Revue belge de philologie et

d'histoire

Irish
Raymond Hickey

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Hickey Raymond. Irish. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 90, fasc. 3, 2012. Langues et littératures
modernes. Moderne taal en letterkunde. pp. 973-999;

doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/rbph.2012.8271

https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_2012_num_90_3_8271

Fichier pdf généré le 18/04/2018

 Irish

Raymond Hickey (1)

The name of the Celtic (2) language in Ireland is Irish. The word for the
language in Irish is Gaeilge. Normally, the definite article is used before it
so that the initial sound changes to a fricative as the word is feminine: An
Ghaelige /qn Je:ljgjq/ ‘the Irish language’. The term Gaelic /ge:lik/, as a label
for the language, is not frequent in Ireland. The designation Scottish Gaelic
is used for the Celtic language spoken on parts of the west coast of Scotland
(historically derived from northern forms of Irish, Macaulay et al. 1992). (3)

1 Irish and Irish society

Since independence in 1922 Irish has been the official language of Ireland
and the official designation for Ireland is the Irish form of the country’s name
éire. This replaced the label Irish Free State (Irish: Saorstát na héireann)
which was used from 1922 to 1937. The label Republic of Ireland (Irish:
Poblacht na héireann) has been in use since 1949 when the country was
declared a republic. According to Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland
(Irish: Bunreacht na héireann) of 1937 Irish is the first language of the
country, with English fulfilling a supplementary function.
Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland
1. Ós í an Ghaeilge an teanga náisiúnta is í an phríomhtheanga oifigiúil í. 2.
Glactar leis an Sacs-Bhéarla mar theanga oifigiúil eile. (‘1. Because Irish is
the national language, it is the main official language. 2. English is accepted
as another official language’, translation mine, RH).
Despite this constitutional support, English is in effect the language of
public life and around 99% of Ireland’s four million people speak it as a

 (1)  Raymond Hickey studied for his MA in Trinity College, Dublin and did his PhD
at Kiel, Germany in 1980. He completed his second doctorate (German Habilitation) in
Bonn in 1985 and has held professorial appointments at four German universities (Bonn,
Munich, Bayreuth, Essen) and has been visiting professor at a number of universities. His
main research interests are computer corpus processing, varieties of English (especially
Irish English), Dublin English and general questions of language change.
 (2)  The word Celtic is pronounced [keltik], and not [seltik]. The spelling Keltic is quite
unusual in English and not used by Irish scholars.
 (3)  The Scots themselves refer to their variety of Gaelic by their pronunciation of the
word, i.e. /galik/, written Gaidhlig in Scottish Gaelic and Anglicised as Gallick.

Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 90, 2012, p. 973–1000
974 R. Hickey

native language. Nonetheless, Irish has a special status in Ireland. Although

not more than 1% of the population today are native speakers, the language
looms large in the minds of the Irish as the carrier of their cultural heritage,
given that it was formerly the native language of the majority of the population
(Ó Riagáin 1997). Many people claim that Irish is their ‘native language’ even
though their knowledge of the language is poor. This attitude is to be found
in public life as well. Government bodies all have Irish names, signposts
are bilingual, official letters often contain an opening and a salutation in
Irish (though the contents are in English). Indeed a knowledge of Irish was
a requirement for civil service in Ireland until 1974. Television announcers
sprinkle a few words of Irish in their commentaries or news broadcasts.
Politicians also claim that Irish is their native language, reading a few words
of Irish, usually with a pronunciation heavily influenced by English.

1.1 Irish and the government of Ireland

Given the primary status of Irish in the Constitution of Ireland the

Irish government is formally committed to supporting and furthering the
Irish language across all fronts. In practice, however, the two departments
which are concerned most intensively with language questions are that
for education (Roinn an Oideachais ‘Department of Education’) and of
that for the Gaeltacht, the set of Irish-speaking districts. The latter is not
exclusively responsible for these districts but has a broader brief as its mission
statement specifies: ‘To promote and support the sustainable and inclusive
development of communities, both urban and rural, including Gaeltacht and
island communities, thereby fostering better regional balance and alleviating
disadvantage, and to advance the use of the Irish language.’ (source: www.
pobail.ie). Its official title is now (2012): An Roinn Ealaíon, Oidhreachta
agus Gaeltachta ‘Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht’.
In July 2003 the Official Languages Act became law. This act was
designed to provide a statutory framework for the provision of public services
in the Irish language. It regulated a number of issues such as the use of Irish
in official announcements and advertisements and specified the obligations
of the government regarding the Irish language. The act also provided for An
Coiminiséir Teanga ‘The language commissioner’, an independent official
appointed by the President of Ireland and head of the Oifig Choiminiséir na
dTeangacha Oifigiúla ‘Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages’.
The task of the commissioner is to supervise the implementation of the official
languages act and to protect language rights. The offices of the commissioner
are located in An Spidéal (Spiddle) in the Connemara Gaeltacht and there is
an associated website at www.coimisineir.ie.

1.2 Irish and the European Union

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which was

drafted in 1992 by the Council of Europe, has been adopted by 25 of the 47
member states, including the United Kingdom (July 2001), but not Ireland
 Irish 975

for internal political reasons. However, Ireland was a member of the now
defunct European Bureau for Lesser-User Languages which ceased to exist
in January 2010. In addition, by the Belfast Agreement of April 1998 (the so-
called ‘Good Friday’ agreement) official support was pledged for the minority
languages found in the island of Ireland. These are Irish and Ulster Scots.
For the latter there is a separate institution The Ulster-Scots Agency/ Tha
Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch (Hickey 2007: Chapter 3) and for the Irish language
there is a corresponding institution called Foras na Gaeilge. (lit. ‘The Irish
foundation’) which is responsible for the promotion of the Irish language
throughout the whole island of Ireland.

1.2.1 Irish as an official language of the European Union

On 1 January 2007 the Irish language attained status as an official language

of the European Union. The practical implications of this change are many.
Irish persons can now be employed in offices of the EU, where two official
languages are required, by specifying knowledge of Irish and English. A
further consequence of the new status is a great increase in the amount of EU
publications which are available in Irish as is the right of people to use Irish
on official EU occasions and to have interpreting facilities provided. The
reaction to the official status of Irish has in general been positive. However,
it has been pointed within Ireland that the increase in expenditure which this
entails could have been applied to promoting the Irish language in Ireland.
Outside of Ireland there has been a natural demand of language communities
with much greater numbers, e.g. Catalan with some six million speakers, to
also be accorded the same official status.

1.3 Supporting institutions

There are a number of institutions which have been formed with the
explicit intention of furthering the cause of the Irish language in Ireland.
Among the oldest of these is The Gaelic League (Irish: Conradh na Gaeilge,
website: www.cnag.ie), an organisation which was founded in 1893 with the
specific intention of furthering the revival of the Irish language. It was led
initially by such figures of Irish intellectual life as Douglas Hyde and Eoin
MacNeill. The League had its greatest support from those who entertained
a vision of an Irish-speaking society and hence the league had little if any
effect on the remaining native speakers. It is still active today, promoting
the Irish language on all levels of society. Its centre is in Dublin (with an
Irish-language bookshop) but it has offices in Galway, Limerick and Derry
as well.
Údarás na Gaeltachta ‘The Gaeltacht authority’ (website: www.udaras.ie)
was founded in 1980 to succeed the earlier Gaeltarra Éireann (1957-1979).
It is a regional state agency dedicated to the improvement of commerical
and social life in the Gaeltacht. It main offices are in Furbo (Na Forbacha),
Connemara with further offices in the Irish-speaking regions of Donegal,
Mayo, Kerry and Cork. It is run by a board of 17 elected members with a
further three appointed by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.
976 R. Hickey

Glór na nGael, ‘The voice of the Irish’ (website: www.glornagael.ie),

founded around 1960, aims to promote the use and to foster good knowledge
of the language wherever possible, usually by supporting local groups and
committees. It produces much promotional material for the language and
organises events offering information about Irish to the general public.
Gael Linn, lit. ‘Irish pool’ (4), (website: www.gael-linn.ie), founded in 1953,
is a further organisation concerned with the promotion of Irish through music,
sport and through courses in the language. For the latter it arranges stays
in the Irish-speaking areas for English speakers. This serves the important
function of exposing the latter to the community of native speakers of Irish.
Apart from the above-mentioned institutions there are, of course,
departments of Irish in all the universities throughout Ireland (or sections
for the language at the University of Limerick and at Dublin City University).
Some have particular units for the practical support of Irish, e.g. Fiontar
‘Enterprise’ (website: www.dcu.ie/fiontar) in Dublin City University which
works across the various disciplines and tries in particular to link Irish with
the economics sector, e.g. by offering degrees in combinations of Irish and a
further subject such as business studies.

