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Many Gaelic sounds are governed by the difference between slender vowels, i and e, as in the word "diet," and broad vowels, a, o, and u. These vowels are pronounced in a progression down the throat as shown in the diagram at the left. The following table shows the natural vocal logic of certain consonants with slender and broad vowels used in Gaelic. |
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Plain |
Lenited |
Plain |
Lenited |
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Lenition
Gaelic marks cases, such as dative, genitive, and vocative, the adjectives of feminine nouns (all nouns are masculine or feminine), and other parts of speech, through a modification called lenition (or aspiration). Lenition means that an h is added after an initial consonant if it is one of b, c, d, f, g, m, p, s, t. For example, "fear" (fair) is the word for "man" (related to Latin vir), and "bàta" is the word for "boat." "The boatman," or literally "man of the boat," is therefore "fear a' bhàta," where "of the boat" is genitive and "bàta" is lenited (luh-nighted) to become "bhàta." Sometimes a vowel change occurs or an i is added. In the vocative case, "fear a' bhàta" becomes "fhir a' bhàta." Similarly, when I call James, Sèumas (shay-mus) becomes "a' Shèumais" (uh hame-ish), which is sometimes rendered in English as the name "Hamish."
The sounds made by the letters d, g, s, and t change with lenition depending on the vowel, as shown in the table. When both b -> bh and m -> mh, they create a v sound at the beginning or end of a word. In the middle of a word, bh and mh can be silent or like a v or w, depending on the dialect and what is easiest to say. A ch at the beginning of a word has a soft, guttural sound like the ch at the end of the word "loch." An fh is almost always silent, while a ph is an f sound as in English.
Stress
In most cases, the stress falls on the first syllable of a word. This is highly significant rhythmically, as the word stresses create the rhythms of the songs, which are often the basis of pipe and fiddle tunes and dance rhythms.
Vowels
The lilting character of Gaelic can be attributed to the combining of vowel sounds within a word. Only the vowel combination ao is considered a single sound, between English oo and ee. All the other combinations create a sound that is a rapid succession of two sounds, similar to grace notes or ornaments in piping or fiddling. For example, consider the word "cèilidh," meaning "a visit," and, by extension, all the entertainment that can accompany a visit. Americans usually pronounce this word kay-lee, but the more Gaelic pronunciation would be kay-ee-lee, where the kay-ee comes so fast that the ee is barely heard as a distinct sound. A spelling rule governs the vowels on either side of a consonant: broad to broad and slender to slender. Often a vowel added to follow the rule is not sounded, especially in an unstressed, second syllable: "fàgaidh" is pronounced fa-ah-gee, where the second a is not sounded.
Accents
Vowels can have grave accent marks to make the sounds longer. à lengthens ah to ah-ah; è lengthens eh to eh-eh or ay to ay-ay; ì lengthens ee to ee-ee. ò lengthens aw to aw-aw or oh-oh; and ù lengthens oo to oo-oo.
Added vowels or consonants
Multiple consonants in a row are often pronounced with an added vowel. For instance, "Alba," the word for "Scotland," is pronounced ah-luh-buh, "falbh" (go) is pronounced fall-uv, "gorm" (blue) is pronounced gor-um. Some dialects add an sh sound between rd or rt. For example, "bord" (table) is pronounced bo-orsht and "ort" (on you) is pronounced orsht. Double n's lengthen a sound: inn (ih-ing), ann (ahw-uhn), onn (oh-in), and unn (uh-uhn).
The alphabet and letter combinations
Gaelic does not have the letters j, k, q, v, w, x, y, or z. The sounds of some of these letters are made with other letters. di and de make a j sound. The letter c is hard for a stressed k sound, and c, chd, ig, and eg make an unstressed or ending k sound. bh and mh make a v or an unstressed w sound. dhi and dhe make a y sound.
Copyright © 1997 by Susan Self. All rights reserved.
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