Irish Alphabet (Modern Latin-based)
Base Letters (18 core in native words)
Modern Irish uses 18 letters of the Latin alphabet for native vocabulary:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U
The remaining letters (J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y, Z) appear only in loanwords or foreign names.
Vowels
Irish distinguishes short and long vowels; long vowels are marked with the acute accent (fada).
| Glyph | Latin Chain | Phoneme (IPA) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | a | /a/ | short a |
| Á | a + ´ | /aː/ | long a |
| E | e | /ɛ/ | short e |
| É | e + ´ | /eː/ | long e |
| I | i | /ɪ/ | short i |
| Í | i + ´ | /iː/ | long i |
| O | o | /ɔ/ | short o |
| Ó | o + ´ | /oː/ | long o |
| U | u | /ʊ/ | short u |
| Ú | u + ´ | /uː/ | long u |
Consonants & Broad/Slender Distinction
Irish consonants have two “flavors”:
- Broad = followed by a, o, u → velarized (“dark”)
- Slender = followed by e, i → palatalized (“light”)
| Glyph | Latin Chain | Phoneme (broad) | Phoneme (slender) |
|---|---|---|---|
| B | b | /bˠ/ | /bʲ/ |
| C | c | /kˠ/ | /c/ |
| D | d | /dˠ/ | /dʲ/ |
| F | f | /fˠ/ | /fʲ/ |
| G | g | /ɡˠ/ | /ɟ/ |
| H | h | /h/ | /h/ (no broad/slender contrast) |
| L | l | /l̪ˠ/ | /lʲ/ |
| M | m | /mˠ/ | /mʲ/ |
| N | n | /n̪ˠ/ | /nʲ/ |
| P | p | /pˠ/ | /pʲ/ |
| R | r | /ɾˠ/ | /ɾʲ/ (trill/tap variation by dialect) |
| S | s | /sˠ/ | /ʃ/ |
| T | t | /t̪ˠ/ | /tʲ/ |
Digraphs & Trigraphs (multi-letter graphemes)
- bh/mh → /v/ (slender /vʲ/) or /w/ depending on context
- dh/gh → voiced fricatives /ɣˠ/ (broad) or /j/ (slender)
- ch → /x/ (broad) or /ç/ (slender)
- fh → silent (historically /f/)
- ph → /f/
- sh/th → /h/
- ng → /ŋ/ (before consonant) or /ŋɡ/ (before vowel)
System Notes for Lattice Integration
- Irish orthography encodes palatalization via adjacent vowel letters, not diacritics on consonants.
- Lenition (softening) is marked with “h” after the consonant — this changes the sound completely (b → bh /v/, c → ch /x/, etc.).
- Eclipsis (nasalization/voicing) is marked by prefixing a consonant — e.g., b → mb, c → gc.
- For our lattice, both broad/slender and mutation type must be feature flags so the same letter can be recognized in its altered states.