Old Irish language

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Old Irish language

Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....
, or, rather, the Goidelic languages

Goidelic languages

The Goidelic languages, , historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, through the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland....
, for which extensive written texts are possessed. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, when it gave way to Middle Irish.

A still older form of Irish is known as Primitive Irish. Fragments of Primitive Irish, mainly personal names, are known from inscriptions on stone written in the Ogham

Ogham

Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to represent the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic languages ancestor of Welsh language....
alphabet. These inscriptions date from about the 4th to the 6th centuries.

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Encyclopedia

Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language

Irish language

Goidelic languages

Ogham

Proto-Celtic language

The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the putative ancestor of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics....
, the ancestor of all Celtic languages

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European languages language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul....
.

Old Irish first appears in the margins of Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
religious manuscripts as early as the 6th century. A large number of early Irish literary texts, though recorded in manuscripts of the Middle Irish period (such as Lebor na hUidre
Lebor na hUidre

Lebor na hUidre, in English The Book of the Dun Cow, or MS 23 E 25, is an Irish vellum manuscript dating to the 12th century....
and the Book of Leinster
Book of Leinster

MS H 2.18 , or the Book of Leinster , formerly known as the Book of Oughaval , is a medieval Irish manuscript compiled ca. 1160 and now kept in Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin....
), are essentially Old Irish in character.

Old Irish is the ancestor of Modern Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....
, Scottish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic language

Scottish Gaelic is a member of the Goidelic languages branch of Celtic languages. This branch also includes the Irish language and Manx language languages....
, and Manx

Manx language

Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages spoken on the Isle of Man. The last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974, but in recent years it has been the subject of language revival efforts, and it is now the medium of education at the , a primary school for four- to eleven-year-olds in St....
(spoken on the Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , or Mann , is a self-governing Crown dependency, located in the Irish Sea at the geographical centre of the British Isles....
). However, it is quite distinct from these. Broadly speaking, the grammar

Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
and sound systems

Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
of the modern languages are simpler than those of Old Irish.

Contemporary Old Irish scholarship is still greatly influenced by the works of a small number of scholars active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, among them Rudolf Thurneysen

Rudolf Thurneysen

Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen was a Switzerland linguistics and Celtic Studies.Born in Basel, Thurneysen studied classical philology in Basel, Leipzig, Berlin and Paris....
(1857-1940) and Osborn Bergin

Osborn Bergin

Osborn Joseph Bergin was a scholar of the Irish language and Early Irish literature. He was born in Cork and was educated at Queen's College Cork , then went to Germany for advanced studies in Celtic languages, working with Heinrich Zimmer at the Frierich Wilhelm University of Berlin and later with Rudolf Thurneysen at the University of Fr...
(1873-1950). Their books are viewed as required material for any enthusiast of Old Irish even today.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
inventory of Old Irish is shown in the chart below. represent fortis

Fortis and lenis

Fortis and lenis are linguistic terms. In a broad sense, they refer to the opposition of consonants such as p, t vs. b, d....
sonorant

Sonorant

In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. Essentially this means a sound that's "squeezed out" or "spat out" is not a sonorant....
s whose precise articulation is unknown, but which were probably longer, tenser

Tenseness

In phonology, tenseness is a particular vowel quality that is phoneme contrastive in many languages, including English language. It has also occasionally been used to describe contrasts in consonants....
, and generally more strongly articulated than their lenis counterparts . Like Modern Irish, Old Irish exhibits contrasts between "broad" (velarized

Velarization

Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the Soft palate during the articulation of the consonant....
) and "slender" (palatalized

Palatalization

Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
) consonants.

		Labial Labial consonant Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth . English is a bilabial nasal consonant sonorant, and are bilabial stop consonant , and are labiodental fricative consonant....	Dental Dental consonant In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages....	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the Dental alveolus of the superior teeth....	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....	broad
	slender
Plosive	broad
Plosive	slender
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...	broad
	slender
Nasalized Nasalization In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the soft palate is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth.... fricative	broad
	slender
Approximant	broad
Approximant	slender
Lateral Lateral consonant Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....	broad
	slender

Some details of Old Irish phonetics

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds , and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception....
are not known. may have been pronounced or , as in Modern Irish. may have been the same sound as and/or . and may have been pronounced and respectively. The difference between and may have been that the former were trills

Trill consonant

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr > as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular trill....
while the latter were flaps

Flap consonant

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another....
.

Vowels

The inventory of Old Irish monophthong

Monophthong

A monophthong is a "pure" vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not semivowel towards a new position of articulation; compare diphthong....
s is:

	Short		Long
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel....
Open Open vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....

