peach wrote:
Hello, I wondered what is the right spelling for the word "heart".
I often see it spelled as "croí" or "chroí", with an "h".
Are both spellings correct?
When standing alone, the word is always "croí". When you see it with the added "h", it is due to its use in a particular phrase, where in some cases there is a sound change in the initial consonant. This occurs, for example, in the traditional endearment "A stór mo chroí" ("O pulse of my heart" = "O my beloved"). This type of change is referred to as "séimhiú" (which comes from the word for "slender" or "mellow"), and occurs quite often in Irish, with a number of consonants in various contexts.