1.4 Irish and education

The situation in education reflects the concern of public bodies to further

the cause of the Irish language, despite the difficulties attached to the use of
the language in contemporary Irish society. School children in Ireland learn
Irish from the beginning of primary school to the end of secondary school
and take it as a subject in their leaving certificate (final school examination).
The quality of this teaching depends very much on the proficiency of the
teachers in the language. Where this is low, the motivation of pupils is
correspondingly low, often because they see no practical benefit in later life
from acquiring a good knowledge of the language.
As discussed below (see section 4), Irish exists in three main dialect
forms which differ considerably from each other, not least in pronunciation.
None of these is accepted as the standard. (5) This means that schools use one
of the three main dialects during instruction through the medium of Irish.
Normally, the dialect used is determined by region, e.g. Irish-medium schools
in the north of the country use northern Irish, those in the south generally
favour southern Irish and in the broad central region there is a tendency
towards western Irish though this often depends on individual teachers,
perhaps also on school policy.
Educational books and teaching material for Irish either avoid the
issue of dialect by not treating pronunciation at all, e.g. schools grammars
(Christian Brothers 1960, 1977), or by coming down in favour of a particular

 (4)  This name derives from football pools, a type of sports lottery popular in Britain
which the founders tried to emulate in Ireland. The name has no such reference today but
it has been kept for reasons of continuity.
 (5)  It is significant that the grammar published as An Caighdeán Oifigiúil by the
Government of Ireland in 1958 contains no reference to pronunciation.
 Irish 977

dialect, e.g. Ó Sé and Sheils (2001) for Munster Irish or Ó Siadhail (1980) for
Connemara Irish. Overall treatments of the phonetics of Irish are unusual,
see Hickey (2011).

1.4.1 Irish-medium schools

A development of recent decades which will doubtlessly affect the way

Irish is spoken and transmitted in the future is the spread of Irish-medium
primary and post-primary schools, called Gaelscoileanna ‘Irish schools’.
These are found outside of the Gaeltacht throughout the entire country,
especially in the larger cities, including those in Northern Ireland (Mac
Póilín 1997), and have becoming particularly popular of late. In all there are
about 200 such schools servicing over 30,000 pupils in both primary and
secondary schools.
The reasons for the popularity of the Gaelscoileanna are not all derived
from a commitment to Irish. Many parents send their children to Irish-medium
schools because the results in the final school examinations are generally
better. The teacher to pupil ratio tends to be more favourable and the schools
are often better equipped then their English-medium counterparts.
The standard of Irish taught in these schools varies greatly. In those cases
where native speakers from the Gaeltachta’ are employed as teachers the
standard is obviously high. However, there are not anything like enough native
speakers to service the ever increasing number of Irish-medium schools so
that the quality depends on language awareness and commitment on the part
of non-native teachers.
To provide support for the Irish-medium schools a voluntary national
organisation was established in 1973 as Coiste Náisiúnta na Scoileanna
LánGhaeilge (the National Committee of Irish-medium Schools) and is now
simply called Gaelscoileanna. In its own words, ‘Gaelscoileanna acts as an
intermediary between Irish-medium schools and the Department of Education.
Gaelscoileanna works regularly with committees and parents who wish to
establish Irish-medium schools’ (see the website at www.gaelscoileanna.ie).

1.5 Non-native speakers of Irish

In the current context it should be mentioned that there are many language
enthusiasts throughout Ireland who put much effort into maintaining the
language outside the historically continuous Irish-speaking areas. These
speakers are concentrated in urban centres, chiefly in Dublin, but also in
Belfast (de Brún 2006). They are not native speakers, but their dedication
to the language makes it most likely that this group will be that which will
survive among coming generations and carry the language forward (Ó Murchú
1999). This dedication often carries political overtones, especially in Northern
Ireland where the republican party Sinn Féin offers active support to the Irish
speakers in largely Catholic West Belfast. Indeed they have been pressing for
official recognition of a ‘Gaeltacht Quarter’ in this part of the city.
There are clear linguistic consequences from the survival of non-native
978 R. Hickey

varieties of Irish and the demise of the remaining communities of native

speakers. Both the sound system and the grammar of Irish are affected by
the first language of non-native speakers, viz. English. Enthusiastic but poor
speakers of Irish neglect many distinctions of the language, such as the
application of the initial mutations, the distinction between palatal and non-
palatal sounds and the observation of grammatical gender, not to mention the
syntactic patterns characteristic of native-speaker Irish.

1.6 Irish and the media

Foinse ‘Fountain’ This is an Irish-language newspaper. It was founded

in 1996 and its offices are located in An Cheathrú Rua (Carraroe) in the
Connemara Gaeltacht. It recently ceased independent publication and now
(2012) appears as a supplement to the Irish Independent newspaper on
Wednesdays. There is a support website at www.foinse.ie.
The Irish Times, a major national newspaper in Ireland, though aimed
at an English-speaking audience has a regular feature in Irish, An Teanga
Bheo (‘The living language’) which discusses current affairs and matters of
relevance to a wider audience. The material is also available on the internet
at www.ireland.com/gaeilge/teangabeo.
Radio na Gaeltachta ‘Gaeltacht radio’ Founded in 1972, this is an Irish-
only radio station which broadcasts primarily to the speakers in the northern,
western and southern dialect regions. It provides news and current affairs
coverage for native Irish speakers, but increasingly includes coverage of
broader issues. The radio station has centres in the north, west and south and
the forms of Irish from these regions are represented to roughly equal extents
in the programmes offered. This fact has had a beneficial effect for native
speakers of the various regions: because all main dialects are represented, the
comprehension of different dialects has increased by speakers being exposed
to the speech of people from other dialect regions on this radio station.
Radió na Life ‘Liffey Radio’ This is an Irish-language radio station
providing coverage in the greater Dublin area (‘Liffey’ is the name of the
river on which Dublin is situated). It started broadcasting in 1993 and has
been providing a topical and contemporary service since.
Telefís na Gaeilge ‘Irish television’ Founded in 1996, this is an Irish-
language television station, located in the Connemara Gaeltacht about 30
kilometres west of Galway city. The station is usually known as TG4 (read:
[ti: dgi: kj@hirj], the last element is ceathair, Irish ‘four’). This is because
it was initially planned as the fourth channel of the national broadcasting
corporation Radio Telefís éireann ‘Irish Radio and Television’, normally
shortened to the alphabetism RTE. As opposed to Radio na Gaeltachta,
TG4 does not broadcast exclusively in Irish, a matter on which opinions are
divided. However, it has meant that there is now an ever increasing exposure
of English speakers to Irish on television, especially to native speaker Irish
used by programme presenters. In 2007 TG4 became formally independent
of RTE.
BBC Northern Ireland also devotes some its service to the Irish language.
This is featured in Blas ‘Taste’ (web address: www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/
irish/blas) which includes interviews, news and general information on
 Irish 979

education, sport and the arts.

