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Following the success of An P?irt? Ceilteach in the recent Voom elections, I have decided to present to you a Course in Modern Irish. This is loosely based on Dewrad?s Course in Welsh. Please ignore the apparent plagiarism, and enjoy!

If you have any questions about the course, or indeed any other aspect of the Irish Language, don?t hesitate to PM or email me. I would be happy to help in any way ? grammar tips, vocabulary, minor translations, etc.

Ceacht a hAon
?ire

Is oile?n in aice le Sasana ? ?ire. Is t?r cheilteach ? ?ire. Is ?ireannach ? Se?n. T? s? ina ch?na? in ?irinn. Labhrann s? B?arla. Labhrann s? Gaeilge freisin. C?ard ? teanga dh?chais She?in? Is ? B?arla teanga dh?chais She?in. T?ann s? chuig scoil Ghaeilge. T? s? ag foghlaim na Gaeilge mar is ?ireannach ?.

Focl?r - Dictionary

Is ? ? ?ire = Ireland is ?
oile?n = island
in aice le = beside
Sasana = England
t?r f = country
ceilteach = Celtic
Is ? ? Se?n = Se?n is ?
?ireannach = Irish person
T? s? ? = he is
ina ch?na? = living (lit. in his living)
in ?irinn = in Ireland
labhrann s? = he speaks
B?arla = English (language)
Gaeilge f = Irish (language)
freisin = aswell, also, too
c?ard ? ?? = what is ??
teanga f = language
teanga dh?chais = mother-tongue (lit. native language)
Is ? A B = A is B
t?ann s? = he goes (irregular)
chuig = to
scoil f = school
ag foghlaim = learning
mar = because
is ? ? = he is ?

Gramadach - Grammar

1 - To Be/Copula
Two important constructs have been introduced in this lesson:
a) T? s? ?
b) Is ? ?
Both of these mean ?He/it is ?? The difference between the two is that (a) is used for adjectives and participles, and (b) is used for nouns.
For example:
a) T? s? ag foghlaim. = He is learning.
b) Is oile?n ?. = It is an island.

2 - Gender
Irish nouns are either one of two genders: Masculine and Feminine. In the vocabularies of this course, only Feminine nouns will be marked ? all others are Masculine.

Masculine and Feminine nouns work in different ways:
a) Feminine nouns lenite (see below) a following adjective. Masculine nouns don?t change the adjective. (There are exeptions, such as in the genitive case, but they will be addressed later.)
b) Feminine nouns are lenited when preceded by the definite article, ?an? .
c) Feminine nouns take ? in the 3rd person. Masculine nouns take ?.
For example:
a) T?r cheilteach = Celtic country . Oile?n ceilteach = Celtic island
b) an Ghaeilge . an B?arla
c) Is t?r ? = It is a country . Is oile?n ? = It is an island

3 - Lenition
There are two kinds of consonant mutation in Irish - lenition and eclipsing (nasalisation). Eclipsing will be introduced later. Reasons for lenition will be told as they occur in the lessons. So far, two reasons have occurred - (a) and c) above. Here is a complete table of lenition patterns: (h, l, n and r are not lenited)
b -> bh
c -> ch
d -> dh
f -> fh
g -> gh
(h -> h)
(l -> l)
m -> mh
(n -> n)
p -> ph
(r -> r)
s -> sh
t -> th

4 - Verbs, Present
Two forms of the present tense have been introduced in this lesson. The first form is An Aimsir L?ithreach. The second form is An Gn?th-L?ithreach. They are the equivilent of English ?I go? and ?I am going? respectively.

The Aimsir L?ithreach verbs introduced above are:
T? s? = He is
T?ann s? = He goes
Labhrann s? = He speaks

The Aimsir Gn?th-L?ithreach is formed using this formula:
TO BE + ag + VERBAL NOUN
T? s? ag foghlaim na Gaeilge = He is learning Irish
The ?ag? is a particle with no translation. It must be remembered that if a noun follows the Verbal Noun, it appears in the Genitive Case, hence na Gaeilge above, and NOT an Ghaeilge.

Dia dhuit!

Marta is ainm dom. T? m? iCorcaigh anois ach is as an gCatal?in dom. Ok, that's enough!! ?ire is a beautiful country! I'm an Erasmus student, but I would like to stay longer!!

See you! Sl?n!

Marta.

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Tornarem a lluitar, tornarem a sofrir, tornarem a vèncer! Lluís Companys
Un poble, una llengua, una nació: Visca els Països Catalans!

Thanks! Great first lesson. Maybe a little section on pronounciation might be handy (although I realise there is no such thing as a "little" section on Irish pronounciation...)?

An Explanation of Irish Orthography

Irish orthography uses 18 letters of the Roman Alphabet. J, k, v, x and z are used in loan-words only. The Irish Language makes to distinctions in its consonant inventory: velarised vs palatised (broad vs slender) consonants. This is indicated in the orthography using the vowel letters. Don't worry if you dont make the broad/slender distinctions - you will be understood. Most people in Dublin ignore the distinctions, and instead add a /w/ after broad consonants in front of /i/ and /e/; and a /j/ after slender consonants in front of /u/, /o/ and /a/.


