Phonetics – Gaeilge: The Irish Language

This is a basic guide for complete beginners who have had no previous exposure to the written language and need guidance on pronunciation and the phonetics of this Celtic language. Vowels, stressed and unstressed, consonants, diphthongs, lenition (the séimhiú) and the eclipse (the urú) are introduced. Phonetic script accompanies all material. Pronunciation and phonetics vary from dialect to dialect. Pronunciation here is as according to An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, 2017– The Official Standard.

A brief and much simplified introduction to the Copula (verbal form of “to be”) has been added as an additional lecture. A proper and more comprehensive look at The Copula will follow in Advanced Irish. The Copula is a difficult concept for English speakers to grasp as it does not exist in the English language and in most European languages.

This course is meant to accompany Gaeilge For Beginners and the Intermediate Course. It is best used in conjunction with these two other courses. Teacher has Munster Irish but uses An Caighdeán Oifigiúil.

Examples accompany each slide and students are encouraged to pause the video, repeat and test themselves accordingly. Many language learners do not enjoy learning the phonetics and may, dependent on their age and the education style in place in their country or school, have no experience of learning a language phonetically. Most Irish language students in Ireland learned to pronounce their words by repeated exposure to the written language. This is by no means a definitive guide to Irish language pronunciation but it reflects the teacher’s pronunciation and the way she has learned Irish.