Haigh, a Chairde!

I have been reading Bible verses in Irish lately and really enjoying it! My favorite version is the BEDELL Bible primarily because of its manuscript history, but also because of its similarity to the King James Bible. Since it’s written in older Irish though, it’s hard for me to know how to pronounce the words or sometimes even to look up the meanings on Teanglann, because of the older spelling. Does anyone know of an online reference for looking up meanings of older spellings/pronunciations? Or even an audio bible for the BEDELL. I looked myself, but to no avail. I’ve been using the ABN2012 because of its accessibility for Irish learners, but my ultimate goal is to transition to the Bedell.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh as aon chuidiú!

Rosie

My suggestion (though it is quite clunky) would be to find an English version of the bible, and find the English word in the verse, which you can type into teanglann.ie to (hopefully) find the modern Irish equivalent. The pronunciation would also be easier to derive from that as well. Alternatively, you could enter the word into corpas.ria.ie to find alternative spellings of the word, or even try EDIL (electronic dictionary of the Irish language) to get a meaning and sources. I have a copy of this bible myself, but unfortunately I do not know much about William Bedell. From glancing at the wikipedia article, he was born in England, and thus probably didn't speak Irish as his first language. I'm not sure what his dialect of Irish was, so I don't know how the words were intended to be pronounced. From what I've read in the bible so far, there seems to be some inconsistency just in basic orthography, etc. Of course, Bedell was born in the 1500s, so whatever dialect of early modern Irish he spoke would be very different from modern dialects of today.

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I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar

Those are wonderful suggestions! Go raibh míle MÍLE maith agat, a Chara! An-cuidiúil.

You can read Bedell and An Bíobla Naofa parallel:
https://www.bible.com/bible/883/GEN.1.B ... rallel=554

or use another version for comparison, e.g. King James Bible
https://www.bible.com/bible/883/GEN.1.ABN?parallel=1

Bedell did not translate himself.
The translator of the Old Testament was Muircheartach Ó Cionga from Offaly.
The translators of the New Testament were Nicholas Walsh, Anglican bishop of Ossory, born in Co. Waterford, John Kearney (Seán Ó Cearnaigh), Fearganainm Ó Domhnalláin (Nehemiah Donnellan), Anglican archbishop of Tuam, born in Co. Galway and completed by Uilliam Ó Domhnaill (William Daniel), Anglican archbishop of Tuam, born in Co. Kilkenny.

Besides what Séamus proposed above - it would even better and easier if you could get a parallel version, i.e. Irish on the one side, language you know (presumably English) on the other. E.g. https://www.bible.com/bible/883/MAT.1.BEDELL?parallel=1 (what Labhrás linked above).

Dinneen's Dictionary Digitized:
Foclóir an Duinnínigh (digitized 1927 edition) https://www.focloir.info/
Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla (1904) (PDF of the 1st edition) https://celt.ucc.ie/Dinneen1sted.html

Finally, remember that every word could be spelt in many ways. All too many ways. E.g. cheannuigh = cheannaigh (he bought): Dinneen preferred -uigh, the current standard -aigh. Or tuatha = tuaithe (of a people/countryside): /h/ stays [h], the pronunciations is the same.
Personally, I find it extremely frustrating. Dictionary lookup, a seemingly trivial procedure, turns into a challenge.
But that's what's charming about Irish, isn't it.

In addition to what Gréasaghas said in regards to the spelling and pronunciation, it is helpful to know that, whereas in modern Irish the accent mark always goes on one vowel as opposed to another (e.g. always Íosa), in older literary works the accent mark could often be moved around freely, and its only real purpose was to show that the SYLLABLE was long. This gives way to spellings like Íosa and Iósa both being viable, but regardless of the spelling that is used, it's important to remember that the PRONUNCIATION always stays the same. So even though it could be spelt Iósa, it will always be /i:sə/, as opposed to */(j)o:sə/.

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I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar

Thank you all! I just came back to find that more people had provided more help since I last checked….Those were very helpful tips!

Go raibh míle maith agaibh!

Rosie