Gaelic guide for learners

An sràc ‘the lengthmark’ I once said I was going for a ‘walk’ and my English friend thought I was going for a ‘wok’, because I pronounced ‘walk’ with a short vowel, writes Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle .Insome English dialects, the distinction between long and short vowels, between ‘walk’ and ‘wok’, ‘caught’ and ‘cot’, is important for understanding, while in others it is not. In Gaelic the long/short distinction is vital!

We mentioned last week (short) sabaid ‘fight’ and (long, with lengthmark) sàbaid ‘sabbath’. Here are some more examples: bata ‘stick’, bàta ‘boat’; bas ‘palm’, bàs ‘death’; caise ‘short-temperedness’, càise ‘cheese’; car ‘a turn’, càr ‘car’, caraid ‘friend’, càraid ‘couple’; cas ‘leg’, càs ‘difficulty’; oir ‘edge’, òir ‘golden’; ros ‘promontory’, ròs ‘rose’; sal ‘filth’, sàl ‘salt water’.

We mentioned last week how to set up the United Kingdom Extended keyboard on any Windows PC, to make it easy to write Gaelic. Even better is the “Whacking Sandy” keyboard - you’ll find it with Google which makes it easy to write curly quotes (“” ‘ ’), German (including ß), Polish, Danish, Greek, Old English etc.

For more information on computing in Gaelic, see the igaidhlig.net website. lsabhal Mòr Ostaig offers Gaelic learning opportunities on site and by distance learning www.smo.uhi.ac.uk