1.7 Irish language publishing

An Gúm ‘The scheme’ Founded in 1926, this was formerly part of the
Department of Education and is now part of Foras na Gaeilge, the cross-
border institution for the Irish language. For many decades it was the main
Irish-language publisher in Ireland and was also concerned with translation
work from English to Irish and with translations from other (European)
languages. An Gúm also publishes teaching material such as a dictionary as
do educational publishers in Ireland such as Gill and Macmillan. There are
other smaller commercial publishers who produce both fictional and non-
fictional works in Irish. Cló Iar-Chonnachta ‘West Connemara Publishing’,
located in the Connemara Gaeltacht, Coiscéim ‘Footstep’ and Cois Life
‘By the Liffey’, the latter two in Dublin, are examples of active publishers of
Irish language books.

1.8 Dictionaries for Irish

There are a number of dictionaries available for Irish. The standard works
for the modern language are de Bhaldraithe (1957). English-Irish Dictionary.
Ó Dónaill (1977) Foclóir Gaeilge -Béarla [Irish-English dictionary] along
with the older Dinneen (1927 [1924]) Irish - English Dictionary. More recently,
smaller, more practical dictionaries have come on the market, e.g. Mac
Mathúna and Ó Corráin (1997) Collins Pocket Irish Dictionary, Ó Cróinín
(2000) Oxford Pocket Irish Dictionary. There are also two dictionaries by the
government deparment, An Gúm: Foclóir Póca and Foclóir Scoile.
Unfortunately, there is no dictionary of modern Irish with etymological
information (plans exist for a comprehensive dictionary of the modern
language, but nothing has appeared to date). To trace the meaning of a word
through history one must use the Dictionary of the Irish Language (published
by the Royal Irish Academy) which is based on Old and Middle Irish material
(there is a searchable online version of this available at www.edil.ie. However,
there is a modern Irish index for this dictionary, de Bhaldraithe (1981).
Alternatively, one could consult the etymological dictdionary by Vendryes
(1959-78) Lexique étymologique de l’irlandais ancien which, unfortunately,
remains incomplete.

2 Historical background

In linguistic literature, Irish and Scottish Gaelic are referred to collectively

as Q-Celtic. It also includes the extinct variety of the Isle of Man, Manx
Gaelic, which died out in the twentieth w
century. The term Q-Celtic derives
from the fact that Indo-European *k /*k remained unchanged in this section
of Insular Celtic, having shifted to p in Welsh, Cornish and Breton, hence
the designation P-Celtic for the latter three languages (Pedersen 1909-13,
Lewis and Pedersen 1962 [1937], Russell 1995), compare Irish ceann ‘head’,
980 R. Hickey

ceathair ‘four’, mac ‘son’ with Welsh pen, pedwar, mab (< /map/) ‘son’ or
Latin planta ‘plant’ with early Irish cland, later clann.
The proto-Celtic language appeared on the European mainland in the
last centuries BCE. Continental Celtic (Eska and Evans 1993: 26-43) is a
term which is given to Celtic as spoken chiefly in Gaul and on the Iberian
Peninsula (Tovar 1961: 76-90). Between roughly 500 and 300 BC Celtic
speakers moved across to the British Isles. The Celts who came to Ireland
were speakers of Q-Celtic and possibly came through different routes and at
separate times from the P-Celtic speakers who settled in Britain.
A distinctive feature of Celtic vis à vis most of the remaining Indo-
European languages is the loss of initial *p in all positions except adjacent
to a homorganic obstruent (*t, n, s, Hamp 1951: 230). This can be seen by
comparing many Latin forms with their Irish cognates, e.g. Latin pisces
‘fish’ and Irish iasc, Latin poly-and Irish il-. The relationship of Celtic to
other branches of Indo-European is unclear. Formerly scholars thought that
there was an earlier unity between Italic and Celtic on certain morphological
grounds, but this has not been established with certainty.
The location of the Celts in Europe can be determined by considering
two archaeologically defined cultures in the first millennium BC. The first
is the Hallstatt culture from a location in Austria and the second is the La
T ne culture from a location in Switzerland. The Hallstatt culture flourished
during the early Iron Age (c 800-450 BC) and the La T ne culture somewhat
later (c 450-100 BC).
After the coming of the Celts to Britain and Ireland in the first millenium
BC there are no records of their language for many centuries. In Ireland
the first remains are stone inscriptions – Ogham – which appear in the
first centuries AD and which provide the first glimpse of how Q-Celtic had
evolved after its separation from continental forms of Celtic.

3 The history of Irish

3.1 Ogham (400-600)

Ogham is a form of writing in which letters are represented by a series
of horizontal or slanted notches on stone. Other materials such as wood and
bone may have been used for short texts. Ogham inscriptions are found chiefly
in the south and south-west of Ireland, a few in south-west Wales and one or
two remains in north-east Scotland (McManus 1991). The period to which
the Ogham stones belong is known as Primitive Old Irish. The majority of
inscriptions from this period stem from the fifth and sixth centuries and
consist of personal names in the genitive, usually in the formula ‘in memory
of’ or ‘dedicated to’.
Even at this early stage there was a tendency to weaken consonants in
intervocalic position, a prominent feature of later Irish. At first this was a
low-level phonetic phenomena without any consequences for the grammar of
the language as the inherited inflections remained intact.
 Irish 981

3.2 Old Irish (600-900)

The period of early Irish for which remains are available in the Roman
alphabet begins after the Christianisation of Ireland in the fifth century. The
first documents are glosses and marginalia from the mid-eighth century
contained in manuscripts found on the continent in the missionary sites of the
Irish (Thurneysen 1946, Quin 1975). These were in Germany (Codex Paulinus
in Würzburg), Switzerland (Codex Sangallensis in St. Gall with the glossed
version of Priscian’s grammar) and northern Italy (Codex Ambrosianus in
Milan). This period lasted until the end of the ninth century. The single
external event which was most responsible for the demise of insular Old Irish
was the coming of the Vikings in the late eighth century.
By considering Latin loan-words in Irish one can see that part of the
phonological makeup of the language was the lenition which had begun
during the Ogham period, e.g. lebor /ljevqr/ later /ljaur/ from liber ‘book’,
sacart /sagart/ from sacerdos ‘priest’.
The same applies to the Scandinavian loan-words towards the end of
the first millenium, e.g. margadh /marga3/ later /margq/ from marka3r
‘market’. Phonological reduction can also be seen in cluster simplification as
in fuinneog /finjo:g/ from vindauga ‘window’. These developments continue
well into the Middle Ages so that with Anglo-Norman loan-words from the
13th and 14th centuries one has similar lenition, e.g. the voicing evidenced
by bagún from bacun ‘bacon’ or buidéal from botel ‘bottle’.
In Old Irish there is also a phenomenon called vowel affection, a change
in vowel height as determined by the vowel in the following syllable, a type
of umlaut which remained a characteristic of the language for a considerable
time, /o/ became /u/ before a following /i/ and /u/ became /o/ before a
following /a/ or /o/. However, these vowel changes never attained grammatical
status as umlaut did in Germanic.

