally held of their dialects (or of the classical dialect they knew). Of course, this was not the original goal of its developers, who preferred to see the "school version" of Caighdeán as a means of making it easier for second language learners to fully learn Irish. The Caighdean verb system is the prime example, with reduced irregular verb forms and personal forms of the verb - except in the first person. However, once the word "standard" came into use, the forms represented as "standard" they took power for themselves, and therefore the ultimate goal has been forgotten in many circles.

Caighdeán is generally used by non-native speakers, and as many of the most influential speakers are from the capital (and are very often politicians), it is sometimes called "Dublin Irish". As it is taught in Gaelo-speaking schools (where Irish is the main or sometimes the only medium of instruction), it is also sometimes called 'Gaelscoil Irish'. It is the basis for 'Belfast Irish', which is Caighdean heavily influenced by Ulster Irish.

Comparisons

The difference between dialects is considerable and has led to recurring difficulties in defining standard Irish. A good example is the greeting "How are you?". Just as this greeting varies from region to region, and between social classes, between English speakers, it also varies between Irish speakers:

• Ulster: Cad é mar atá you? ("What is that how you are?" Note: Caidé or Goidé and sometimes ♪ are alternative writings of cad é)
• Connacht: Cén chaoi a bhfuil you? ("What mode [is the] what are you?")
• Munster: Taoi cones? or Tann you? "How are you" cones? was originally cia nós "What way?")
• "Standard": You? ("How are you?")

In recent decades, contact between speakers of different dialects has become more frequent and the differences between dialects are less noticeable.

Linguistic structure

The features most unknown to English speakers of the language are spelling, initial consonant mutations, verb subject object order, and the use of two different forms of the verb "to be" (be be). However, none of these are unique to Irish, as they all occur in other Celtic languages, as well as in non-Celtic languages: morphosyntactically elicited initial consonant mutation is found in the Fula language, the VSO order is also found in Malagasy, Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew, and Basque, Catalan, Portuguese, Asturian-Leonese, Spanish and Italian distinguish between "ser" and "estar".

Syntax

Irish word order is VSO (verb-subject-object) so, for example, "He hit me" It is Bhuail (to hit in the past tense), sé (he), mé (me).

One aspect of Irish syntax unknown to speakers of other languages is the use of the copula (known in Irish as an chopail). Used to describe the permanent identity or characteristic of a person or thing (for example, "who" or "what"), in contrast to temporal aspects such as "how", "where" and "why". It is similar to the difference between the verbs ser and estar in Spanish and Portuguese (see Romance copula), although it is not exactly the same.

Some examples are:

• Is fear é. (lit.) "He is a man" (He's a man. in Spanish. É um homem in Portuguese)
• Is fuar é. "It's a cold (heart) person." (It's cold. in Spanish. That's cold. in Portuguese)
• Tá sé/Tomás fuar. "He/she is cold" (= feels cold). (It's cold. in Spanish - in this case the Spanish uses "have", It's cold. in Portuguese)
• Tá sé/Tomás ina chodladh. "He/Tomas is asleep"He's sleeping. in Spanish, She's sleeping. in Portuguese)
• Is maith é. "He is good (a good person)" (It's good. in Spanish, E bom in Portuguese)
• I know go maith. "He's fine"Okay. in Spanish, It's bem. in Portuguese)

Morphology

Another feature of Irish grammar shared with other Celtic languages is the use of prepositional pronouns forainmneacha réamhfhoclacha, which are essentially conjugated prepositions. For example, the word for "a" is ag, which in the first person becomes agam ("to me"). When used with the verb bí ("to be"), ag indicates possession; is the equivalent of the verb "to have".

• Tá leabhar agam. "I have a book." (Literally, "there is a book to me.")
• Tá leabhar agat. "You have a book."
• Tá leabhar aige. "He has a book."
• Tá leabhar aici. "She has a book."
• Tá leabhar againn. "We have a book."
• Tá leabhar agaibh. "You have a book."
• Tá leabhar Here. "They have a book."

Spelling and Pronunciation

"Gaelach" in Gaelic calligraphy.

The Modern Irish alphabet is similar to that of English, but without the letters j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z. Even so, these are sometimes used in Anglicized words with no unique meaning in Irish. For example, "hip" ("jeep").

Some words take a letter or letters that are not traditionally used and replace it with the closest phonetic sound, e.g. 'phone'>'Fón'. The written language seems daunting to those unfamiliar with it, but once you understand it it's pretty straightforward. The acute accent or sínead fada (´) lengthens the vowel sound and in some cases also changes its quality. For example, in Munster (Kerry) Irish, a is /a/ or /ɑ/ and á is /ɑː/ as in "law ", but in Donegal Irish, á tends to be /æː/.

