Introduction to Spoken Irish--part 1

For those of my friends or family back home who have expressed interest in some of the spoken Irish I have been learning during my studies at Coláiste na hOllscoile, I have decided to share some notes from my Introduction to Spoken Irish course!

First, some tips:

There are only 18 charcters in the Irish language, and they are as follows:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, r, s, t, u, and p

(j, k, q,v, w, x, y, and z occur in loanwords from other languages)

΄ <----- this little mark is called a fada, it indicates a long vowel: á é í ó ú

short vowels simply don't have one:  a e i o u

 á sounds like "awe" or the a in "saw"

é sounds like "aye" or the a in "hay"

 í sounds like "ee" as in "we see you"

ó sounds like "owe" as in "zone"

ú sounds like "oo" as in "pool"or "you"

there are also lenited and eclipsed forms of letters. See photo below:

Which means that bh, like is found in go raibh maith agat, sounds like "goh rev mah agüt"

Now for some basic words and phrases!

• Dia dhuit (hello/God [be] with you) "Dee-ah gwit" or "Dya dwit" depending on where you are from...one must always one-up the other by adding on other holy persons or saints to the greeting's response! the response to this then would be  Dia is Muire dhuit (God and Mary [be] with you). If one starts with that, you must add on still more! Dia is Muire dhuit is Pádraig... and so on. The happier one is the more they tend to start with (though there are other greeting as well) For example:

Alex: Dia is Muire dhuit is Pádraig! (God and Mary and St. Patrick [be] with you!)
Lanie: Dia is Muire dhuit is Pádraig is Bríd! (God and Mary and St. Patrick and St. Bridget [be] with you!)

Wow, they must be having a wonderful day to be so happy!

• is is not pronounced the way we Americans normally pronounce the word "is" with a 'z' sound. it sounds more like "iss" as in the hiss of a snake.
• Pádraig is pronounced "paw-drig" if you remember the lenited form of the a, and

• Bríd  is pronounced "breed" because of the lenited form of the i.

Here are some other fun greetings/farewells!

Dia dhuit ar maidin (good morning) "Dee-ah gwit air maw-din"
Oíche mhaith (good night) "ee-ha vah"
Go n-éirí leat! (good luck!) "goh n-eye-ree latt"
Tó go bog é (take it easy) "toh goh bowg ay"
Bí go maith (be good) "bee goh mah"
Tobhair aire (take care) "tour ar-reh"

There is so much more to cover, but this should do for now...

Tó go bog é!