3.3 Middle Irish (900-1200)

The standard of Old Irish declined in the Middle Irish period, although
no indication of dialect formation is as yet evident. There is uncertainty in
morphology as writers were less sure just what constituted classical Old Irish.
The period drew to a close with the coming of the Normans at the end of the
twelfth century in the south-east of the country.
The simplification of the inflectional system was continued throughout the
Middle Irish period with the nominal and verbal system of Old Irish much
reduced (Dottin 1913). By the end of the Middle Irish period there was no
distinction between genitive and dative with most nouns and the complex
system of verb prefixes had been greatly simplified either by these being
dropped or by being absorbed into the stem of a verb and becoming opaque
as a result.
Independent forms of personal pronouns developed during this period.
The old infixed pronouns were replaced by post-posed independent pronouns
and synthetic forms of pronoun and copula were replaced by an invariable
form of the copula with generic personal pronouns.
982 R. Hickey

Changes in the sound system led to certain realignments. The loss of

/2/ and /3/ – probably in the thirteenth century, O’Rahilly (1926) – resulted
in different outcomes for lenition as an initial mutation (see below). S now
became /h/ and D became J on lenition.

3.4 Early Modern Irish (1200-1600)

This period stretches from the arrival of the Normans to the end of an
independent Gaelic society at the beginning of the seventeenth century as a
consequence of English military successes and the increasing anglicisation
of Ireland. The old form of Irish society in which poets still had a place,
however tenuous, came to an end so that there was no continuation of a
single written standard. Indeed it is unlikely that such a standard would have
survived as it was long since remote from spoken forms of the language. The
anglicisation accelerated a process which had begun long before, it did not
initiate it.
It is in this period that a series of instructions for poets were composed
intending to act as guidelines for those wishing to use the classical standard
for poetic composition at a time when the latter was no longer spoken
anywhere. These are collectively known as the Bardic Syntactical Tracts
(McKenna 1944) or as Irish Grammatical Tracts (Bergin 1915-25) and date
back to the fifteenth century or earlier (Ó Cuív 1965: 142).
This period is characterised by the language of a professional class of
poets called filí. The period itself is known as the aos dána ‘the age of
poetry’ and is referred to in linguistics as Classical Modern Irish (McManus
1994). The writers of the period were mostly secular employees of Irish
courts (witness the quantity of praise-poetry produced, Ó Cuív 1965: 143).
They clung to obsolete norms but were not completely conversant with
the older forms of Irish which they emulated and the result was language
hampered by its own artificiality. In this period the dichotomy of the older
norm and contemporary usage lead to a tension between what was called
ceart na bhfileadh ‘the poets’ standard’ and canamhain ‘speech’, i.e. spoken
Irish of the time.

4 The geography of Irish

The major differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, which

can be observed today, probably go back to the early classical period but
were masked by the use of an artificial written standard by the bardic classes.
Although there is no geographical continuity of Irish-speaking areas along
the western seaboard today, one can nonetheless maintain that forms of
western Irish (in Galway) are intermediary between the south and north, for
instance they show palatalisation of dental stops which have practically no
palatalisation in the south, but which have often been shifted to corresponding
affricates in the north. The prosodic system supports the claim that western
Irish is intermediary between the north and south. While the south has stress
on non-initial long syllables, the west has initial stress with full vowel values
 IRISH 983

for long syllables and the north has the same stress system as the west,
but with shortening of original long vowels in non-initial syllables. These
three possibilities can be illustrated by a word like scadán ‘herring’: south:
[skq/d<:n], west: [/skud<:n], north: [/skadan].

Map 1: Locations of present-day Irish-speaking districts

The size of the Irish-speaking areas has been continually shrinking over
the past few centuries (Hindley 1990, Ó Cuív (ed.) 1969). This trend has
not been arrested despite the efforts of the government of Ireland since in-
dependence in 1922 to support these areas by improving their infrastruc-
ture and generally offering financial assistance to the communities of Irish
speakers.
The collective term for the Irish-speaking areas in Ireland is Gaeltacht
‘Irish region’ (Ó Riagáin 2007). Sometimes a distinction is made between
(1) Fíor-Ghaeltacht, lit. ‘true Irish-area’ referring to those areas with a high-
percentage of speakers (though the threshold for this has not been officially
defined) and (2) Breac-Ghaeltacht, lit. ‘part Irish-area’ with considerably
fewer Irish speakers. Occasionally, the English-speaking areas are referred
to collectively as Galltacht ‘region of the non-Irish’ from the stem Gall-
‘foreign(er)’.
The standard dialect survey of Irish is Heinrich Wagner’s comprehensive
atlas (see Wagner 1958-64). But even when this was being compiled in the mid
twentieth century the speakers were older males whose Irish was frequently
moribund. The situation today is that large tracts of both halves of Ireland
have no historically continuous Irish-speaking areas any more. There are no
such areas in Northern Ireland or in Leinster. In Munster there are remnants
984 R. Hickey

in Ring in Co. Waterford and in Muskerry in Co. Cork (6) along with a more
robust community at the end of the Dingle peninsula in Co. Kerry.
Irish in Mayo receded dramatically in the second half of the ­twentieth
century, so that the studies of de Búrca (1958) and that of Mhac an Fhailigh
(1968) are now of largely historical interest. The areas in coastal Co.
Galway and on the two minor Aran Islands, as well as that on Tory Island
in Donegal and the mainland opposite it, represent the most vibrant com-
munities today.
In the following sections, the main phonological differences between the
dialects of Irish, as recorded in the available literature, are given in summary
form. The references are to individual studies. More general literature is
also available, from the mid-19th century grammar by O’Donovan (1845) to
the influential study by O’Rahilly (1932) to later works like Ó Cuív (1951)
and Ó Siadhail (1989). The main differences between the dialects are to be
found among vowels which is why it is so difficult to arrive at a common
pronunciation for all three main dialect areas (but see Ó Baoill 1986 and
Ó Baoill (ed.) 1990). Most general works on Irish often fudge the issue by
not giving pronunciations (the official standard does not either). One or two
are based on a particular dialect, such as Ó Siadhail (1980) which relies on
western Irish pronunciation. Hickey (2011) is a comprehensive overview of all
dialects and their phonologies with many sound samples on an accompanying
DVD.

4.1 Southern Irish

This refers to a few areas in the southern province of Munster. The main
one is the end of the Dingle Peninsula (Irish: Corca Dhuibhne). The others
comprise a small area on the Iveragh Peninsula, an inland area in Co. Cork,
the island of Cape Clear as well as the area of Ring in West Waterford (see
map above).
For all dialects areas, the reflexes of historical vowels before former
geminate sonorants play an important role in their differentiation. In Southern
Irish the following realisations are found: /i/ > /ai/ cinn ‘heads’, /o/ > /au/
trom ‘heavy’, /a/ > /au/ crann ‘tree’. The following features are also important
in delimiting southern Irish from forms in the west and north.
Word stress Long vowels in non-initial syllables attract stress, e.g. cailín
/ka/lji:nj/ ‘girl’. This may be the result of Anglo-Norman influence (in the
south-east) after the twelfth century as older authors like O’Rahilly seem
to think (1932: 86-98) and certainly applied to many French loanwords, e.g.
buidéal /bq/d je:l/ ‘bottle’.
The main studies of southern Irish are Sjoestedt-Jonval (1931, 1938) and
Ó Sé (1995, 2000) for the Dingle Peninsula (Corca Dhuibhne), Ó Cuív (1944)
for south-west Cork (Muskerry) and Breatnach (1947) for the Ring area.