The distribution of short vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s in unstressed

Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables....
syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Speech communication sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter....
s is a little complicated. All short vowels may appear in unstressed final open syllables (an open syllable is one with no coda consonant

Syllable coda

In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the syllable nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a syllable rime....
), after both broad and slender consonants. The front vowels and are often spelled ae and ai after broad consonants, which might indicate a retracted pronunciation here, perhaps something like and . All ten possibilities are shown in the following examples:

Old Irish	Pronouncation	English	Annotations
		kill	1 Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns.... sg. Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... subj. Subjunctive mood In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb grammatical mood that exists in many languages. It is typically used in dependent clauses to express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present....
		leave	1 sg. subj.
		kill	2 sg. subj.
		leave	2 sg. subj.
		kill	2 sg. indic.
		leave	2 sg. indic.
		eye	gen. Genitive case In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
		door	gen.
		kill	1 sg. indic.
		leave	1 sg. indic.

In unstressed closed syllables (that is, those with a syllable coda), the quality of a short vowel is almost entirely predictable by whether the surrounding consonants are broad or slender. Between two broad consonants, the vowel is , as in "vengeance" (nom.

Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
). Between a slender and a broad consonant the vowel is , as in "law" (nom./acc.

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
). Before a slender consonant the vowel is , as in "vengeance" (acc./dat.

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
), and "law" (gen.). The chief exceptions to this pattern are that frequently appears when the following syllable contained an *u in Proto-Celtic

Proto-Celtic language

Labial consonant

Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth . English is a bilabial nasal consonant sonorant, and are bilabial stop consonant , and are labiodental fricative consonant....
(for example, "book"; domun "world").

The inventory of Old Irish diphthong

Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
s is shown in this chart:

Long (bimoraic Mora (linguistics) Mora is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight in some languages. Like many technical linguistics terms, the exact definition of mora varies.... )					Short (monomoraic)

Orthography

As with most medieval languages, the orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
of Old Irish is not fixed, so the following statements are to be taken as generalizations only. Individual manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript is any document that is written by hand, as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material or scratched as with a knife point in plaster or with a stylus on a wa...
s may vary greatly from these guidelines.

The Old Irish alphabet

Alphabet

An alphabet is a standardized set of letter basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a phoneme, a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past....
consists of the following eighteen letters

Letter (alphabet)

A letter is an element in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Each letter in the written language is usually associated with one phoneme in the spoken form of the language....
of the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u

In addition, the acute accent

Acute accent

The acute accent is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet and Greek alphabet writing systems....
and the superdot

Dot (diacritic)

When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the Interpunct , or to the glyphs 'combining dot above' and 'combining dot below' which may be combined with some Letter s of the extended Latin alphabets in use in Central European languages and Vietnamese language....
are used as diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
s with certain letters:

The acute accent indicates a long vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
. The following are long vowels: á, é, í, ó, ú.
The superdot indicates the lenition
Lenition

Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. Along with assimilation , it is one of the primary sources of historical linguistics of languages....
of f and s: is silent, is pronounced
The superdot is also sometimes used on m and n with no change in pronunciation, when these letters are used to mark the nasalization mutation: , .

A number of digraph

Digraph (orthography)

A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
s are also used:

The letter i is placed after a vowel letter to indicate that the following consonant was slender: ai, ei, oi, ui; ái, éi, ói, úi

The letter h is placed after c, t, p to indicate a fricative: ch, th, ph

The diphthongs are also indicated by digraphs: áe/aí, ía, uí, áu, óe/oí, úa, éu, óu, iu, au, eu

In word-initial position, when no initial consonant mutation

Consonant mutation

Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphology and/or syntax environment.Mutation phenomena are found in languages around the world....
has applied, the consonant letters have the following values; they are broad before back vowel

Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
s (a, o, u) and slender before front vowel

Front vowel

A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
s (e, i):

Consonant	When no initial consonant mutation Consonant mutation Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphology and/or syntax environment.Mutation phenomena are found in languages around the world.... has applied in word-initial position before a, o, u	When no initial consonant mutation Consonant mutation Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphology and/or syntax environment.Mutation phenomena are found in languages around the world.... has applied in word-initial position before e, i
b
b
c
d
f
g
h	See discussion below
l
m
n
p
r
s
t

Although Old Irish has both a sound and a letter h, there is no consistent relationship between the two. Vowel-initial words are sometimes written with an unpronounced h, especially if they are very short (the preposition "in" was sometimes written ) or if they need to be emphasized (the name of Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
, , was sometimes written ). On the other hand, words that begin with the sound are usually written without it, for example "her gold". If the sound and the spelling cooccur

Co-occurrence

Co-occurrence can either mean concurrence / coincidence or, in a more specific sense, the above-chance frequent occurrence of two words from a text corpus alongside each other in a certain order....
, it is by coincidence, as "it is not".

