By Bob Carney
Conas atá sibh? Tá suil agam, go bhfuil sibh go maith. Last month we talked a little bit about reading Irish poetry in it’s original Irish, but Irish mythology was one of the things that led to my study of the Irish language. When I first started to read Irish mythology written in English, I tried to approximate or outright guess at the pronunciation of many names and places that were in the stories.
Now, I know I made a real mess out of many of them. English pronunciation rules don’t work with Irish, they barely work with English!
In our Speak Irish class, we have used a short children’s version of the story of The Children of Lir to help with our reading and pronunciation skills. The first example is from that text and the second is from University College Cork’s Irish Sagas. You can read it on-line. It is a remarkable collection of stories presented in the original Old or Middle Irish, Modern Irish and English.
Use the following pronunciation guide to help with the Modern Irish versions of the stories. I visit the site often, but if you prefer a printed book, you might try Through the Mist, a Dual Language Irish Mythology Book by Morgan Daimler.
Oidhe Chloinne Lir
“Bhuail Aoife an loch lena slat draíochta. Rinne sí ealaí de na páistí.”
Aoife struck the lake with her druid wand and cast a spell, changing the children into swans.”
The Fate of the Children of Lir (UCCIS)
“Agus mar fuair Aoife ar an loch iad” And when Aoife found them upon the lake,
“do bhuail do fhleisc dhoibthe draoidheachta iad” she struck them with a metamorphosing druidical wand,
“agus do chuir i riocht cheithre n-eala n-áluinn n-aengheal iad” and so put them into the forms of four beautiful perfectly white swans”
Irish Alphabet
The Irish alphabet consists of eighteen letters, all of which can be found in English. The letters are a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,l,m,n.o,p,r,s,t,and u, the remaining letters of the English alphabet can be found in loan words from other languages or modern technology.
In a past column (Mar.2018) we discussed an accent mark that can be placed over vowels, called a fada (fah-duh), the Irish word for long. When the fada is placed over a vowel, the pronunciation changes. In addition, a fada can change the meaning of a word drastically.
VOWEL SOUNDS
a – uh – as in up á – aw- as in paw
e – eh – as in bet é – ay – as in play
i – ih – as in it í – ee – as in see
o – uh – as in up ó – oe – as in low
u – uh – as in up ú – oo – as in zoo
Similiar to vowels, there are two types of consonants in Irish, broad and slender. Broad consonants are always surrounded by the vowels a, o and u, while slender consonants are surrounded by e and i. The rule “broad with broad and slender with slender,” means you’ll never see a consonant between a slender vowel and a broad vowel.
This is a very effective key in helping us in our pronunciation of Irish words and names. Broad consonants are typically pronounced the same way as they are in English. Exceptions occur with the letters d and t, however, which can be pronounced like the English d or like the word “the.”
T can be pronounced like the English t or th. Slender consonants can be slightly more difficult, they can be pronounced like the English or with a faint y-sound after the consonant is vocalized. For example, in the word, beo, which means alive, the b is slender because it is next to e and the word is pronounced B-yeo. Here too, we have exceptions in the consonants d, s , and t.
Irish Consonant Sound
Broad Slender
b – b – as in ball b – b – as in bill
c – k – as in cot c – ky – as in cube
d – d – as in dot d – dj – as in ledge
f – f – as in fair f – f – as in fee
g – g – as in got g – gy – as in regular
h – h – as in hall h – h – as in heal
l – l – as in law l – l – as in fold
m – m – as in map m – m – as in miss
n – n – as in no n – n – as in now
p – p – as in paw p – p – as in pat
r – r – as in raw r – r – as in rea
s – s – as in saw s – sh – as in sheep
t – t – as in top t – tch – as in itch
As you have noticed, many consonants produce the same sound broad and slender. Another way the sounds of the consonants can be changed is by softening or eclipsing them. Some consonants can be affected by both of these changes, and some by only one.
The letters l, n, and r cannot be softened or eclipsed. The letter h rarely appears without another consonant and is not softened or eclipsed as well. The softening of a consonant or Séimhiú (shay-voo), sometimes referred to by the terms lenition or aspiration, is indicated by putting an h after the consonant to show that it’s been changed.
Séimhiú Sounds
Broad Slender
bh – w – as in water bh – v – as in void
ch – k – as in lake ch – khy – as in loch
dh – gh – as in rogue dh – y – as in you
fh – silent fh – silent
gh – gh – as in rogue gh – y – as in you
mh – w – as in water mh – v – as in void
ph – f – fawn ph – fy – as in fuel
sh – h – as in hall sh – hy – as in huge
th – h – as in hall th – h – as in hug
Elipsis, or urú ( uh-roo ) means a new letter is put in front of a consonant and takes over for the original sound. Some consonants can be eclipsed, while others cannot. Below is a list of consonants that can be eclipsed and which letters eclipse them.
b-mb
c – gc
d – nd
f- bhf
g- n
p- bp
t- dt
Once a letter is eclipsed, you say the sound of the eclipsing letter, with g being an exception, it partially retains a g sound and is pronounced “ing”. For now don’t worry too much about when these changes take place, just be aware that they exist and how the changes affect each letter.
In Irish, stress is placed on the first syllable of spoken words in the Ulster or Connacht dialects. In Munster Irish, the dialect in the south of Ireland, stress is on the second or third syllable.
I hope you take the time to visit University College Cork’s Irish Sagas site, it is great introduction to Irish mythology in the original Irish language they were told in. I have not been able to find a bi-lingual book with some of the darker tales of Irish Mythyology, but “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland” by Thomas Crofton Croker is a collection of tales of fairies, ghosts, headless horsemen, vampires and more, definitely one of my favorites.
