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I do not pretend to be an expert, but having studied both Irish and Scots for several years with varying degrees of success,
I have learned a few rules and tricks, mostly toward avoiding the really embarrassing mistakes in pronunciation. The Gaelic alphabet is somewhat shorter than the one we use in English, consisting of A B C D E F G (H) I L M N O P R S T U. The letters J K Q V W X Y Z do not appear in any Gaelic words, although they do turn up in words of non-Gaelic origin that have not been given a Gaelicized spelling. There is, in fact, no letter H in Gaelic which you may find puzzling since it appears frequently. It isn't really there and I shall explain why later. First we should deal with vowels, of which there are the usual five: A E I O U. In their simplest form the vowels are pronounced as follows: A is ah, E is ay, I is ee, O is oh (long) and uh (short), and U is oo. There are two accent marks, grave and acute, that might appear over a vowel and the difference between them in pronunciation is slight. The importance of the accent mark is that it lengthens the sound of the vowel and possibly the meaning of the word. In Scots the word bata means a stick. Bàta, on the other hand, is pronounced with a longer a sound (as in baata) and means a boat. Most people do not wish to put to sea on a stick. Gaelic distinguishes between broad vowels (A O U) and slender vowels (E I), not that this has much to do with the vowels themselves, but marks the difference in the consonants surrounding them. There is also a rule of "broad to broad and slender to slender", meaning that a vowel of similar type must appear on either side of a consonant. The slender vowels produce the most change in nearby consonants. One of the most common examples is the letter S. On its own or next to a broad vowel it is a plain ordinary S, but get it near an e or an i and suddenly it sounds like SH. That is why names like Seàn, Séumas, Siobhàn, and Seànaid all start with an SH sound, because of the slender e or i following the s. Similarly, the Irish legendary character Naisi is pronounced Neesha. The SH combination does appear, but is pronounced as an h or is silent. When the letter D appears next to a broad vowel it is simply a plain D. Next to a slender vowel D is sounded like a soft J. The name Ànaid ends with a J sound because of the i next to the d. The letter T next to a slender vowel takes on the sound of a soft CH, as in the English picture. The other trick to vowels is knowing how many of them you can ignore in pronunciation before you have changed the meaning of the word. Because of the "B to B, S to S" rule, extra vowels may be added to a word when it changes number or case. This is one of the most mysterious and arcane things about Gaelic and is not for the casual beginner. Just keep in mind that most of the time, no matter how many vowels are in the syllable, the chances are good that half of them will not be sounded. Safe enough to go with the first vowel in the syllable and slur the rest. The letters C and G are sounded hard like K. The letter B may be sounded like a P. And occasionally, in some dialects, the letter T may sound like a D. So now that you are thoroughly confused, it is time to deal with those Hs. Gaelic employs a pronunciation change called aspiration or lenition. In old Irish script, which was used well into the 20th century, this was marked with a dot over the affected consonant. Currently, both Irish and Scots add the letter H after the affected consonant. Think of it as another accent mark. And good news! Vowels and L R N do not aspirate. The effect of aspiration depends on the letter involved and whether the word is in Irish or Scots. The following should help you deal with aspiration: BH or MH = V (Scots)/ W (Irish with broad vowel) or V (Irish with slender vowel) Aspiration is the major cause for the bizarre appearance of Gaelic spelling and for most of the truly heinous mispronunciations. For instance, bodhran (an Irish drum) should be said as though spelled bow-run, the dh being silent. Another use of the letter H, primarily in Irish Gaelic, is at the beginning of a word beginning with a vowel that has followed a word ending with a vowel. This separates the two vowels and makes the language easier (relatively speaking) to pronounce. Emphasis usually falls on the first syllable, unless in the original meaning of a compound word the second syllable was more important. Killin (Cill Fhinn), meaning the 'Chapel of Fionn', is stressed on the second syllable because the point was to emphasize Fionn's connection to the chapel. |
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