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Contents:
Intro
Dialects
Writing
Vowels
Broad/Slender
Lenition/Eclipsis
Names
Family
Numbers
Articles
Pronouns
Bi (is)
Poss. Pronouns
Grammar
Questions
Genetive
Imperative
Adjectives
Prepositions
Verb Classes

 

 

Irish Gaelic: 'The'

English nouns are plain words -- remember those Schoolhouse Rock shorts? A "person, place, or thing". The noun "man" for example, refers to a human of the male gender. If we want to reference a specific man, we have to say "the man", meaning "that specific one there". To reference any man, we have to add the particle "a" and say "a man", meaning "any man".

Irish has no article 'a' or 'an', it's considered to be included in the word itself. So when we use the noun man -- fear -- it means "a man" automatically. We don't have to add any extra bits to it.

However, there is an article 'the', which takes several forms, depending on whether the nouns are singular or plural.

with a singular noun an
with a plural noun na

If the noun following the plural article na begins with a vowel, add an h-. This is not the same as lenition, it is added before the vowel instead of after the first letter.

In addition, the article 'an' affects the nouns that follow it in a number of ways.

first letter of noun masculine nouns feminine nouns
consonant no change lenition
(not d, l, n, r, s, or t)
letter s no change change to ts
(not sc, sl, sm, sp, or st)
vowel add 't-' no change

It is often easy to determine if a noun in Irish is masculine or feminine simply by how it appears with 'an'. If it is lenited (the second letter is h), it begins with ts, or an unchanged vowel, it is feminine. If it is not lenited, or begins with 't-' then it is masculine. It's a good guess, at least.

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Irish gaelic - Notes from a beginner
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