 (6)  The community on Clear Island off the south-west coast of Cork contains virtually
no native speakers, see Ó Buachalla 2003 for a treatment of this dialect.
 Irish 985

4.2 Western Irish

This refers to forms of Irish spoken west of Galway and on the Aran
Islands. Irish is still an everyday language for most of the population in Cois
Fhairrge (immediately west of Galway city) and the areas around An Cheathrú
Rua (Carraroe), Ros Muc, Cill Chiaráin, Carna (on the peninsula known in
Irish as Iorras Aithneach) further along the coast. This encompasses the area
known as Ceanter na nOileán ‘district of the islands’, especially because the
largest of these, Leitir Móir ‘Lettermore’ is a strong Irish-speaking area.
Western Irish also includes the two smaller Aran Islands (in Galway Bay),
Inis Meáin and Inis Oírr as well as the main island Inis Mór, especially
outside the main town of Cill Rónáin. Western Irish would also include the
area of Túr Mhic éide (Tourmakeady) in south Mayo and that of Béal an
Mhuirthead and Ceathrú Thaidhg in north-west Mayo. However, these areas
do not have anything like the speaker numbers found in south Galway.
Reflexes of historical vowels before former geminate sonorants: /i/ > /i:/
cinn, ‘heads’, /o/ > /u:/ trom ‘heavy’, /a/ > /a:/ [<:] crann ‘tree’.
Word stress Initial stress applies to virtually all words with the exception
of one or two loanwords such as tobac /tq/ba:k/ ‘tobacco’.
The main studies of Western Irish are for Cois Fhairrge (Mid-West Co.
Galway), de Bhaldraithe (1945, 1953a). Iorras Aithneach (West Co. Galway),
Ó Curnáin (2007). Tourmakeady (South Co. Mayo), de Búrca (1958), Iorras
(North-West Mayo), Mhac an Fhailigh (1968).

4.3 Northern Irish

The Irish language is spoken today in two main areas on the coast of Co.
Donegal. The first is in the south-west of this country (Wagner 1979 [1959])
and the second and larger area is in the north-west, particularly the region
around Gaoth Dobhair. Irish is also spoken on Tory Island off the north-west
coast. The Irish term for the Donegal Gaeltacht is Tír Chonaill (‘country of
Connell’). The region in the vicinity of Gaoth Dobhair is often referred to as
Cloich Cheannfhaola (‘Kineely’s stone’).
Reflexes of historical vowels before former geminate sonorants: /i/ > /i/
cinn ‘heads’, /o/ > /v/ trom ‘heavy’, /a/ > /a/ crann ‘tree’.
Word stress Stress is on the first syllable though there is considerable
shortening of post-initial long vowels (as opposed to western Irish), e.g.
sceireog ‘fib, lie’ /'sjkjerjqg/.
The main studies of northern Irish are for Teilinn (South West Co.
Donegal), Wagner (1979 [1959]). Tory Island (North West Co. Donegal),
Hamilton (1974). Ros Goill (North Co. Donegal), Lucas (1979).
The (former) Mayo dialects in the north-west of this county are not
simply transitional between the central western and the northern dialects.
They show a large number of Ulster features due the resettlement of people
from Ulster in north-west Mayo in the 17th century. The Irish of this region
has been studied, in particular in Erris (North-West Co. Mayo) by Mhac
an Fhailigh (1968) and in Achill (West Co. Mayo) by Stockman (1974). See
Ó Dochartaigh (1987) for a general overview.
986 R. Hickey

Raymond Hickey Irish Page 13 of 26

5 Structural description
number of Ulster features due the resettlement of people from Ulster in north-west
5.1 Phonology
Mayo in the 17th century. The Irish of this region has been studied, in particular in
Erris (North-West Co. Mayo) by Mhac an Fhailigh (1968) and in Achill (West Co.
The sound structure of Irish shows a division into consonants and vowels;
Mayo) by Stockman (1974). See Ó Dochartaigh (1987) for a general overview.
there is a length distinction for vowels but there is none for consonants.
5However,
Structuralconsonantal
description length was probably a feature of Irish before the
Middle Irish period (900-1200) and the effects of long consonants on the
vowels
5.1 preceding them can still be seen today. The reflexes of these vowels
Phonology
are an important defining criterion for the different dialects of modern Irish
The sound structure of Irish shows a division into consonants and vowels; there is a
(see the remarks on dialects above).
length distinction for vowels but there is none for consonants. However, consonantal
lengthFor
wasIrish today
probably the main
a feature of Irishphonological
before the Middle feature is the
Irish period distinction
(900-1200) and between
palatal
the effectsand non-palatal
of long consonants on consonants. It applies
the vowels preceding them to can all
still consonants,
be seen today. with the
exception
The reflexes ofof these
/h/, vowels
and isareanan essential element
important defining of both
criterion thedifferent
for the morphological
and lexical
dialects of modern structure
Irish (see of
the the language.
remarks on dialectsPhonetically,
above). palatal consonants are
produced by today
For Irish raising the the
main middle of the
phonological tongue
feature is the towards
distinction the palate. This
between
provides the constriction which is the acoustic cue for such
palatal and non-palatal consonants. It applies to all consonants, with the exception of
/h/, and is an essential element of both the morphological and lexical structure of the
segments. Palatal
sounds Phonetically,
language. are indicated in consonants
palatal transcription by placing
are produced a superscript
by raising [ j] after the
the middle of the
soundtowards
tongue in question.
the palate. This provides the constriction which is the acoustic cue
Non-palatal
for such segments. consonants
Palatal soundsare are generally
indicated invelarised
transcriptionwith by the middle
placing a of the
tongue lowered
superscript ["] after theand
sound thein question.
back raised towards the velum. Acoustically, this
gives Non-palatal
a hollow consonants
sound toarenon-palatal segments
generally velarised with thewhich
middleindicates clearly that
of the tongue
they are the opposite of palatal sounds with the constriction
lowered and the back raised towards the velum. Acoustically, this gives just described.
a hollow
sound to non-palatal segments which indicates clearly that they are the opposite of
Non-palatal sounds are indicated in transcription by placing a superscript [K]
palatal sounds with the constriction just described. Non-palatal sounds are indicated
after
in the sound
transcription in question.
by placing a superscript [K] after the sound in question.
When describing
When describing the the sound
sound structure
structure of Irishofthere
Irisharethere
distinctareadvantages
distinct toadvantages
to gained
be be gained from treating
from treating the palatal theandpalatal and non-palatal
non-palatal version of sounds version of sounds as
as pairs
pairs indicated
indicated by a singleby a single
symbol symbol
as shown as showntable.
in the following in the following table.
non-palatal member palatal member
P p post, ‘job’ p" pioc, ‘pick’
B b bó, ‘cow’ b" beo, ‘alive’
M m mála, ‘bag’ m" meabhar, ‘mind’
F f fág, ‘leave’ f" fionn, ‘bright, ‘fair’
V v bhog, ‘moved’ an v" bhí, ‘was’
mhór, ‘very big’ an-mhillteach, ‘very evil’
T t tóg, ‘take’ t" teach, ‘house’
d" deoch, ‘drink’
D d dubh, ‘black’
N n naoi, ‘nine’ n" neart, ‘strength’
L l luí, ‘lie’ l" léamh, ‘read’
R r roinnt, ‘somewhat’ r" i rith, ‘during’
S s súil, ‘anticipation’ s" siúl, ‘walking’
K k cá, ‘where’ k" ceart,
Raymond‘correct’
Hickey Irish Page 14 of 26
G g gach, ‘every’ g" gearr, ‘short’
X x chun, ‘in order to’ x" cheann, ‘head.GEN’
J J ghlach, ‘took’ J" a ghiall, ‘his jaw’

N n a nglór, ‘their voice’ n" a ngeall, ‘their promise’

(h a hainm, ‘her name’ h a hiníon, ‘her daughter’ )

This notation captures a linguistically significant generalisation: there is no

morphological process in Irish which is sensitive to the distinction between palatal
and non-palatal sounds (Hickey 2011). For instance, the initial mutations apply to
words irrespective of whether they begin with a palatal or non-palatal segment.
 IRISH 987

