Alphabet
The alphabet now used for writing the Irish language consists of the following letters of the Latin script, whether written in Roman hand or Gaelic hand:
- a á b c d e é f g h i í l m n o ó p r s t u ú;
The acute accent over the vowels is ignored for purposes of alphabetization. Modern loanwords also make use of j k q v w x y z. Of these, v is the most common. It occurs in a small number of words of native origin in the language such as vácarnach, vác and vrác, all of which are onomatopoeic. It also occurs in a number of alternative colloquial forms such as víog instead of bíog and vís instead of bís as cited in Niall Ó Dónaill's Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla (Irish–English Dictionary). It is also the only nontraditional letter used to write foreign names and words adapted to the Irish language (for example, Switzerland, or Helvetia, is Gaelicised as An Eilvéis; Azerbaijan, in contrast, is written An Asarbaiseáin rather than *An Azarbaijáin). The letters j, q, w, x, y and z are used primarily in scientific terminology or direct, unaltered borrowings from English and other languages, although the phoneme /z/ does exist naturally in at least one dialect, that of West Muskerry, Co. Cork, as the eclipsis of s. k is the only letter not to be listed by Ó Dónaill. h, when not prefixed to an initial vowel as an aspirate in certain grammatical functions (or when not used as an indicator of lenition when Roman type is used), occurs primarily in loanwords as an initial consonant. The letters' names are spelt out thus:
- á bé cé dé é eif gé héis í eil eim ein ó pé ear eas té ú
- along with jé cá cú vé wae eacs yé zae.
Tree names were once popularly used to name the letters. Tradition taught that they all derived from the names of the Ogham letters, though it is now known that only some of the earliest Ogham letters were named after trees.
- ailm (white fir), beith (birch), coll (hazel), dair (oak), edad/eabhadh (poplar), fern/fearn (alder), gath/gort (ivy), uath (hawthorn), idad/iodhadh (yew), luis (rowan), muin (vine), nin/nion (ash), onn (gorse), peith (dwarf alder), ruis (elder), sail (willow), tinne/teithne (holly), úr (heather)
Read more about this topic: Irish Orthography
Famous quotes containing the word alphabet:
“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned “Now I lay me” and the Lord’s Prayer and your father’s and mother’s name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)