Scottish Gaelic orthography has evolved over many centuries and is heavily etymologizing in its modern form. This means the

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

tends to preserve historical components rather than operating on the principles of a

phonemic orthography A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond consistently to the language's phonemes (the smallest units of speech that can differentiate words), or more generally ...

where the

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

s correspond directly to

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s. This allows the same written form in Scottish Gaelic to result in a multitude of pronunciations, depending on the spoken variant of

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

. For example, the word ('watching') may result in , , , or . Conversely, it allows the sometimes highly divergent phonetic forms to be covered by a single written form, rather than requiring multiple written forms.

Alphabet

The alphabet (Scottish Gaelic: , formerly from the first three letters of the Ogham alphabet) now used for writing Scottish Gaelic consists of the following

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

letters, whether written in

Roman type In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of Typeface, historical type, alongside blackletter and Italic type, italic. Sometimes called normal or regular, it is distinct from these two for its upright style (relative to the ...

Gaelic type Gaelic type (sometimes called Irish character, Irish type, or Gaelic script) is a family of Insular script typefaces devised for printing Early Modern Irish. It was widely used from the 16th century until the mid-18th century in Scotland and t ...

: : Vowels may be accented with a

grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan and many other Western European languages as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other ...

but accented letters are not considered distinct letters. Prior the 1981 Gaelic Orthographic Convention (GOC), Scottish Gaelic traditionally used

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...

s on to denote close-mid long vowels, clearly graphemically distinguishing and , and and . However, since the 1981 GOC and its 2005 and 2009 revisions, standard orthography only uses the grave accent. Since the 1980s, the acute accent has not been used in Scottish high school examination papers, and many publishers have adopted the

Scottish Qualifications Authority The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA; Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic: ''Ùghdarras Theisteanas na h-Alba'') is the Scottish public bodies, executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government responsible for accrediting educationa ...

's orthographic conventions for their books. Despite this, traditional spelling is still used by some writers and publishers, although not always intentionally. In

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

, the 2009 Gaelic language curriculum guidelines follow the 2005 GOC orthography, but do not change the traditional spelling of words and phrases common to

or in pre–spelling-reform literature.

Letter names

The early Medieval

treatise A treatise is a Formality, formal and systematic written discourse on some subject concerned with investigating or exposing the main principles of the subject and its conclusions."mwod:treatise, Treatise." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Acc ...

('The Scholars' Primer') describes the origin of alphabets from the Tower of Babel. It assigns plant names and meanings to the Ogham alphabet, to a lesser extent to Norse Younger Futhark runes, and by extension to Latin letters when used to write Gaelic.

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...

' book '' The White Goddess'' has been a major influence on assigning divinatory meanings to the tree symbolism. (See also

Bríatharogam In early Irish literature, a ''Bríatharogam'' ("word ogham", plural ''Bríatharogaim'') is a two-word kenning which explains the meanings of the names of the letters of the Ogham alphabet. Three variant lists of ''bríatharogaim'' or "word-ogham ...

.) Some of the names differ from their modern equivalents (e.g. ''dair'' > ''darach'', ''suil'' > ''seileach'').

Consonants

The consonant letters generally correspond to the consonant phonemes as shown in this table. See

Scottish Gaelic phonology There is no Standard language, standard variety of Scottish Gaelic; although statements below are about all or most dialects, the north-western dialects (Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Northwest Highlands) are discussed more than others as they r ...

for an explanation of the symbols used. Consonants are "broad" ( velarised) when the nearest vowel letter is one of and "slender" ( palatalised) when the nearest vowel letter is one of . A

back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...

is one of the following; ; a

front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...

is any other kind of vowel.

Vowels

Many of the rules in this section only apply in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, the range of vowels is highly restricted, mainly appearing and on occasion . Only certain vowel graphs appear in unstressed syllables: and very infrequently .

Vowel-consonant combinations

are commonly pronounced as vowels or are deleted if they are followed by a consonant. For example, in the is usually but in the has turned into an vowel, yielding rather than in the first syllable.

Epenthetic vowels

Where an is followed (or in the case of , preceded) by a , an epenthetic vowel is inserted between the two. This is usually a copy of the vowel that preceded the . Examples; , , , , . If this process would lead to the sound sequence , the epenthetic vowel is an in many dialects, e.g .

Defunct combinations

The

is no longer used in standard Scottish Gaelic orthography, although it may be encountered in late 20th century writings, and occasionally in contemporary writings, especially in

Canadian Gaelic Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic (, or ), often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada. Scottish Gaels were settled in Nova Scotia from 1773, with the ...

. Certain spellings have also been regularised where they violate pronunciation rules. "Tigh" in particular can still be encountered in house names and certain place names, notably Tighnabruaich and Eilean Tigh. * → * → * →

Notes

References

Sources

External links

Gaelic Orthographic Conventions (2009)
Scottish Qualifications Authority

originally published in the Stornoway Gazette {{DEFAULTSORT:Scottish Gaelic Orthography Scottish Gaelic language Indo-European Latin-script orthographies