Irish orthography


Irish orthography is the set of conventions used to write the Irish language. A spelling reform in the mid-20th century led to An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, the modern standard written form used by the Government of Ireland, which regulates both spelling and grammar. The reform removed inter-dialectal silent letters, simplified some letter sequences, and modernised archaic spellings to reflect modern pronunciation, but it also removed letters pronounced in some dialects but not in others.
Irish spelling represents all Irish dialects to a high degree despite their considerable phonological variation, e.g. crann is read in Mayo and Ulster, in Galway, or in Munster. Some words may have dialectal pronunciations not reflected by their standard spelling, and they sometimes have distinct dialectal spellings to reflect this.

Alphabet

has been the writing system used to write Irish since the 5th century, when it replaced Ogham, which was used to write Primitive Irish and Old Irish. Prior to the mid-20th century, Gaelic type was the main typeface used to write Irish; now, it is usually replaced by Roman type. The use of Ogham and Gaelic type today is restricted to decorative or self-consciously traditional contexts. The dot above a lenited letter in Gaelic type is usually replaced by a following in Roman type.

Letters and letter names

Grapheme to phoneme correspondence

In grapheme to phoneme correspondence tables on this page:
  • "U" stands for Mayo and Ulster Irish, "C" for southern Connacht Irish, and "M" for Munster Irish.
  • Initially and finally mean word initial or final unless stated otherwise.
  • means silent, i.e. that the letter are not pronounced.
  • The IPA transcriptions of examples on this page are in Connacht Irish.
See Irish phonology for an explanation of the symbols used and Irish initial mutations for an explanation of eclipsis and lenition.

Consonants

s are generally "broad" when beside and "slender" when beside. Irish orthography does not allow consonant letters or digraphs to be doubled ; in compound words which would result in doubled consonants, they are broken up by a hyphen.

Vowels

sequences are common in Irish spelling due to the "caol le caol agus leathan le leathan" rule, i.e. that the vowels on either side of any consonant must be both slender or both broad, to unambiguously determine if the consonant are broad or slender. An apparent exception is, which is followed by a broad consonant despite the.
The pronunciation of vowels in Irish is mostly predictable from the following rules:
  • Unstressed short vowels are generally reduced to.
  • before or and bordering either side of are silent, but mark a slender consonant. This is true for both long and short vowels.
  • have multiple pronunciations that depend on adjacent consonants.
  • Accented vowels represent long vowels and in digraphs and trigraphs containing them, surrounding unaccented vowels are silent, but there are several exceptions, e.g. when preceded by two unaccented vowels.
  • Accented vowels in succession are both pronounced, e.g. séú "sixth", ríúil "royal, kingly, majestic", báíocht "sympathy", etc.
  • and are long before, e.g. fiáin "wild", ruóg "twine"
  • A following lengthens some vowels and in Munster and Connacht. ⟨rr⟩ rarely ever occurs after a vowel other than ⟨a⟩.
  • A following syllable-final or word-final may lengthen or diphthongise some vowels depending on dialect.

    Short vowels followed by

When followed by, a short vowel usually forms a diphthong or lengthens. In most dialects, this diphthong or lengthened vowel carries over to a neighbouring unstressed vowel.

Epenthesis

After a short vowel, an unwritten epenthetic gets inserted between + , when within a morpheme boundary, e.g. gorm "blue", dearg "red", dorcha "dark", ainm "name", deilgneach "prickly, thorny"’ leanbh "child", airgead "silver, money". The main exception to this is which is mainly used for or.
Epenthesis does not occur after long vowels and diphthongs, e.g. téarma "term" or dualgas "duty", or across morpheme boundaries, e.g. garmhac "grandson", an-chiúin "very quiet", carrbhealach "carriageway, roadway".
In Munster, epenthesis also occurs across morpheme boundaries, when follow or , and when follows.

Irregularities

In verb forms some letters and letter combinations are pronounced differently from elsewhere:
Outside of verbs suffixes, the following words are pronounced irregularly for their spelling:
  • ⟨ai⟩ is pronounced in the following words: daibhir "poor", raibh "to be ", and saibhir "rich".
  • The preposition ag "at", is pronounced, as if spelled ⟨oig⟩. This carries over into inflected forms aige "at him" and aici "at her".
  • * When used as a particle indicating progressive verbs, ag is pronounced regularly as.
  • The prepososition ar "on" is pronounced, as if spelled ⟨oir⟩. Its inflected forms air " on him" and uirthi "on her" are pronounced and, respectively.
  • beag "small" is pronounced, as if part of the group below.
  • ⟨eo⟩ is pronounced in four words: anseo "here", deoch "drink", eochair "key", and seo "this", using a short vowel.
  • féin "self" is often pronounced, as if spelled ⟨héin⟩.