Broad:
b /b_G/
bh /v_G/
c /k/
ch /x/
d /d_G/
dh /G/
f /f_G/
fh /zero/
g /g/
gh /G/
h /h/
l /l_G/
m /m_G/
mh /w/
n /n_G/
p /p_G/
ph /f_G/
r /4_G/
s /s_G/
sh /h/
t /t_G/
th /h/

Slender:
b /b_j/
bh /v_j/
c /c/
ch /C/
d /d_j/
dh /j/
f /f_j/
fh /zero/
g /J\/
gh /j\/
h /h/
l /l_j/
m /m_j/
mh /v_j/
n /J/
p /p_j/
ph /f_j/
r /r_r/
s /S_j/
sh /C/
t /t_j/
th /C/

Vowels:
/i/ /i:/
/e/ /e:/
/a/ /a:/
/o/ /o:/
/u/ /u:/
/aI/
/aU/
/i@/
/u@/
/@/

An acute accent over a vowel lengthens the sound. The vowel system is fairly simple. However, it is the spelling that throws most people. The reason for all those strange vowel combinations is that it is the surrounding vowels that indicate whether a consonant is slender or broad. I shall attempt to display all possible combinations here.
Remember that the "slender vowels" are i and e. The "broad vowels" are u, o and a.



(The rest will be added later - the file is elsewhere ATM. T? br?n orm!)

Will this be coming back?

There will be a next lesson as soon as Dewrad posts the next Welsh lesson. This course is based on his one.

No pressure then.

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May I request exercises?

i think we'd all like to know about the Irish declension and conjugation systems! but of course, it's up to you.

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[quote="Nortaneous"]Is South Africa better off now than it was a few decades ago?[/quote]

The mystery that is the Genitive case eludes me. I would much like to see it discussed at some point in the near future

My family would descend from a famous Irish monk called St-Columba. Well in that time (it was a long time ago...), monks had children... So I'm very happy to learn Irish with your brilliant lessons, it reminds me my origins
Just go on like this !!!

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Nek vatar s-voli nasnap migi dmuxa k ti

-> Quand les francophones se mettent à parler de conlangues...

Thanks for all of your comments, the've been very helpful!
I've decided not to give a list of all possible vowel letter combinations, and just tackle them as they crop up. (can't find the file I wrote anyway).
I think i underestimated people's level of Irish, and I have officially decided to write a "Genitive Case Crash Course"!!

Coming soon to a forum near you.

Dia dhuit!

I thought someone would be happy to see that a foreign person could say some words in Irish, but I guess it's not the case of aardwolf. This is the big difference between the Irish and the Catalan. When a Catalan sees that a foreign person is willing to learn his/her language we are sooooo happy and proud of them. I can see that the Irish don't really care if a foreign person is learning Irish or not. I don't know if you aardwolf are a native speaker of Irish, but I can see that at least in Cork people think it's a useless language. They just use it to name the pubs, like "An Br?g" which literally means "The Shoe". Anyway, if your country don't do anything in favour of the Irish language, I wonder if it will last long.

For me it's quite shocking because one of the most important things that make me feel Catalan is the language. However, in Ireland is not the same. People feel Irish (not British) themselves, but however they speak the language of the colonizer!! For me it's hard to understand. Now that Ireland has lots of years of independence, I think they look like her colonizer. I've been talking to Irish people who don't understand the situation of Catalonia while their country was exactly in the same situation at the beginning of the 20th century! It's amazing how people forget their own history.

Anyway, it's all for now because this thread is to learn Irish, not to talk about this. I'd like to know your opinion aardwolf though...

Sl?n!

Marta.

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Tornarem a lluitar, tornarem a sofrir, tornarem a vèncer! Lluís Companys
Un poble, una llengua, una nació: Visca els Països Catalans!

I've decided to ressurect this thread. However, this time I shall post only grammar info, with no attempt at expanding vocabulary. Online dictionaries have a purpose!

Anyway, next Lesson coming soon!

The whole slender/broad thing is weird to me. When I was learning Irish (in grad school, as well as at Oideas Gael in Donegal, there were a couple of places where the glide thing you mention seemed to be backwards. For example, toghair 'to summon'. According to your rules (which are pretty good, I think) it would be /'to.Gar_j/, which seems reasonable enough. My professors and teachers, however, tended to say /'to.G_wIr_j/. Now, I know there's enormous amounts of dialectal variation, but still...

Anyway, Maith th? for doing this at all! T? ranganna de dh?th orainn!

VERBS


Irish verbs have two conjugations: all mono-syllabic verbs are in the 1st Conjugation, all bi-syllabic verbs are in the 2nd. There are also eleven irregular verbs. In each conjugation, there are the following forms:
Present
Imperfect
Preterite
Future
Conditional
Imperative

The condition, however, exists only for 2sg, 1pl and 2pl.

