Scottish Gaelic
Alphabet
Scottish Gaelic, or Gàidhlig, uses the same alphabet as English (A, B, C...), though only 18 of the 26 letters are used.
These letters are part of the Gaelic alphabet:
Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu
The following letters of the English alphabet are not used in Gaelic, except in loanwords: Jj, Kk, Qq, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz.
Vowels can also be written with either a grave (`) or acute (´) accent above them. Only the grave accent is used in modern Gaelic, but the texts we work on in DP are rather old, so expect to see both.
All the letters needed for Gaelic are available in the Basic Latin character suite.
Letter Combinations
Vowels
These are dipthongs and tripthongs you can expect to come across:
ai, ao, ea, ei, eo, eu, ia, io, iu, oi, ua, ui, aoi, eoi, iai, iui, uai
Vowels are never doubled like they are in English (such as ee or oo).
Consonants
The letter "h" following a consonant represents a change in pronunciation, resulting in the following combinations:
bh, ch, dh, fh, gh, mh, ph, sh, th
Apostrophes
Spacing
Like English, apostrophes can be used in Gaelic when words are shortened, and the apostrophe can appear at the beginning or end of the shortened word. There is usually a space on either side of the shortened form of the word (an exception to this is dh', which doesn't have a space after it: dh’fhalbh, dh’iarraidh):
| Word | Short | Example |
|---|---|---|
| agus, is | 's | math ’s gu bheil e |
| am | a' | anns a’ bhàta |
| bu | b' | cha b' ann |
| do | d' | sgrìobh d' ainm |
| mo | m' | m' athair |
Having said that, historic texts may differ in their orthography, so you should always match the scans.
Quotes
Sentences can often start with an apostrophe, such as the shortened form of the verb is (be); these can be easy to miss, especially at the start of a quote:
'S math sin! -- "'S math sin!"
WordCheck
There is currently no Gaelic dictionary in Word Check.
While it isn't necessary for proofreaders to use an external dictionary (simply matching the scans will do), you can use the Learn Gaelic online dictionary if you wish.