    Diacritics

currently uses one diacritic, the acute accent, though traditionally a second was used, the overdot. If diacritics are unavailable, e.g. on a computer using ASCII, the overdot is replaced by a following, e.g. Ḃí sé → Bhí sé "He/It was" and there is no standard for replacing an acute accent, though sometimes it is indicated by a following slash, e.g. fírinne → fi/rinne "truth".
The acute accent fada "long is used to indicate a long vowel, as in bád "boat". However, there are other conventions to indicate a long vowel, such as:
  • A following, e.g. ard "high", eirleach "destruction", dorn "fist", and, in Connacht, a word-final, e.g. am "time".
  • The digraphs, e.g. aerach "gay", maol "bare", ceol "music".
  • The tri/tetragraphs, e.g. comharsa "neighbour", Mumhain "Munster".
  • and before or, e.g. fiáin "wild", ruóg "twine".
The overdot was traditionally used to indicate lenition, though An Caighdeán exclusively uses a following for this purpose. In Old Irish, the overdot was only used for, while the following was used for and the lenition of other letters was not indicated. Later the two methods were used in parallel to represent lenition of any consonant until the standard practice became to use the overdot in Gaelic type and the following in Roman type. Thus the dotted letters are equivalent to letters followed by a, i.e..
Lowercase has no tittle in Gaelic type. However, as printed and electronic material like books, newspapers and web pages use Roman type almost invariably, the tittle is generally shown. Irish does not graphemically distinguish dotted i and dotless ı, i.e. they are not different letters as they are in, e.g. Turkish and Azeri.

Punctuation

Irish punctuation is similar to English. An apparent exception is the Tironian et which abbreviates the word agus "and", like the ampersand abbreviates "and" in English. It is generally substituted by a seven in texts.
A hyphen is used in Irish after when prefixed to a masculine vowel-initial word as an initial mutation, e.g. an t-arán "the bread", a n-iníon "their daughter". However, it is omitted when the vowel is capitalised, e.g. an tAlbanach "the Scotsman", Ár nAthair "Our Father". No hyphen is used when is prefixed to a vowel-initial word, e.g. a hiníon "her daughter".
A hyphen is also used in compound words under certain circumstances:
  • between two vowels, e.g. mí-ádh "misfortune"
  • between two similar consonants, e.g. droch-chaint "bad language", grod-díol "prompt payment"
  • in a three-part compound, e.g. buan-chomhchoiste "permanent joint committee"
  • after the prefixes do-, fo-, so- before a word beginning with, e.g. do-bhlasta "bad tasting", fo-ghlac "subsume", so-mharfacht "mortality"
  • in capitalised titles, e.g. An Príomh-Bhreitheamh "the Chief Justice"
  • after an- "very" and dea- "good", e.g. an-mhór "very big", dea-mhéin "goodwill"
An apostrophe is used to indicate an omitted vowel in the following cases:
  • the prepositions de "from" and do "to" both become d' before a vowel or + vowel, as in Thit sí d'each "She fell from a horse" and Tabhair d'fhear an tí é "Give it to the landlord"
  • the possessive pronouns mo "my" and do "your " become m' and d' before a vowel or + vowel, as in m'óige "my youth", d'fhiacail "your tooth"
  • the preverbal particle do becomes d' before a vowel or + vowel, as in d'ardaigh mé "I raised", d'fhanfadh sé "he would wait"
  • the copular particle ba becomes b' before a vowel or + vowel, as in B'ait liom é sin "I found that odd" and b'fhéidir "maybe". However, ba is used before the pronouns é, í, iad, as in Ba iad na ginearáil a choinnigh an chumhacht "It was the generals who kept the power"

    Capitalisation

rules are similar to English. However, a prefixed letter remains in lowercase when the base initial is capitalised. For text written in all caps, the prefixed letter is kept in lowercase, or small caps. An initial capital is used for:
  • Start of sentences
  • Names of people, places, languages, and adjectives of people and places
  • Names of months, weeks and feast-days
  • Dé "day"
  • Definite titles

    Abbreviations

Most Irish abbreviations are straightforward, e.g. leathanach → lch. and mar shampla → m.sh., but two that require explanation are: is é sin →.i. and agus araile → ⁊rl./srl.. Like in English, follows an ordinal numeral, e.g. Is é Lá Fheile Phádraig an 17ú lá den Márta "St. Patrick's day is the 17th of March".

Spelling reform

The literary Classical Irish which survived till the 17th century was archaic; the first attempt at simplification was not until 1639. The spelling represented a dialect continuum including distinctions lost in all surviving dialects by the Gaelic revival of the late 19th century.
The idea of a spelling reform, linked to the use of Roman or Gaelic type, was controversial in the early decades of the 20th century. The Irish Texts Society's 1904 Irish-English dictionary by Patrick S. Dinneen used traditional spellings. After the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, all Acts of the Oireachtas were translated into Irish, initially using Dinneen's spellings, with a list of simplifications accumulating over the years. When Éamon de Valera became President of the Executive Council after the 1932 election, policy reverted to older spellings, which were used in the enrolled text of the 1937 Constitution. In 1941, de Valera decided to publish a "popular edition" of the Constitution with simplified spelling and established a committee of experts, which failed to agree on recommendations. Instead, the Oireachtas' own translation service prepared a booklet, Litriú na Gaeilge: Lámhleabhar an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil, published in 1945.
Some pre-reform spellings criticised by T. F. O'Rahilly and their modern forms include: beirbhiughadh → beiriú, imthighthe → imithe, faghbháil → fáil, urradhas → urrús, filidheacht → filíocht.
The booklet was expanded in 1947, and republished as An Caighdeán Oifigiúil "The Official Standard" in 1958, combined with the standard grammar of 1953. It attracted initial criticism as unhistorical and artificial; some spellings fail to represent the pronunciation of some dialects, while others preserve letters unpronounced in any dialect. Its status was reinforced by use in the civil service and as a guide for Tomás de Bhaldraithe's 1959 English–Irish dictionary and Niall Ó Dónaill's 1977 Irish–English dictionary. A review of the written standard, including spelling, was announced in 2010, aiming to improve "simplicity, internal consistency, and logic". The result was the 2017 update of An Caighdeán Oifigiúil.