To fit in with Irish's Broad-Slender distinctions, each verb form has two spellings (most of which add an -(e) to derive the slender form). For the regular verbs, glan (clean), tuig (understand), and ?l (drink) will be used to demonstrate. Note that glan is a "broad verb" because its stem ends in one of <a o u>, and that tuig is a "slender verb" because its stem ends in one of < i e >. ?l is used to show how vowel-initial stems work. Note that verbs beginning with < f > work like those that begin with vowels, as lenition of < f > is zero.

In the examples, I shall list the diffent person/number forms in the following order:
1 sg
2 sg
3 sg
1 pl
2 pl
3 pl
Impersonal
The "impersonal form" is best described for now as a passive. More on this later.

1st Conjugation
Glanaim na boird gach l?. ~ "I clean the tables every day."
Rithim ar scoil de ghn?th. ~ "I run to school usually."
Ghlanaimis an halla anuraidh. ~ "We used to clean the hall last year."
L?imeadh Se?n thar an mballa. ~ "Se?n used to jump over the wall."
Chum s? amhr?n nua. ~ "She composed a new song."
Chaill m? mo mhadra inn?. ~ "I lost my dog yesterday."
F?gfaidh siad an ?it seo. ~ "They'll leave this place."
Brisfidh m? d'aghaidh! ~ "I'll break your face!"
D'fh?achfainn air, ach... ~ "I would have looked at it, but..." OR "I would look at it, but..."
Dh?anfainn an obair bhaile, ach... ~ "I would have done the homework, but..." OR "I would do the homework, but..."

<hr>

T? f?ilte roimh gach cheist! ~ All questions are welcome!

Stay tuned for the 2nd Conjugation!

Do the endings have irregular pronounciations? Because I've read in some places that they are, and in others that they aren't. For instance:

tuigim /tig_ji:m_j/
tuigeann /tig_ja:n/
tuigimid /tig_jim_jid_j/
tuigtear /tig_jt_jar/

I think that's how they're pronounced. But:

?laim /o:lim_j/
?lann /o:la:n/
?laimid /o:lim_jid_j/
?ltar /o:ltar/

But isn't ai typically /a/ with the palatalized consonant following it? So you'd expect ?laim to be /o:lam_j/, but I've heard it's /o:lim_j/.

Only in stressed syllables; in unstressed syllables, short vowels become schwa, which sounds more like [i] next to slender consonants.
?laim is thus better represented as /o:l@m_j/.

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Relative Clauses

In Irish, relative clauses are made by placing a or ar (restricted to certain past tense usage) after the substantive, then the subclause with either lenition or eclipsion to the verb, depeding on the subject:

Sin an bhean. Bhuail s? m?. ~ "That's the woman. She hit me."
Sin an bhean. Bhuail m? ?. ~ "That's the woman. I hit her."

Of course, nobody speaks like that. It is more common to say "That's the woman who hit me". Notice that the "she" is not present in the second clause, as it is the same subject as the first one. In Irish, this is quite simple:

Sin an bhean a bhuail m?. ~ "That's the woman who hit me."

However, when you change the subject to "I", you change the particle, just as you change English "who" to "whom". In addition to this, Irish specifies that the object pronoun be included as well:

Sin an bhean ar bhuail m? ?. ~ "That's the woman whom I hit."

<hr>

Now for an irregular verb

Sin an bhean. Chonaic s? m?. ~ "That is the woman. She saw me."
Sin an bhean. Chonaic m? ?. ~ "That is the woman. I saw her."

Relativise to ...

Sin an bhean a chonaic m?. ~ "That's the woman who saw me."
Sin an bhean a bhfaca m? ?. ~ "That's the woman whom I saw."

<hr>

I'm sure I've forgotten something; let me know if you have a question!

Unfortunately, I am completely confused.

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Economic Left/Right: -8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.54

http://blog.metal-hammer.de/die-grten-death-metal-songs-aller-zeiten/ Vote for Hammer Smashed Face!

Excuse me if I'm skipping ahead. I have a question about nouns. Are there simple ways of personalifying (sorry, I don't know the linguistic terminology for this one) verbs? For example in English, the -er suffix (teach-> teacher).

Go raibh maith agat

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"Shut up an cry!: -Earl Parker

\
Bolding mine....I'm pretty sure it's called nominalization. Right, old- and wiser-bies?

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[dEl.@."lir\.@] <-- correct pronunciation of my username.

<Rhob> I have a fetish for women.

That's damn irregular alright! Why is it chonaic in a main clause and in the first relative clause but bhfaca in the second relative clause? Verbix.com doesn't even list faca/bhfaca as a form of feic. Is there something you're not telling us?

It looks like Irish Gaelic is much easier than Scottish Gaelic (which I attempted to learn some time ago). I might have a go

I've fooled around with both and I remember the Scottish verbs as being much more analytic and, thus, easier for an English-speaker like me.