In the years of World War II, Séamus Daltún, in charge of the Rannóg an Aistriúcháin (the Official Department of Translations of the government of the Republic of Ireland), published his own guides on how to standardize Irish spelling and grammar. The de facto standard of it was later approved by the State and was called the Official Standard or Caighdeán Oifigiúil. He simplified and standardized the spelling. Many words had silent letters that were dropped and the vowel combinations moved closer to the spoken language. When there were several versions in different dialects for the same word, one or more of them was chosen.

Examples:

• Gaedhealg / Gaedhilg(e) / Gaedhealaing / Gaeilic / Gaelainn / Gaoidhealg / Gaolainn → Gaeilge"Idioma Irish." Gaoluinn or Gaolainn It is still used in books written by authors in Munster dialect, or as a burial name for it.
• Lughbhaidh → Lú"Louth"
• biadh → bia"food"

Standard spelling does not always reflect the pronunciation of each dialect. For example, in Standard Irish, bia has the genitive bia, but in Munster Irish the genitive is pronounced /bʲiːɟ/. For this reason, the spelling biadh is still used in some dialects, particularly those that show a significant and perceptible auditory difference between biadh (nominative case - "of food") and bídh (genitive case - "of food"). In Munster, the latter spelling produces the pronunciation /bʲiːɟ/ because the endings -idh and -igh become -ig. Another example is the word crua ("hard") which is pronounced /kruəɟ/ in Munster, according to the pre-Caighdean spelling, cruaidh. In Munster, ao is pronounced /eː/ and aoi, /iː/, however the new genitive spelling of saoghal (&# 34;life" or "world"): saoghail, became saoil and saol, producing irregularities in the agreement between spelling and pronunciation as the words are pronounced /sˠeːlʲ/ and /sˠeːl̪ˠ/ respectively.

Modern Irish has only one diacritic, the acute accent (á é í ó ú), known in Irish as the síneadh fada ("mark long", plural sinte fada). In English, it is often known as the fada when the adjective is used as a noun. The upper diacritic, called a ponc séimhithe or sí buailte (usually shortened to buailte), derives from punctum delens used in medieval manuscripts to indicate deletion, similar to striking out unwanted words in present-day writing, it has since been used to indicate the lenition of s (/s/ to /h/) and f (from /f/ to zero) in Old Irish Language.

The lenition of c, p and t was indicated by placing a letter h after the affected consonant; the lenition of other sounds was not marked. Later, both methods became indicators of lenition for all sounds except l and n and two rival systems were used: lenition could be marked with a buailte or with a trailing h. Eventually, the use of buailte predominated in Gaelic-lettered texts, while h predominated in Roman-scripted texts.

Today Celtic calligraphy and buailte are rarely used except when the "traditional" is required, e.g. the motto of the University College Dublin crest or the symbol of the Irish Defense Forces, the hat badge of the Irish Defense Forces, Óglaiġ na h-Éireann. Letters with the buailte are available in Unicode and the Latin-8 character set.

Mutations

In Irish there are two kinds of consonantal mutation:

• The lention (in Irish, Séimhi) describes the change in the fricatives. Indicated in the old spelling with a buailte' on the affected consonant, now it is simply added - Huh.:
  • Caith! ("lance!") chaith mé ("lange"); example of lention as a marker of the past that is caused by the use of the auxiliary "do", although it is usually omitted.
  • Margadh ("market") — Tadhg an mhargaidh ("man on the street" (literally "Tadhg on the market)); here we see a lention that marks the genitive case of a male noun.
  • Sedan ("Sean, John") - a Sheain ("Oh John!"). The lention is part of the so-called vocation case; in fact the cause a or the previous vocabulary marker.
• Eclipsis (in Irish, ur) covers the sounding of non-sound particles, as well as the nasalization of the sound.
  • athair ("father") — ar nAthair ("our Father")
  • You ("initiated") - ar dtús ("at first")
  • Gaillimh ("Galway") — i nGaillimh ("in Galway")

Current status

Irish in Education

Poster of a galescoil in Newry, Northern Ireland.

It is now a compulsory subject in the Republic of Ireland and has been since independence. While many students learn Irish well through the Republic's educational program and also develop a healthy respect for it, many others find it difficult or poorly taught by their teachers. The students' attitude towards Irish fluctuates between apathy and hostility.

The syntax, morphology and vocabulary of the language differ more from English than from many other European languages, making learning a challenge for many. The Irish government has endeavored to rectify the situation by redesigning the Primary Education curriculum to focus on spoken Irish. However, in secondary school, Irish is still taught in the turn-of-the-century academic way: students are required to write long essays, debate articles and stories in Irish for the high school diploma exam.

Recently, there has been discussion about abolishing compulsory Irish, which most Irish people disagree with. In 2005, Enda Kenny, leader of Fine Gael (then the main opposition party in Ireland) and current Taoiseach, requested that it be an optional subject in the last two years of secondary school, which aroused criticism from many quarters, although there were those who supported it.. Kenny, despite being a fluent speaker of Irish, said that he believed making the language mandatory had done him more harm than good.