This notation captures a linguistically significant generalisation: there

is no morphological process in Irish which is sensitive to the distinction
between palatal and non-palatal sounds (Hickey 2011). For instance, the
initial mutations apply to words irrespective of whether they begin with a
palatal or non-palatal segment.
In the sound system of Irish it is important to distinguish the status which
palatal and non-palatal segments can have. On the one hand palatal – non-
palatal sounds are part of the lexical structure of words. For instance, the
initial palatal sound in ní [nji:] ‘wash’ distinguishes this word lexically from
naoi [nKi:] ‘nine’. This is not part of a process but is a property of words in
Irish. For that reason, I use the pair of terms palatality – non-palatality to
denote this property.
1a Palatality Lexical property of words
1b Non-Palatality Lexical property of words
2a Palatalisation Morphonological process
2b De-Palatalisation Morphonological process

On the other hand palatal – non-palatal sounds are involved in an essential

process of Irish morphology. The process is called palatalisation with its
mirror counterpart, de-palatalisation. This is the change in the feature
[palatal] from a positive to a negative value, or the reverse, to indicate a
change in grammatical category, e.g. from nominative to genitive or from
singular to plural. The basic principle is one of alternation in the codas of
syllables: the final sound or sounds in a syllable shift in value. All consonants
in a coda are affected by this as is the vowel preceding these, assuming that
it is phonemically a short vowel, e.g. olc [v1k] ‘evil.NOM’ and oilc [eljkj]
‘evil.GEN’.
Because the change from [+palatal] to [-palatal] was triggered historically
by an ending in which the vowel was non-palatal in character, de-palatalisation
in modern Irish is associated with suffixation, e.g. cáin ‘tax.NOM’ and méid
na cánach ‘the amount of the tax.GEN’.
The vowel system of Irish shows a distinction between long and short
vowels across the dialects. The realisation and occurrence of vowels vary
between the dialects and vowel differences are the primary indicators of
different regional accents.
Long vowels
988 R. HICKEy

5.2 Morphology

In the history of Celtic, inherited inflections were lost due to phonetic

reduction of unstressed syllables. Various sandhi phenomena also occurred
where the onsets of lexical words were lenited (fricativised) or nasalised if
the preceding word ended in a vowel or nasal respectively. These low-level
phonetic changes were later functionalised. In pre-Old Irish a system evolved,
known as initial mutation in which at least three distinctions were available
at the front end of lexical words (gemination may also have been an option,
but this was lost later), giving the following options in Modern Irish.
Phonetic change Example Linguistic term
1) unaltered onset baile ‘town, home’ zero mutation
2) fricativised onset sa bhaile ‘at home’ lenition
3) nasalised onset a mbaile ‘their town’ nasalisation
Parallel to the system of initial mutation an additional means of
grammatical distinction, palatalisation, developed at the end of a word (or a
base consisting of a root and a possible root extension). This was the result
of co-articulation in the environment of high vowels, typically found in
inflectional endings. Palatalisation is indicated in writing by the letters i or e
before and/or after the nucleus vowel of a syllable (see section on orthography
below).
After its functionalisation, palatalisation contrasted in the grammar with
non-palatalisation. In Modern Irish palatalisation and mutations have two
domains.
 Raymond Hickey Irish Page 16 of 26

non-palatalisation. In Modern Irish palatalisation

Irish and mutations have two domains.
989
1) Lexical Palatalisation distinguishes many citation forms, beag ‘small’
1) Lexical Palatalisation
bog ‘soft’; siúldistinguishes
‘to walk’, súil many
‘eye’;citation forms,
cás ‘case’ cáis beag
‘cheese’.
‘small’
Lenition bog ‘soft’;
marks head‘toin walk’,
thesiúl súil ‘eye’;
compounds cás ‘case’
seanfhear (< sean +
fear)‘cheese’.
cáis ‘old man’Lenition marks‘very
an-ghnóthach the busy’
head (<in ancompounds
+ gnóthach).
seanfhear (< sean + fear) ‘old man’ an-ghnóthach ‘very
2) Morphological Palatalisation and mutations distinguish different cases,
busy’ (< an + gnóthach).
number, gender, etc. The nominative of masculines has no
2) Morphological Palatalisation and mutations distinguish different cases,
lenition, an múinteoir ‘the teacher’, but with feminines it does:
number, gender, etc. The nominative of masculines has
noanlenition,
bhliain an‘the year’. In‘the
múinteoir the teacher’,
genitive but
the with
reverse is the case
feminines
it does: an bhliain ‘the year’. In the genitive the reverse are
(masculines show lenition; feminines do not). Mutations
isalso
the caseimportant
(masculinesin signalling
show lenition; coreferentiality
feminines do and not). the
Mutations are also important in signalling coreferentiality e.g.
relationship between dependents and their heads,
and cabhair [fem]
the relationship
adjectives between mhórdependents
[lenited] and
‘a bigtheir : cúrsa
heads,
help’
e.g. adjectives
[masc] cabhair [fem]
casta [non-lenited] ‘a mhór [lenited]
complicated ‘a big help’ :
course’.
cúrsa [masc] casta [non-lenited] ‘a complicated course’.
It is common to have a combination of initial mutations and palatal/ non-palatal
It is common
alternations withintoa have
singlea combination
word. These can of initial mutations
be classified and palatal/
according to thenon-
changes
palatal alternations within a single word. These can be classified
which can occur on the left and the right margin of lexical bases as evident from the according
to the changes
following whichand
description canexample.
occur on the left and the right margin of lexical
bases as evident from the following description and example.
(4) Left margin: 1) Zero mutation 2) Lenition 3) Nasalisation
Right margin: 1) Palatalisation 2) De-palatalisation

Base onset nucleus coda

C- -V- -C
voiceless stop palatal (affects any type
voiced stop non-palatal of consonant)
fricative
nasal
final mutation where
initial mutation with consonant quality alters;
manner of articulation pairs exist for all consonants
affected (rarely place) (except /h/)

Base: bás ‘death’ Onset Coda

a bhás ‘his death’ Lenited Non-palatal
a bás ‘her death’ Neutral Non-palatal
a mbás ‘their death’ Nasalised Non-patalal
am a bháis ‘time of his death’ Lenited Palatal
am a báis ‘time of her death’ Neutral Palatal
am a mbáis ‘time of their death’ Nasalised Palatal

5.3 Syntax
5.3 Syntax

Irish,
Irish, along
along with
with thethe otherCeltic
other Celticlanguages,
languages,isisaa post-specifying
post-specifying language.
language. The
The canonical
canonical word word order
order is VSO.is This
VSO.order Thismust
orderbemust be to
adhered adhered
and if to and if of a
elements
elementsare
sentence of amoved
sentence arefront
to the movedfor to
thethe front for
purpose the purpose ofthen
of topicalisation, topicalisation,
this is done via
then this is done via clefting.
clefting.
(5) a. Chuaigh Síle go Sasana anuraidh.
[went Sheila to England last-year]
‘Sheila went to England last year.’
990 R. Hickey

b. Is go Sasana a chuaigh Síle anuraidh.

[is to England that went Sheila last-year]
‘It’s to England that Sheila went last year.’
In keeping with its post-specifying nature, Irish places adjectives after
nouns and the genitive after the nominative.
(6) a. leabhar spéisiúl b. leabhar Sheáin
[book interesting] [book.NOM John.GEN]
‘an interesting book.’ ‘John’s book’
The word order nominative + genitive is often used as an equivalent
to English compounds, e.g. cárta phoist [card post.GEN] ‘postcard’,
siopa leabhar [shop book.GEN-PL] ‘bookshop’. Post-specification applies
irrespective of the complexity of the noun-modifying phrase as seen from
the following examples.
(7) a. inneal nua múchta tine ‘new fire engine’
[machine new extinguished fire]
b. lucht slat iascaireachta ‘people who fish using rods’
[people rods fishing.GEN]
c. seribhís bailiú broscair ‘rubbish collecting service’
[service collecting rubbish.GEN]

5.3.1 The verbal area

The verb system of Irish has been greatly simplified since the earliest
period. At present the system has three tense distinctions – present, past and
future – and a formal distinction between indicative and subjunctive. These
distinctions are made by inflectional endings, and in the past and subjunctive,
by an initial mutation as well. Because of the large number of former verb
forms, many suppletive forms survive rendering the paradigms of common
verbs irregular.

