I've been told that the letter "h" is not native to Irish...that, outside of lenition (which traditionally is represented by a dot over the lenited consonant), it really only exists in loan words such as "hata."

So here's my question: Before "h" was used in loan words and for lenition, what was used in such constructions as "a hathair" ("her father")?

Puzzled Redwolf

Not sure, but I suspect they used nothing as most of the Old Irish names you see written are missing lentil marking. I read once that the ponc was used over c, g, t and d, I think and h in other or that the h was used in some periods and the builte in others. I think it was Lon Dubh who said so

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The H thing would have been very different in older forms of the language. In Modern Irish, it's essentially a phonetic thing, but in Scottish Gaelic it is still grammatical, occurring as h- after the 3rd person feminine singular possessive and the 2nd person plural possessive, as well as in certain forms of the definite article. (Feminine singular genitive, common plural nominative/accusative & dative/prepositional.)

These have a close correspondence to (a subset of) the conditions where Welsh would use the "aspirate mutation" (a.k.a. "spirant mutation"). (NB. Don't be confused by the use of the term "aspiration" as applied to Irish. This would be better termed lenition and corresponds closely to Welsh's "soft mutation" both in form and in the situations it occurs in.)

Of course, this doesn't actually answer the question asked....

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

My question, though, is regarding the "h" before a vowel in such constructions as "a hathair" (her father). Without an "h," how would they marked this pronunciation difference, which distinguishes it from "a athair" (his father)?

Redwolf

Old Irish script and orthography is based on Late Latin script.
The letter H was meaningless in Late Latin. There was no /h/ sound in Latin anymore. H was silent as it is in French today.
So it was used in Irish as a meaningless letter, used freely, esp. to enlarge short words beginning with vowels (e.g. i = in became sometimes hi, but still pronounced /i/).
But the Irish /h/ sound (as in "her father") was not written at all (only by coincidence an H was written and an /h/ was pronounced)

But some centuries later, in Middle Irish (perhaps due to contact to other languages with an /h/ sound and a letter H in their orthography) Irish scribes began to use the letter H for the Irish /h/ sound (unless it is due to lenition of s or t).

GRMA!

Aye, we know that an h- would be prefixed in Old Irish but not always written.
But it was there because it is etymological and because it was written later.
There are other initial changes that wouldn't be written in Old Irish but that were pronounced (for instance, the urú wasn't written on c, t etc, I think it was only written in the case of vowels, and before d, g and b).

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

As Lughaidh says, it is a misconception that h wasn't native to Irish. It is more a case of the h being there in speech but it's representation being inconsistent in writing.

As Labhrás touched upon above, the Latin h didn't really have the right value but the scribes eventually co-opted it - for two different uses, i.e., lenition and gemination.

In early manuscripts, the ponc was only used on s and f. h was used with other letters, e.g., ch, ph, th. Lenition wasn't represented at all on b, d, g, or m. Later bh, dh, gh, and mh came to be used.

_Then_ the scribes started to used the ponc as an abbreviation instead of writing extra letters. (In the interim there was a mixture of h's and poncanna for lenition.)

Initial h, on the other hand, wasn't always written.


For more details, see the section "Grammar 1. Spelling and Pronunciation" in the following link:

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ ... l-1-X.html

It states specifically that "h represents [h], as prefixed to vowels (as by the initial mutation called gemination, cf. lesson 2, section 6.3)"

Section 6.3 is on this page:

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ ... 02_GP06_03

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[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

g, b, d and m were not lenited in script, but scholars reckon that they were still pronounced as if they were i.e. lám (lámh) was pronounced as lámh.

Page 8 of the Old Irish workbook by E.G. Quin:

"The voiced plosives and m become the corresponding voiced fricatives- (whatever the fuck means hahaha)". Here's the example:

g /g/ becomes /ɣ/ spelt g /ga/ "spear" a ga /a 'ɣa/ "his spear".

b becomes /v/ spelt b bó /bo:/ "cow" a bó /a 'vó/ "his cow"............



I don't agree that the usage of h- prefix in Irish is different to Scottish Gaelic in regards to Irish being purely phonetic, unless I'm picking you up wrong. h- prefixes occur in all the examples you've given in Irish also, with the exception of the 2nd person plural possessive pronoun, an eclipse/ urú is used instead i.e. bhur/ múr/ úr gcat, yer cat or your cat in standard English.

A h- prefix occurs after the 3rd person feminine singular possessive pronoun in Irish also i.e. a hathair (her father); distinguishing it from a athair (his father), so the h- prefix has both a grammatical and phonological basis here.

common plural nominative: na huaireanta, na hachtanna, na hairí/ na hairithe etc...

Feminine singular genitive: Réamháisnéis na haimsire, fear na haoise etc...

dative/prepositional: dos na/ dona heachtranaigh etc...



As regards Redwolf's question. I agree with Lughaidh, that the h- prefix was not always written, but it was pronounced. Similar to the case with lenition on b, m, g and d.

Page 10 (paragraph 40) of the Old Irish Workbook:

"Words beginning with vowels show, in the modern dialects, a prefixed /h/ (written h-) in certain grammatial contexts. There is no reason there is no reason for supporting that this mutation is not inherited from Old Irish, where, however, the sound is not indicated in writing. Thus a ór "her gold" was probably pronounced /a hór/ (modern a h-ór).

However, h was also often just thrown in here and there for no apparent reason, as Labhrás himself has pointed out with hi. And it says here:

Page 5 (paragraph 22)

"h is often written initially and without apparent phonetic value (perhaps to mark the beginning of words written in groups..), though a sound /h/ was pronouned, but not written in certain combinations" i.e. the one above.

Just to note, wherever you have a h- prefix in modern Irish a phenomena called dúblú occurred in Old Irish, where the initial consonant of a word, if it began with l, n, r, m, or s, would be repeated.

i.e.

a ssé
a ssecht
a ocht (a h-ocht)....

a llám (her hand)

Cian

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

So dúblá would be for tense sounds and so where lenitied 'a lámh' (his hand) you didn't get it.

Should bring it back

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