Spoken Irish:The Do's and Don'ts
“Letters are highly specialised images and we have always read words as images. Words are perceived as silhouette image-shapes; the letters they are made from are actually little pictures, and writing is a highly evolved and specialised form of drawing.”
Preface Shapes for Sounds
“Ah, naboclish,” sez I.
In the beginning was the word… or rather the sound of it. Attempting to write down sounds produced by human vocal cords is a daunting task because it requires agreement that certain combinations of letters suggest definite sounds that the listener recognises as a meaningful word. G.B.Shaw liked to point out that ‘ghoti’ was an equally valid alternative way of writing ‘fish’. Take the ‘f’ sound from ‘gh’ in ‘tough’, the ‘i’ sound from the ‘o’ in ‘women’, and the ’sh’ sound of the ‘ti’ in ‘nation’ and you get the sound of ‘fish’ from ‘ghoti’. Building up sound associations of the spoken word to the written word can be difficult and even today many people leave school illiterate. Speaking one’s mother tongue comes naturally through osmosis but reading and writing one’s mother tongue must be acquired through study.
Like many Irish people I learned to speak English first and then I learned to read and write it at school. But that natural order of the spoken to the written word was reversed when it came to learning Irish. Learning a language word by word and it’s associated approximate sound from the printed word is a long process, but here are some tips to get you going toward understanding a native speaker.
Swallowing letters galore (go leor).
Ag ta’see ‘mac… (girl radio announcer on RnG) i.e. Ag tosaigh amach… to start off …
I remember listening to a recording of the novel Cré na Cille and trying to figure out the meaning of what I heard as the word ‘brastahint’. After repeated listenings I finally admitted defeat and found the recorded passage in the book. ‘Brastahint’ turned out to be ‘B’fhurasta a aithint… Cré p216. (You can easily tell...that's obvious)
My aural illusion of one word could be found in a dictionary as four separate words i.e. ‘Ba’, ‘furasta’, ‘a’, and ‘aithint’. In the recording, the actress slams ‘b’ and ‘r’ together, the ‘f’ and ’t’ are silent because of lenition (the ‘h’ letter in Irish) and all the ‘a’ sounds are sounded as one mighty ‘aaaa’. Peo! (Phew!)
Watch how the 'f' disappears in 'dheirfiúr' and 'fhriafraigh' in the following Irish phrases (See also treatment of 'f' in song lyrics in accompanying video)
e.g Is fíor duit, a dheirfiúr ó. (S/L a yeh’ruiro) (S/L = Sounds Like)
Right on, brother!
Níor fhriafraigh siad díom an raibh béal orm. (Lit.) They didn’t ask me whether I had a mouth on me.
S/L - Near’reera shee’deem a’row bail uhrim.
Meaning - They didn't offer me anything to eat or drink - their hospitality was found wanting.
The 'H' letter (lenition), + 'N' letter + putting 'g' before 'c' (eclipse) can cause an aural nightmare for the unwary 'Gaeilgeoir'.
Casadh an chorcán leis an gciteal, the pot calling the kettle black
Ka’sa norcahn lesh’ a’ git’il.
In 'casadh' and 'chorcán' lenition wipes out the 'd' and 'c' sound The 'n' of 'an' is then grafted onto what's left of the word (i.e.'orcán') resulting in what sounds like the headword 'norcahn'. The 'n' of the little Irish word 'an' is very often reduced to 'a' as happens here with 'an gciteal'.
The greatest difficulty with Irish in trying to imagine words as shapes or pictures is that the front, back and middle of words often change according to a complex set of rules.
In English the headwords (as entered in the dictionary) never change. The first letter of the word remains fixed. But let's look at what happens to an English sentence if I apply the rule of 'eclipse' (an Irish technique of disguising the real identity of headwords) to this sentence:
e.g., Be cool dude favor green policies and save taxes
mbe gcool ndude bhfavor ngreen bpolicies and tsave dtaxes
(S/L) me gool nude vavor nreen bolicies and tave daxes
Tip: If you learn the above sentence you now know all 8 letters of the Irish alphabet that are affected by 'eclipse' and how they can be 'eclipsed'.
