# Irish/Scottish Gaelic: Spelling



## Outsider

One of the things that make Gaelic spelling challenging is the abundance of silent vowels. They're not altogether silent, but more precisely serve to signal that the consonant beside them is "broad" or "slender" (velarized or palatalized, in contemporary Irish).

I'm curious to know if these vowels were ever fully pronounced in the past, or if they were always just orthographic conventions. I haven't been able to find a satisfactory answer on the Web so far, and would be grateful if someone could tell me.

Thanks.


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## Setwale_Charm

I rather doubt that you`ll find somebody here able to confirm the situation in those times. However, from what I remember from the university course, indeed, the pronunciation used to be much more regular. This abundance of irregularities is due to the language being so archaic and preserved relatively unchanged.


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## bb3ca201

Spelling is older in Scottish Gaelic due to the fact that it is older; the Irish language underwent reforms some time ago.

Allow me to give you an example or two to illustrate:

The word for "heart": Irish Gaelic "croi"; Scottish Gaelic "cridhe" (same pronunciation. Irish got rid of the silent letters)

The word for "day":

Spelling is older in Scottish Gaelic due to the fact that it is older; the Irish language underwent reforms some time ago. This also has to due with the fact that the Irish language has official-language status in Ireland, whereas Scottish Gaelic -- although being taught throughout Scotland -- hasn't secured that place yet.

Allow me to give you an example or two to illustrate:

The word for "heart": Irish Gaelic "croí"; Scottish Gaelic "cridhe" (same pronunciation. Irish got rid of the silent letters)

The word for "day": Irish Gaelic "lá"; Scottish Gaelic "là" or "latha" (again; identical pronunciations)

The vowels that we see today, directly in front of and/or behind consonants, are often indications of the broad/slender quality of the consonant. In many instances, they can actually become diphthongs (having their own unique sound). Examples:

cathair (ai = "eh", but also indicates that "r" is pronounced slender)

dhachaidh (dha = "gha", as opposed to "aidh", where the dh is silent -- it is slender)

sin and saor (shin -- slender 's'; seur - broad 's')

I hope I've helped a little, but I can't say I was around centuries ago!


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## CapnPrep

Outsider said:


> I'm curious to know if these vowels were ever fully pronounced in the past, or if they were always just orthographic conventions.


Thurneysen says that the ‹i› inserted before palatal consonants in stressed closed syllables was pronounced in Old Irish. "It must have been very audible, because it is seldom left out in writing. But it was not a full vowel; it did not form a true diphthong with a preceding short vowel (the syllable remained short)." (§82a)

In stressed open syllables, since ‹i› is sometimes written and sometimes not, "the transitional sound must have been less distinct at the syllable boundary". (§82b)

You can read what he says about all the other inserted vowels in §§83–84, §§92–96 (on-line text). It's not absolutely explicit, but it seems that Thurneysen believed that all of these vowels were pronounced to some degree in Old Irish. But more vowels appeared in Middle Irish, to systematically indicate both palatal and non-palatal quality, and by this period I think they can be considered to be mostly diacritic.


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## AlJaahil

> The word for "heart": Irish Gaelic "croí"; Scottish Gaelic "cridhe" (same pronunciation. Irish got rid of the silent letters)



One point of information, these two words aren't quite homophonous. Irish has [kri:], basically, where Gaelic has [kri.I], i.e. hiatus followed by a lax _i_ or heightened schwa. In slow clear pronunciation the Gaelic word very clearly has two syllables.


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## L'irlandais

Hi AlJaahil,
You make a good point.  Just one thing though, while both languages are called Gaelic, in English.  Just worth pointing out that Scottish Gaelic is called *Gàidhlig*, while Irish Gaelic is *Gaeilge*.
I suspect you're aware of that anyway.


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## AlJaahil

Hi, L'irlandais!

I am, but no worries. 

I get endlessly confused by _Gaelic_ referring to Gaeilge in English, so normally I call Gàidhlig _Gaelic_ and Gaeilge _Irish_ - I had thought that to be the normal usage, but perhaps not?

In Gàidhlig _Gaeilge_ is usually just _Gàidhlig na h-Éireann_, "Irish Gàidhlig," mostly because the relationship of the two languages is far more prominent to Gaels than it is to the _Sasannaich_,  and to some extent because _Gaeilge_ as pronounced in Gaeilge with fully voiced _G_s is odd-sounding to Gàidhlig-speakers. We traded our voiced consonants for sexy pre-aspiration to offset the dorky Viking singsong we picked up.


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## elirlandes

In the Irish language, Gaeilge is also used for both... *Gaeilge *for Irish, and *Gaeilge na hAlban* specifying for Scottish Gaelic. In truth, in Ulster the pronounciation of Gaeilge is almost more like Gaelic than anything else.
Few people in the south of Ireland refer to Irish as Gaelic when speaking English. They either say "Irish" or "Gaeilge". As a Northerner, I find Dubliners are often surprised by my use of the word Gaelic to refer to Gaeilge when speaking English.


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