Non-finite verb forms

There is no infinitive in Irish. What corresponds to that of English is a

non-finite verb form, known as the ‘verbal noun’ (Christian Brothers 1977:
126-130), abbreviated as ‘VN’ in the following, which can be the equivalent
of an infinitive complement or the progressive in English.
(8) a. Ba mhaith leis dul (VN) amach. ‘He wants to go out.’
[would like with-him going out]
b. Tá Brian ag foghlaim (VN) na Fraincise. ‘Brian is learning French.’
[is Brian at learning French.GEN]
When this non-finite verb form occurs with sentences expressing purpose,
the preposition chun ‘in order to’ is found.
(9) Chuaigh Nóra amach chun móin a fháil. ‘Nora went out to get turf.’
[went Nora out in-order-to turf get.VN]
 Irish 991

The infinitival phrase has the word order Obj + Verb.NON-FINITE with
the particle a before the verb form much like English to. This applies to any
such structure, irrespective of whether the sentence expresses purpose or not.
For an infinitival phrase in the negative, gan ‘without’, i.e. ‘not to’, is used
instead of a.
(10) a. Mhol sé dúinn teach a cheannach. ‘He advised us to buy a house.’
[advised he to-us house to buy.VN]
b. Dúirt sí linn gan a bheith dána. ‘She told us not to misbehave.’
[told she with-us without be misbehaved]

5.3.2 The nominal and pronominal areas

Nouns and determiners

In Irish, nouns are distinguished by gender and case in a manner which

derives ultimately from Indo-European. There are two genders and two cases
(nominative and genitive), although previously there were more and a few
opaque examples of earlier cases still exist, e.g. in éirinn ‘in Ireland’, which
is a former dative.
Irish has only one article, the definite article. In an indefinite context there
is no article, so that the absence of an article is equivalent to the indefinite
in English.
(11) a. An carr nua a cheannaigh sí. ‘The new car she bought.’
[the car new that bought she]
b. Tá carr nua ag teastáil uaithi. ‘She needs a new car.’
[is car new at need.VN from-her]
The range of the definite article is greater than English and it is used in
statements of a general nature.
(12) a. An teangeolaíocht [the linguistics] ‘linguistics’
b. An fhealsúnacht [the philosophy] ‘philosophy’
c. An bheirt agaibh [the both at-you] ‘both of you’
d. An chuid is mó di [the part is most of it] ‘most of it’
e. Tá an tsláinte go dona leis. ‘His health is bad.’
[is the health badly with-him]
f. Is tusa an fear cliste. ‘You’re a clever man indeed.’
[is you.EMPHATIC the man clever]

Personal pronouns

Irish has a formal distinction between first and second person singular
personal pronouns, tú ‘you.SG’ and sibh ‘you.PL’, although it does not use
the latter for formal address (as opposed to Scottish Gaelic where such usage
exists).
(13) a. An bhfuil tú in ann canadh? ‘Can you.SG sing?’
b. Ar ghlac sibh an cuireadh? ‘Did you.PL get the invitation?’
992 R. Hickey

Demonstrative pronouns
These are formed in Irish by using the definite article before a noun and
the adverbs sin ‘that’ or seo ‘this’ immediately after the noun in question.
Demonstratives are very common in Irish and together with a prepositional
pronoun, usually a form of ag ‘at’, are frequently used to express possession
or relevance. There is also a third demonstrative indicating distance, úd ‘over
there’, comparable to archaic yonder in English.
(14) a. An teach sin ‘That house’ b. An ceann seo ‘This one’
[the house that] [the one this]
c. An baile seo againne ‘Our town’ d. An cnoc úd ‘Yonder hill’
[the town this at-us] [the hill yonder]

5.3.3 The prepositional area

Prepositions play a greater role in Irish compared to English. Where one
has a verb in English, one frequently finds a noun in Irish, due to the strong
nominalisation tendency of the language. In such situations, syntactic relations
like subject and object are frequently expressed by means of prepositions
with personal pronouns. These combinations resulted in the earliest stages of
Irish in synthetic forms of preposition plus pronoun, a few examples of which
are given in the following. Because of the clarity of the semantic relations
which are expressed by such prepositional pronouns, sentences may occur in
which no verb is present.
(15) a. Tá dhá orlach agam air. ‘I am two inches taller than him.’
[is two inches at-me on-him]
b. Tháinig meirg orainn chuige. ‘We grew angry with him.’
[came anger to-him on-us]
c. Níl seachaint agat air. ‘You cannot avoid it.’
[is-not avoidance at-you on-it]
d. Seo chugainn í. ‘Here she is coming towards us.’
[here to-us she]
There are also more figurative usages of such prepositional pronouns.
For instance, the preposition air ‘on’ is frequently employed to express the
relevance of an action to the speaker.
(16) a. D’imigh an siúinéir orm. ‘The carpenter left me.’
[went the carpenter on-me]
b. Múchadh an tine orm. ‘The fire went out on me.’
[extinguished the fire on-me]
c. Ghoid siad an carr orm. ‘They stole the car on me.’
[stole they the car on-me]
The preposition in has a metaphorical usage which relies on the
combination of in ‘in’ plus é ‘it’ (= ann) and which expresses existence.
(17) a. Drochlá a bhí ann. ‘It was a bad day.’
[bad-day that was in-it]
b. Sin an méid atá ann. ‘That’s all there is.’
[that the amount that-is in-it]
 Irish 993

5.4 Lexis

The vocabulary of modern Irish shows many layers resulting from its
history. There are of course inherited words of Indo-European stock, but also
many older loans. The main sources of these are Latin during the Old Irish
period and afterwards, Old Norse loans from the Scandinavian period (ninth
to eleventh centuries), Anglo-Norman words from the end of the twelfth
century onwards. In addition to these, there are many loans from English,
some stemming from the early period of English in Ireland, i.e. before 1600,
and many others from more recent times.
(18) Inherited Indo-Euopean words
fear ‘man’, bean ‘woman’, deich ‘ten’, céad ‘hundred’
Latin
manach (< L monachus) ‘monk’, cill (< L cella) ‘church’, cáis
(< L caseus) ‘cheese’, corp (< L corpus) ‘body’
Old Norse
margadh (< Old Norse markadr) ‘market’, seol (< ON segl) ‘sail’,
bróg (< ON brók) ‘shoe’
Anglo-Norman
páiste (< AN page) ‘child’, garsún (< AN gar on) ‘boy’, dainséar
(< AN danger) ‘danger’
Older English loans
faoitín ‘whiting’, bácús ‘bakehouse’, halla ‘hall’, seacéad ‘jacket’
Recent English loans
ficsean ‘fiction’, coiminiséir ‘commissioner’, telefís ‘television’
The position with recent English loans is fluid: many words are used with
more or less their original form, i.e. one is dealing with code-switching. This
occurs not just with poor speakers of Irish but with native speakers as well.
Indeed the latter very often have a more relaxed attitude to code-switching,
integrating the English words into the grammar of Irish in the process, e.g.
Ná bí ag rusháil back amáireach. ‘Don’t be rushing back tomorrow’, Bhí an-
night aici san óstán nua ‘She had a great night at the new hotel’.
Whether one can regard the equivalents to English as established in Irish
frequently depends on register. There are many calques on English compounds
and phrases which are found in formal and technical writing in an attempt
to reach an Irish equivalent. Some of these are English stems with an Irish
verbal ending, e.g. brabhsáil ‘browse’. Some are translations, piece by piece
of English originals, e.g. idirghabhalaí [between-goer] ‘mediator’, íoslódáil
[down load] ‘download’, bogearraí [soft goods] ‘software’, sruthlíneach
‘streamlined’. Others are semantic equivalents created in Irish, often to
neo-classical words in English, e.g. halla éisteachta [hall hearing.GEN]
‘auditorium’, ubhchruthach [egg-shaped] ‘oval’, neamhshuim [non-interest]
‘indifference’, ardú céime [rise level.GEN] ‘promotion’.
Apart from word formation, Irish has a complex system of word formation
by which it can create new words from native lexical stock. Compounding
is a frequent device resulting in new meanings, e.g. iargúlta (< iar ‘back,
west’ + cúlta ‘cornered’) ‘remote’, ainbhios (< ain ‘not’ + fios ‘knowledge’)
‘ignorance’ or insealbhú (in ‘in’ + sealbhú ‘possession’) ‘acquisition’.
994 R. Hickey