In Irish it is not simply a question of associating one sound with one 'picture' of the written word. Words that require lenition and eclipse have 3 sound 'pictures' or 'shapes' that your ear must be aware of. For example, the sound picture of 'bus' is not just 'bus' in Irish. You must learn the holy trinity of bus, mbus, and bhus.
A great way to get the rhythm and flow of the Irish language is to listen to songs 'as Gaeilge' while reading the lyrics. Repetition is a key factor in hammering home sound pictures of words and phrases. Building up a collection of songs you like to listen to over and over again can help enormously with your aural recognition of Irish words and leads to greater fluency in spoken Irish . Gaelchultúir publish a song a month (Amhrán na míosa) with the Irish lyrics and an English translation. Here is a taste of what they offer:
Song: An Ciarraíoch Mallaithe The Cursed Kerryman
Song: An Ciarraíoch Mallaithe The Cursed Kerryman
Liricí Lyrics
| Má leanaim go dian tú siar chun Cairibreach, | If I follow you diligently west to Carbary, |
| Caillfead mo chiall mura dtriallfair abhaile liom, | I’ll lose my mind if you don’t go home with me, |
| Óró, bead ag sileadh na ndeor. | Óró, I’ll be shedding tears. |
| Ná tar im dheoidh gan mórchuid airgid, | Don’t come after me without plenty money, |
| Stampaí Rí Shacsain go cruinn i dtaisce agat, | The real stamp of the king of England in your keeping. |
| Óró, i gcomhair chostais an róid. | Óró, for the costs of the journey. |
| Ní bheidh cloig ar ár ndornaibh ó rómhar na ngarraithe, | There won’t be blisters on our fists from digging the fields, |
| Ná ó chruachadh na móna ná an fómhar a leathadh orainn. | Nor from heaping the turf nor the autumn sun shining on us. |
| Beidh rince fada againn más é is fearra leat, | We’ll have a long dance if that’s what you like best, |
| Ór is airgead, ól is beathuisce. | Gold and silver, drink and whiskey. |
| Óró, fad a mhairfimid beo. | Óró, as long as we live. |
| Nuair a bhraith an aoileann an oíche tagtha, | When the maid noticed that the night had arrived, |
| Is ná fuair sí istigh ná amuigh sa gharraí mé, | And she didn’t find me inside or out in the garden, |
| Óró, do chas olagón. | Óró, she sang a lament. |
| Do phreab sí ina suí, ag caoineadh a cuid airgid, | She jumped up and lamented the loss of her money, |
| Dá rá gur mheallas-sa a croí lem’ chleasannaibh, | Saying that I wooed her heart with my tricks, |
| Óró, fad a mhairfidh sí beo. | Óró, for as long as she lives. |
| Éirígí a chairde, ní foláir nó go leanfam é, | Arise my friends, I must follow him, |
| Cuardóm na bánta ‘gus ard na ngarraithe, | I’ll search the grasslands and the hillock with the fields, |
| Don gCiarraíoch Mallaithe, a mheall mo chuid airgid, | For that cursed Kerryman, who attracted my money, |
| Lena bhréithre bladair, ag diúgadh an chnagaire, | With his flattering words, while draining the naggin, |
| Óró, is ná feadar cá ngeobhad. | Óró, and I don’t know where I’ll find him. |
Tip for guitarists: Tune 6th string to 'D', place capo on 2nd fret
play in key of 'D' shapes:
Intro D, Em7, D/F#, G, A7sus4 || D, Em7, D/F, Em7/B, A7sus4, D || Em7, D, A7sus4, Bm || D, G, D, Em7/B, D, Em7/B, A7sus4 || D
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