After a vowel or l, n, or r the letters c, p, t can stand for either voiced or voiceless stops; they can also be written double with either value:

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		son
		small
		refuse
		mantle
		goad
		hole
		red
		fosterling
		who hide
		of remaining
		who remain

After a vowel the letters b, d, g stand for the fricatives or their slender equivalents:

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		black
		work
		slave
		sword
		swords

After m, b is a stop, but after d, l and r it is a fricative:

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		butter
		knot (in a tree)
		image
		dead

After n and r, d is a stop

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		melodious
		"art, skill"

After n, l, and r, g is usually a stop, but it is a fricative in a few words:

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		ship
		thorn
		silver
		daughter
		loaf of bread

After vowels m is usually a fricative, but sometimes a (nasal) stop, in which case it is also often written double:

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		company
		bare

The digraphs ch, ph, th do not occur in word-initial position except under lenition, but wherever they occur they are pronounced .

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		horse
		beauty
		ford

The letters l, n, and r are written double when they indicate the tense sonorants, single when they indicate the lax sonorants. (But the tense sonorants are usually written single in word-initial position.)

Old Irish	Pronunciation	English
		crane
		putting
		hazel
		sin
		stake
		sound

Syntax

Old Irish follows the typical VSO (verb-subject-object) structure shared by most Celtic languages

Celtic languages

Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
, and have most of the forms typical of Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
, i.e. present

Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
, imperfect

Imperfect tense

The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a past tense with an imperfective aspect. In English, it is referred to as the past continuous tense....
, past

Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
, future

Future tense

In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
and preterite

Preterite

The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place in the past. It is similar to the aorist in languages such as Greek language....
tenses

Grammatical tense

Grammatical tense is a temporal language quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, and grammatical person, which verb forms may express....
, indicative, subjunctive

Subjunctive mood

In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb grammatical mood that exists in many languages. It is typically used in dependent clauses to express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present....
, conditional

Conditional mood

The conditional mood is the form of the verb used in conditional sentences to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event that is contingent on another set of circumstances....
and imperative

Imperative mood

The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests. It is also used to signal a prohibition, permission or any other kind of exhortation....
moods

Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...
, and active and passive voices

Grammatical voice

In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its verb arguments ....
. The only verbal form lacking in Old Irish is the infinitive

Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
(present to a limited degree in Modern Irish), the meaning of which Old Irish conveyed with verbal noun

Verbal noun

A verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb Stem , sharing at least in part its constructions. This term is applied especially to gerunds, and sometimes also to infinitives and supines....
constructions. Personal pronouns, when used as direct objects, are infixed into the verb with which they are associated. What equate to prepositions in English are generally in the same placement as Old Irish, though a good many with verbal overtones are actually infixed into the verbs themselves.

Morphology

Nouns

Old Irish maintained three genders

Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
, namely, masculine, feminine and neuter; three numbers

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, namely, singular

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, plural

Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
and dual

Dual (grammatical number)

Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun....
, with the third number, dual, being attested only to a limited degree with somewhat distinct forms, though it is almost always preceded by the cardinal , meaning "two"; and five cases (nominative

Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
, vocative

Vocative case

The vocative case is the declension used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence....
, accusative

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
, genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
and dative

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
). Thurneysen

Rudolf Thurneysen

Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
on the stem, with seven vocalic stems and seven consonantal stems (including one class of irregular and indeclinable nouns).

Feminine a-stems	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Dual Dual (grammatical number) Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun....	Plural Plural Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
Nominative Nominative case The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
Vocative Vocative case The vocative case is the declension used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence....		-
Accusative Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
Genitive Genitive case In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
Dative Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....

Verbs

Verbs stand initially in the sentence (preceded only by some particles, forming a 'verbal complex' and very few adverbs). Most verbs have, in addition to the tenses, voices, and moods named above, two sets of forms: a conjunct form, and an absolute form

Dependent and independent verb forms

In the Goidelic languages, dependent and independent verb forms are distinct verb forms used either with a preceding grammatical particle or, usually, without one ....
. The conjunct form typically consists of one or more preverbs (particles some of which are historically of prepositional origin, compare , , , etc. in Latin verbs, though not directly related and verbal prefixes in Germanic languages), followed by a verb stem which bears the bulk of the conjugation. Personal pronouns as direct objects are infixed between the preverb and the verbal stem, along with various other particles that modify the verb's meaning (including the negative) or indicate certain special sentence structures. The absolute form is used when no infixes are necessary, and any other necessary elements are given in another part of the sentence. A single verb can stand as an entire sentence in Old Irish, in which case emphatic particles such as and are affixed to the end of the verb.

External links

MacBain, Alexander Gairm Publications, 1982
from the University of Texas at Austin.
(digital edition of the Dictionary of the Irish Language
Dictionary of the Irish Language

Dictionary of the Irish Language: Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials , published by the Royal Irish Academy, is the definitive dictionary of the origins of the Irish language, specifically the Old Irish language and Middle Irish language stages; the modern language is not included....
)

Old Irish language

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Orthography

Syntax

Morphology

Nouns

Verbs

See also

External links