There also exist a series of productive prefixes which add specificiable

meaning to bases. The following is a small selection which illustrate the
principle.
(19) ath-‘re-’
ath + aontú ‘re-unification’
ath + bhunú ‘re-establishment’
ath + chóiriú ‘to renovate’
do-‘negative prefix’
do + chreidte ‘incredible’
do + dhéanta ‘difficult, impossible’
frith-‘anti-, counter-’
frithbhuaic ‘anticlimax’
frithchaith ‘to reflect’
il-‘poly-’
ildaite ‘colourful’
ilghnéitheach ‘diverse, various’
sain-‘special, particular, specific’
saineolaí ‘expert, specialist’
sainmhiniú ‘definition’

5.4 Alphabet and spelling system

The orthography of modern Irish presents certain difficulties for three

main reasons: (1) the many changes which the language has undergone since
the Early Modern Irish period are not always reflected in the orthography,
(2) the present-day standard as laid out in the Caighdeán Oifigiúil, ‘official
standard’ (Government of Ireland 1957), does not represent any one particular
dialect exclusively but is rather an amalgam of features from all three main
dialect groupings in the North, West and South and (3) there are inherent
difficulties in representing the phonology Irish via Latin letters.
The alphabet consists basically of the following 13 consonant and 5 vowel
graphemes: b, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, t; a, o, u, i, e. Eight Latin letters,
which are found in English, do not occur in Irish, namely j, k, q, v, w, x,
y, z (some of these may occur in technical loanwords or names but are not
significant for the spoken language). The consonant graphemes are adequate
for representing the consonant phonemes of Irish given a few combinatory
devices, notably (1) the use of ng to indicate the velar nasal [n], (2) the use of
h after a consonant grapheme to indicate a fricative corresponding in place of
articulation to the stop represented by the simple grapheme, e.g. ch represents
the fricative /x/ going on the convention of using c for /k/. However, historical
developments have served to render this principle opaque, e.g. dh indicates
/J/ and sh, th both indicate /h/. In word-medial and word-final position both
dh and gh, and frequenlty bh and mh as well, are indicators of vowel quality
and are not pronounced as consonants.
The consonant inventory of Irish must fulfil several functions. It must show
the quality of two sets of consonants, non-palatal and palatal respectively. Here
Irish is presented with the same problem as the Slavic languages written with
the Latin alphabet (west and some south Slavic languages). But it has neither
a palatal sign nor in some instances two vowel graphemes as in Russian. The
 Irish 995

indication of consonant quality is a task performed by vowels. An additional

complication is that many consonant graphemes have no phonetic realisation
as they are simply left over from an earlier stage of the language when they
were pronounced. While it is true that the spelling reform of 1948 did away
with the most obvious inconsistencies in spelling it by no means created
a phonetically accurate alphabet. In the following the functions of written
vowels and consonants in Modern Irish are outlined briefly.

5.4.1 Vowels

Written vowels in Irish can represent phonetic vowels or they can serve
to indicate the consonantal quality of adjacent consonants. There is a rule of
orthography which requires that each consonant be flanked on both sides by
a similar consonant quality indicator.
(20) velarity indicators palatality indicators
a, o, u i, e
If Irish orthography were consistent each syllable would consist of three
vowels: a phonetic vowel indicator flanked on both sides by a consonant
quality indicator. This is in fact found in a few cases.
(21) feoil /f j o:lj / ‘meat’
e, i palatality indicators
o phonetic vowel indicator
However, most vowel graphemes serve the function of indicating
consonant quality and the vocalic nucleus of a syllable at the same time.
A vowel grapheme may indicate the quality of the consonant to the left or
right of it or both, e.g. teach /tjax/ ‘house’, lóin /lo:nj/ ‘lunch.GEN’, lón /lo:n/
‘lunch.NOM’.

5.4.2 Consonants

The letter /h/ is placed after stops to indicate that they are lenited, e.g.
b  +  L= bh, d + L= dh, etc. It is also found to indicate the glottal fricative
which appears on zero mutation before vowel-initial words, e.g. a h-ainm /
a hanqm/ ‘her name’.
Among the fricatives of Irish only S is an original independent phoneme.
F arose in pre-Old Irish from the fortition of /w/, cf. Old Irish fer and Latin
vir, and of course it later came into the language with loanwords. The
other fricatives, V, X, J, derive from historical lenition. Irish does not use
a single grapheme for these but two, the Latin letter for the corresponding
stop followed by h. Those consonants which result from lenition must be
represented by the original consonant plus a postposed h. This explains the
orthography of words such as seilbh /s j el j iv j / ‘possession’ and the fact that V
does not occur initially in Irish except as the result of lenition and also that
F has two graphemic representations in Irish: fáil /f<:lj/ ‘getting’, a phíopa
/q f j i:pq/ ‘his pipe’ depending on whether it stands for an independent or a
dependent phoneme.
996 R. Hickey

The mutation nasalisation is indicated by placing the consonant resulting

from nasalisation before the consonant subject to it: bád ~ a mbád /q m<:d/
‘their boat’, teach ~ a dteach /q d j ax/ ‘their house’. There are difficulties with
this procedure, however. Firstly, as there is no single grapheme for V in Irish,
bh must be prefixed to F when this is nasalised: feoil ~ a bhfeoil /q vjo:lj/
‘their meat’. Secondly, as Irish has no grapheme for /n/ n is prefixed to g and
read as a velar nasal before the velar stop. Vowels which are nasalised also
take a prefixed n, cf. bhur ngalar /vu:r nalqr/ ‘your.PL disease’, ár n-óige
/<:r no:gjq/ ‘our youth’.

6 Conclusion: Outlook for Irish

Irish is a language with a long history and a considerable body of both

fictional literature and language research work connected with it. Although
formerly the native language of several million people it has been reduced
to some tens of thousands who use the language as their first means of
communication in living and historically continuous communities. Apart
from this, there are many people in present-day Ireland with a strong interest
in the language and its culture. Given that the latter group is numerically
by far the greater, it is probably their forms of Irish which will survive into
the twenty first century. Public support for the language, both within Ireland
and through the official recognition of Irish by the European Union, is
important in providing a social framework in which the language can prosper.
Certain issues about the language seem intractable, such as the inconsistent
orthography or the question of what dialect might be taken as standard.
However, these would be surmountable if the language was perceived as
fully functional for modern life. Whether the language will not only survive
but perhaps spread within Ireland is a question which ultimately rests on its
perception as a medium fit for use in contemporary Irish society.

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