Verse:Irta/Irish

a γGoēlge

Spoken in unified Ireland, Britain, and parts of the Americas by 50 million people (Irta Canada's official languages are English, Irish and indigenous languages such as Inuit and Cree)

Essentially the same as our timeline's Munster and Connemara Irish but with fewer English loans; Northern Ireland speaks Connemara and Southern Ireland speaks Munster. In both Irta and Crackfic Tricin, Standard Irish is based on Connacht Irish. Written Irish rapidly became less conservative during the early modern period, and after the Second Remonition in the 17th century it was essentially our timeline's modern Connemara Irish.

Pre-reform orthography is the same as our timeline's pre-reform orthography. Irish undergoes a spelling reform in opposite directions in Irta and Tricin; Irta uses a phonetic orthography while the Trician spelling is more etymological than our Classical Irish orthography, reflecting lost Proto-Celtic consonants (øláṁ = hand, ıomṡaıġ = to turn, Aıḟıṡfe = Aoife, joıġer = ice)

English, Irish, Riphean and Japanese are the main languages used in Irtan linguistics (in Crackfic Tricin, English and Netagin; in Canon Tricin, Eevo, Anbirese and Netagin)

Our transcription of Irish

Since Irta Irish has different dialects and orthographies depending on location, we'll generally use the following phonetic orthography to transcribe Irish according to how they are pronounced in the individual dialect.

(/ denotes a broad/slender pair.)

Irta and CF Trician Irish both have 5 phonemic vowel qualities:
a/ia ā/iā
oe/e oē/ē
y/i ȳ/ī
o/io ō/iō
u/iu ū/iū

Diphthongs: īe /iə/ ūo /uə/ īa /ia/ aj/iaj əj/ej aw/iaw əw/ew

Schwa: a = broad ə, e = slender ə (written as y/i when pronounced as [ɪ])

consonants: b c ch d gh f g h j l ll m n nn ng p r rr s t v, z dz tz /z ts= tsh/ in loans (p t c are always aspirated; scéal -> sgēl/sgīal)

ı = soft sign

Names that exist in our Irish (such as Aoife) will be spelled in our timeline's post-reform orthography; other names will use this transcription (such as Sīra from Hebrew Shira).

Hangul transcription

(Yale Romanization)

a/ya ey/yey ui/i o/yo wu/ywu

Diphthongs: ai/yai ei/yei au/yau ewu/yewu ie ue ia

Schwa: e/ye

The epenthetic vowel (used for transcribing consonant clusters) is spelled i after slender consonants and u after broad ones

  • Éire = 에려 eyrye
  • athair = 아허리 aheli
  • Sadhbh = 서이브 seipu
  • buíochas = 쁴허스 ppuihesu

final broad L = 울/얼

Lexicon

  • some words borrowed via English in our timeline are different
  • halive 'halva' (written ħailve in Cualand)
  • Tibēres, gen. hTibērisı (m) 'Tiberias', Owrysı hTibērisı 'Tiberian Hebrew' (CF Trician Irish uses Tibḗrı, gen. Tibḗre)
  • 'I see' is fecimı in Irtan Irish (chīmı in Cualand Irish)
  • Dīe dytse (said by some non-Catholics as a reply to Dia dhuit); Hyliō (non-theistic greeting)
  • lastas 'cargo' and related words are loans from a Stem-Riphic language (klh2-st-).
  • sráid is a loan via Majorcan s̱ràḏ (from Latin strāta, via Arabic SirāT).

from WP

Munster Irish differs from Ulster and Connacht Irish in a number of respects. Some words and phrases used in Munster Irish are not used in the other varieties, such as:

