Gaeilge or “Irish Gaelic” is the national
and official language of Ireland. Although everyone in Ireland speaks
English, there are regions known as the Gaeltacht that use
Irish as the main language. It belongs to Goidelic group of Celtic
languages. Gaeilge sounds really beautiful and is gramatically
different from English, French or other European languages.
Ogham
was the writing system used to write Old Irish until Latin script was
introduced in the 8th century CE. The traditional Irish alphabet
(áibítir) consists of 18 letters: ⟨a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i,
l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u⟩. Vowels may be accented with an acute
accent named
fada: á, é, í, ó, ú. Irish pronunciation is consistent. This
means that you can read any given text aloud pretty well after a small
amount of study. Learning it is very interesting and a good workout
for your brain!
Would you like to know more about learning Irish?