A relatively recent development is the proliferation of gaelscoileanna (Irish-based schools). As of September 2005 there were 158 Gaelscoileanna in primary education and 36 in secondary education in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland as a whole (excluding the Gaeltacht, whose schools are not considered gaelscoileanna), which meant about 31,000 students. This has been an increase from a total of less than 20 in the early 1970s, and 15 more are planned today. With the opening of the Gaelscoil Liatroma in County Leitrim in 2005, there is now at least one gaelscoil in each of Ireland's 32 historic counties.

Media

In both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland there are the following media whose content is entirely created in the Irish language.

• Television:
  • TG4 (formerly called Teilifís na Gaeilge) is a generalist television broadcasting 24 hours in Irish for the entire island.
• Radio:
  • Raitó Fáilte is a musical radio whose programming is also in the Irish language and also broadcasts for the entire island.
• Written press:
  • La is the first and only newspaper published entirely in Irish for the entire island and has its headquarters in Belfast.
• RTÉ, Raidó Teilifís Éireann (in Spanish, "Radio Televisión de Ireland"), better known for its acronym RTÉ, is the public broadcasting corporation of the Republic of Ireland.
  • Raitó na Gaeltachta-RTÉ Raitó na Gaeltachta: Radio on Irish language and addressed to the regions of mostly Gaelic speaking. It started on April 2, 1972. Its programming is generalist 24 hours 365 days in Irish language for Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Linguistic structure

The strangest features of the language are spelling, initial consonant mutation, and verb-subject-object (VSO) ordering. However, as in Spanish, there are the verbs to be and to be, which in English are just the verb to be. This is not exclusive to Irish, as the same is found in other languages. Celtic and non-Celtic: Morphosyntactically, initial consonant mutation is found in the Fula language (West African language) and VSO word order in Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew.

Syntax

Word order follows the VSO pattern; for example: "He hit me" would be Bhuail (to hit) I know (him) mé (me, me). One aspect of Irish that is not familiar to speakers of other languages is the use of the copula (Irish: chopail). The copula is used to describe what or who someone is, as opposed to how or where. It is used to say that a noun is another noun rather than an adjective, somewhat similar to the verbs ser and estar in Spanish.

Vocabulary

Personal pronouns

• Me /mje:/: me
• ♪ /t: urgeu:/You
• I know. /:e:/: he/he (approximately by the English "sh")
• Yes. /:i:/: she
• muid/sinn /ɪnj/: us
• sibh /ɪ tiravj/: ye
• Siad //iθd/の: them/ellas

Nouns

• ♪ (m) /:a:/Day
• Bean (f) /bjan/ urge/: woman
• grian (f) /g flashjiūn/ margin: sun
• shy (f) /tji eclipsej/: country, land
• fear (m) /fja diagnosis/: man
• Éireannach (m) /'e: ageingjan/に: Irish
• Listen. (f) /ıi felt: night
• cathair (f) /'kahθj/: city
• Naoi (m) /n/️i: nine

Phrases

• Dia dhuit /djiě : Hello, literally "God with you"
• You? /'k:n:のの:a: tκ:u:/: How are you?
• Táim go maith /t urge:a:mj g m m signa/: I'm fine
• Go raibh maith agat /g/ מהvj 'mahŭgut achievement//: Thank you (lit. Have the good or it's okay in you)
• Slán leat/slán agat /s urge:a:n: margin ljat or slop:a:n:の:ン// Goodbye: the first one says who stays, the second one who goes (lit. Greetings with you
• Gabh mo leithscéal /Gav manifestation m urge: lj transformation':ce::/: Excuse me (lit. Accept my excuse or "media-history")

Sample Text

Saint John V 1 -8

• 1. Bhí an Briathar ann i dtús báire agus bhí an Briathar in éineacht le Dia, agus ba Dhia an Briathar.
• 2. Bhí know ann i dtús báire in éineacht le Dia.
• 3. Rinneadh an uile ní tríd agus gan é ni dhearnadh aon ni da ndearnadh.
• 4. Is ann a bhí an bheatha agus ba é solos na ndaoine an bheatha.
• 5. Agus tá an solos ag taitneamh sa dorchadas, ach nior ghabh an dorchadas é.
• 6. Bhí fear a tháinig ina theachtaire o Dhia, agus Eoin a ba ainm dó.
• 7. Tháinig sé ag déanamh fianaise chun fianaise a thabhairt i dtaobh an tsolais chun go gcreidfeadh chach trid.
• 8. Níorbh é féin an solas ach tháinig ag tabhairt fianaise i dtaobh an tsolais.

Sayings

In the Gaeltacht and in Counties Kerry (SO), Galway (W) and Donegal (NW), many popular sayings and proverbs are said and heard in Irish.

• Níor bhris focal maith fiacail riamh. (Literally: A good word will never break anyone's teeth)