Gaeilge question

[Moonshadow]

I have seen "Merry Christmas" written in Irish as both "Nollaig shona dhuit" and "Nollaig shona duit". Are these just dialectical differences, or is one of these just incorrect?

Go raibh maith agat!

[DelBoy]

Hi!

both of these are correct, it just comes down to dialectal differences. 'Dhuit' is more common in the North. It sounds strange to me, but its not incorrect.


Nollaig Shona duit!
Agus Nollaig shona do gach duine sa Chomhphobal Unilang!

[Stan]

I have a question:

I'm of Irish descent and I've always been interested in learning the language of my ancestors but the spelling looks very hard to pronounce. I mean, the pronunciation is quite different from the spelling. But I would love to learn it but I want to know if it sounds good first. Is Irish a beautiful language? Or not? Do you know any good Irish songs???

[DelBoy]

Dia dhuit, a Stancel
Hi Stancel,

Irish spelling is actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. Despite its appearances, the pronuniation matches quite well with the spelling, just not with English spelling! It might be confusing for an English speaker that the line i wrote at the beginning is pronounced something like 'JEE-uh gHwitch' - but when you can see that a slender 'd' (Dia) is always pronounced with an english 'J' sound, and an 'a' is always pronounced as a schwa (@) at the end of a word, it begins to make more sense!

It would really be up to you to decide whats beautiful - beauty is in the [ear] of the beholder!

As for songs in Irish - try looking for some Clannad stuff. 'Níl sé 'na lá' (It's not yet day) is a good one! Also 'Siúil a ghrá' (walk my love), and Dúlaman.


Daniel,

yup, thats right. As far as I know, Scots Gaelic evolved from Ulster Irish. It even sounds like they speak a foreign language up there! I cant understand a word they say!! But I think Ulster speakers and Scots Gaelic speakers can understand each other fairly well.... or so I've been told