Syntax and Morphology
The grammar of Irish shares with other Celtic languages a number of features which, while not unique, are unusual in an Indo-European context. The grammatical features most unfamiliar to English speakers of the language are the initial consonant mutations, the verb–subject–object word order, and the use of two different forms for "to be".
None of these features are peculiar to Irish, however. All of them occur in other Celtic languages as well as in non-Celtic languages: morphosyntactically triggered initial consonant mutations are found in Fula and Shoshoni; VSO word order is found in Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew; and Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Galician have two different forms for "to be". The use of prepositional pronouns recalls the Semitic languages, as well as some lesser-known European languages such as Venetian.
The situation is complicated by dialect variations, by a recommended standard and by what appears to be a colloquial simplification of both grammar and pronunciation by fluent speakers in the urban context.
Read more about this topic: Irish Language
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