  • in aon chor (Clear Island, Corca Dhuibhne, West Muskerry, Waterford) or ar aon chor (Clear Island, West Carbery, Waterford) "at any rate" (other dialects ar chor ar bith (Connacht) and ar scor ar bith (Ulster)
  • fé, fí "under" (standard faoi)
  • Gaelainn "Irish language" (Cork and Kerry), Gaeilinn (Waterford) (standard Gaeilge)
  • "that...not; do not" (standard nach)
  • leis "also" (Connacht freisin, Ulster fosta)
  • anso or atso "here" and ansan or atsan "there" instead of standard anseo and ansin, respectively
  • In both demonstrative pronouns and adjectives speakers of Munster Irish differentiate between seo "this" and sin "that" following a palatalised consonant or front vowel and so "this" and san "that" following a velarised consonant or back vowel in final position: an bóthar so "this road", an bhó san "that cow", an chairt sin "that cart", an claí seo "this fence"
  • the use of thá instead of in the extreme west of Corca Dhuibhne and in Gaeltacht na nDéise.
  • the preposition chuig "to, towards", common in Connacht Irish and Ulster Irish where it developed as a back formation from the 3rd person singular preposition chuige "towards him" is not used in Munster. The form chun (from Classical Irish do chum), also found in the West and North, is used in preference.
  • Munster Irish uses a fuller range of "looking" verbs, while these in Connacht and Ulster are restricted: féachaint "looking", "watching", breithniú "carefully observing", amharc "look, watch", glinniúint "gazing, staring", sealladh "looking" etc.
  • the historic dative form tigh "house", as in Scots and Manx Gaelic, is now used as the nominative form (Standard teach)
  • Munster retains the historic form of the personal pronoun sinn "us" which has largely been replaced with muid (or muinn in parts of Ulster) in most situations in Connacht and Ulster.
  • Corca Dhuibhne and Gaeltacht na nDéise use the independent form cím (earlier do-chím) "I see" as well as the dependent form ficim / feicim (earlier ad-chím), while Muskerry and Clear Island use the forms chím (independent) and ficim.
  • The adverbial forms chuige, a chuige in Corca Dhuibhne and a chuigint "at all" in Gaeltacht na nDéise are sometimes used in addition to in aon chor or ar aon chor
  • The adjective cuibheasach /kiːsəx/ is used adverbially in phrases such as cuibheasach beag "rather small", "fairly small", cuibheasach mór "quite large". (Some dialects sách)
  • Some dialects in Cualand informally use sách or sach for 'many', influenced by An Yidish סך (cf. Yiddish a sach 'a lot of')
  • Faic, pioc, puinn and tada in West Munster, dada in Gaeltacht na nDéise, ní dúrt pioc "I said nothing at all", níl faic dá bharr agam "I have gained nothing by it"
  • The interjections ambaiste, ambaist, ambasa, ambaic "Indeed!", "My word!", "My God!" in West Munster and amaite, amaite fhéinig in Gaeltacht na nDéise (ambaiste = dom bhaisteadh "by my baptism", am basa = dom basaibh "by my palms", ambaic = dom baic "by my heeding"; amaite = dom aite "my oddness")
  • obann "sudden" instead of tobann in the other major dialects
  • práta "potato", fata in Connacht and préata in Ulster
  • oiriúnach "suitable", feiliúnach in Connacht and fóirsteanach in Ulster
  • nóimint, nóimit, nóimeat, neomint, neomat, nóiméad in Connacht and bomaite in Donegal
  • Munster differentiates between ach go háirithe "anyway", "anyhow" and go háirithe "particularly", "especially"
  • gallúnach "soap", gallaoireach in Connacht and sópa in Ulster
  • deifir is "difference" in Munster, and is a Latin loan: níl aon deifir eatarthu "there is no difference between them"; the Gaelic word deifir "hurry" is retained in the other dialects (c.f. Scottish Gaelic diofar "difference")
  • deabhadh or deithneas "hurry" whereas the other major dialects use deifir
  • -(e)amhail used instead of standard -(i)úil in Dunquin in words such as suimeamhail, cáirdeamhail, oifigeamhail, etc. instead of standard suimiúil, cáirdiúil, oifigiúil, etc.

Names

Among Hebrew speakers, Irish names are rarely Hebraized (it's more common to choose a completely different Hebrew name), but here are some commonly Hebraized ones.

  • Ríona = רינה
  • Rónán = רונן
  • Síofra = שפרה
  • Ciarán = קרן 'horn, ray'

Dialects

Irtan Irish dialects mainly differ in vocabulary and grammar

Canadian Irish

Canadian Irish has as many Ăn Yidiș loans (many from thieves' cant) as our German and Dutch has Yiddish loans.

broad v is /v/ more often

Some Cualand Irish slang expressions:

  • vāhḗ [vɑːˈheː], a minced oath (< a vāhar jDē 'oh mother of God')
  • nīlı hevıdylı lium erı 'I'm not feeling up to it' (An Yidish chnel hevdil lum er 'I don't care about it')
  • ganōv (m) 'fraudster, crook' ganōvālı 'to bilk' (backformation from gănovim 'thieves')
  • plīda (f) 'truancy, cutting school'; ar plīda 'barely (esp. from being caught or being punished)' (from פליטה 'escape')
  • hutzpa/huspa (f) 'chutzpah', hutzpūlı (adj), cutzpadōrı/cuspadōrı 'cheeky person' (חוצפּהטאר)
  • bachar (m) 'guy, chap' (from בחור)
  • hōcham 'having street smarts' (חכם), hochma (f) 'street smarts' (חכמה)
  • ag stīga 'secretly' (שתיקה)
  • lawrı/cantı tachyles 'to speak frankly, straight talk, Tacheles reden' (תּכלית)
  • īnjenūlı '(euphemism) relevant to anything the speaker doesn't want to state directly' (from inyănil 'topical')
  • sechell, sychell, sa-chī́ell (f) 'good sense, common sense, intelligence' (phonosemantic matching of Hebrew שכל sexel, introduced by Aoife, derived from hypothetical PCel su-kʷēslā)

Majorcan Irish

Goēlge na Mìre

French, Majorcan, and English vocab

broad/slender is realized as Arabic emphatic/nonemphatic in broad speech (pun intended); no distinction between fortis and lenis resonants (literally called "broad speech" in Irish)

Schwa is lower than in native Irish accents, often ʌ, ɑ, but word-finally after slender consonants, ɛ (final slender schwa = æ is just a very thick Arabic accent)

broad dh = Arabic Zā' != broad gh = Arabic ghayn in very broad Majorcan Irish