See Irish phonology for an explanation of the symbols used and Irish initial mutations for an explanation of eclipsis and lenition.Ĭonsonants are generally 'broad' ( velarised) when beside ⟨a, á, o, ó, u, ú⟩ and 'slender' ( palatalised) when beside ⟨e, é, i, í⟩. The IPA transcriptions of examples on this page are in Connacht Irish.Initially and finally mean word initial or final unless stated otherwise.'U' stands for Mayo and Ulster Irish, 'C' for southern Connacht Irish, and 'M' for Munster Irish.

In grapheme to phoneme correspondence tables on this page: ⟨Z⟩ is used to transliterate straif ( blackthorn) is a foreign sound. ⟨Q⟩ is used to transliterate ceirt ( apple). Tradition taught that they all derived from the names of Ogham letters, though it is now known that only some of the earliest were named after trees. Tree names were historically used to name the letters. a, á…abhac, ábhacht, abhaile.).Įnglish letter names are generally used in both colloquial and formal speech but there are modern Irish letter names (based on the original Latin names), similar to other languages that use a Latin script alphabet. Accented letters are considered variants of their unaccented equivalent, and they follow their unaccented equivalents in dictionaries (i.e. Vowels may be accented with an acute accent ( ⟨á, é, í, ó, ú⟩ see below). ⟨k⟩ is the only letter not listed by Ó Dónaill. ⟨h⟩, when not prefixed to a word initial vowel or after a consonant to show lenition, primarily occurs word initially in loanwords, e.g. víog for bíog 'chirp' and vís for bís 'screw'). vácarnach 'to quack' and vrác 'caw') and colloquialisms (e.g. ⟨v⟩ occurs in a small number of (mainly onomatopoeic) native words (e.g. It does not contain ⟨j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z⟩, although they are used in scientific terminology and modern loanwords/words of foreign origin. The traditional Irish alphabet ( aibítir) consists of 18 letters: ⟨ a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u⟩.

Letters and letter names The traditional Irish alphabet carved in Gaelic type on a building in Dublin, with each type of diacritic ( síneadh fada and ponc séimhithe) as well as the Tironian et. The dot above a lenited letter in Gaelic type is usually replaced by a following ⟨h⟩ in Roman type (e.g. The use of Ogham and Gaelic type today is restricted to decorative or self-consciously traditional contexts.

Prior to the mid-20th century, Gaelic type ( cló Gaelach) was the main typeface used to write Irish now, it is usually replaced by Roman type ( cló Rómhánach). Latin script 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. Alphabet Gaelic type with Roman type equivalents and the additional lenited letters. Some words may have dialectal pronunciations not reflected by their standard spelling, and they sometimes have distinct dialectal spellings to reflect this. crann ('tree') is read /kɾˠan̪ˠ/ in Mayo and Ulster, /kɾˠaːn̪ˠ/ in Galway, or /kɾˠəun̪ˠ/ in Munster. Irish spelling represents all Irish dialects to a high degree despite their considerable phonological variation, e.g. 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. 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. Irish orthography is the set of conventions used to write Irish. Readers familiar with other conventions may wish to see Help:IPA/Irish for a comparison of the IPA system with those used in learners' materials. This article uses the IPA to transcribe Irish.

English alphabet spelled in manuscript