Before I start ranting too much: I am no linguist, I am a complete noob at learning the Irish language. These viewpoints I have here are going to probably be seen as very ignorant and naïve to those of you more enlightened in the development of language etc, and I would love to have my thinking corrected by somebody who knows what they are talking about.

Part of Genesis 12:3:

"Beidh mo bheannact ar an muintir a chuirfidh beannacht ort. Beidgh mo mhallacht ar an muintir a chuirfidh mallacht ort"

Pronouncing both "bh" and "mh" as a "v" sound, what is the difference in pronunciation between bheannact and mhallacht?

Also, "my father" = "m'athair" sounds like "mother = Máthair" to me.

Maybe it's just the fact that i grew up speaking english, and we don't have as many phonemes as Irish, but those crucial subtleties of the Irish language are really throwing me off. These subtleties along with difference pronunciation based on dialect and time period, along with multiple different forms of nouns (genitive, vocative etc) are really discouraging for me as I try to learn Irish.

Also, I still really don't like initial mutations. So many of the rules seem to be arbitrary grammatical constructions based on the seemingly flawed implementation of the Latin-Roman to the Irish Language and therefore betray an earlier, purer state of the language. I can't help but feel that hundreds of years ago during the oppression of Ireland by the English, the English sabotaged the Irish language by adding these tedious soul-sucking features of the language. Why else would the earlier forms of Irish words have SO MANY silent/useless consonants in the Latin-Roman alphabet? I mean, the influence of the catholic church had on the Irish langauge is evident right away... "Dia dhuit!! --> Dia's agus Muire Dhuit!!" And i believe it's common knowledge that the catholic church was one of the most opponents of the Irish langauge in that their masses/sermons were always English, right?

I mean, maybe at one point initial mutations were more legit and evolved over time to a natural place, where under certain circumstance, the initial sound of a word would sound "softer" or "more nasally" or something , but now both séimhiú and urú can often completely change the sound of the beginning of a word, leaving no remnant of the original sound of the start of the word... I can't help but feel that as I learn Irish more and more, the effect that these initial mutations have as to hinder effective clear communication will become more and more evident.

Please explain why I'm totally wrong, it'd make me more motivated to keep studying Irish from sources such as Rosetta stone, Listen with Liam, Teach yourself Irish and watching shows with subtitles on TG4.

Also, i can't help feel that the Irish number system has been intentionally dumbed down at some point. It is common for more primitive languages to have different "word numbers" for different objects. Like in Irish, we have different "word numbers" when counting people as opposed to counting a different object, or counting in a more abstract sense. Also, the fact that it is common place to use some sort of base 20 system is pretty sketch, in the "Teach Yourself Irish" it says that there is an "old literary form" that is making a comeback, in which the system is base 20. I am a mathematician, and the great Irish genius William Rowan Hamilton is to me in the top 3 most important mathematicians of all time, and to think of him working in base 20, or not having a well developed notion of a number in an abstract sense, and the appropriate language to describe it, is laughable.

/rant


Thanks in advance!!

bheanacht vs mhallacht: in the first one, the bh is slender, so it is like there is a subtle y being pronounced at the same time as the v (in linguistics, this is called palitalisation). Traditionally, also, mh would be nasalised, so a small amount of air would be escaping through your nasal cavity as you pronounce it (think the vowel in the French word un), as opposed to bh which is completely oral. Also, these v sounds are both different from the English v sound as, whereas in English the v is articulated by pressing the upper teeth against the bottom lip, in Irish, it is formed by pressing the two lips together.

m'athair vs máthair: the first one has a short a. For a very, very loose comparison, the a in athair is kind of like the a in English 'mad', and the á in máthair is kind of like the a in English 'Maude'.

I really don't understand what you mean when you say that 'so many of the rules seem to be arbitrary grammatical constructions based on the seemingly flawed implementation of the Latin-Roman to the Irish Language and therefore betray an earlier, purer state of the language'. Irish is a very individual language in terms of its grammar and vocabulary, and, while yes, some very individual points of grammar may be being implemented by non-native speakers, possibly, illogically, most of the grammar remains pure, especially that of Gaeltacht writers. I would not say that the earlier forms of the language have 'SO MANY silent/useless consonants', as those 'useless' letters often served as a means to represent sound variations of the language in certain dialects that are no longer present in most of the modern language (for example, buí 'yellow', used to be spelt buiḋe (and really still should be) as in Ulster, as well as other parts of Ireland probably, this word is/was not pronounced with the single, long vowel (i.e. /bi:/) that the modern spelling suggests, but instead is/was pronounced with two separate vowels (i.e. /bijə/), as suggested by the older spelling). But, oftentimes, authors will often simplify the spelling of words in their writing to cater to their specific dialect (e.g. see Scéalta ón mBlascaod, where everything is written completely phonemically), as to give the reader a better understanding of how to pronounce the word. However, this is often done in older books, written by native speakers, before the Caighdeán was implemented. If you are reading in the older spelling, there are many regular rules that you can learn to figure out how words would be pronounced (e.g. amhail = úil, uadha = ua). There were definitely sermons held in Irish. David has even posted some of Peadar Ó Laoghaire's on the forum.

As for initial mutations, I would just recommend taking it slow. Listen to the word, and try to work out if the word has a mutation or not. Oftentimes, mutated consonants can only occur in mutated forms (so, if you hear a word starting with the gh sound, you must know that the word is being mutated, because no words start with the /ɣ/ sound in non-leniting environments). Secondly, when you hear a mutated word, try to work backwards. For example, if you hear a word that starts with a v sound, then you know that it must either start with an m, an f, or a b because both of those consonants mutate into the v sound. And, most importantly, pay attention to other words around it. So, for example, if you hear ár dteanga, you know that teanga starts with a t because ár causes eclipsis. Another good way to practice is to, every time you learn a new word that starts with a consonant, work out and pronounce out loud the mutated forms of that word.

I know this probably isn't very helpful, but, personally, I wouldn't waste time with apps like Duolingo or Rosetta stone. They are overpriced and are too slow, and don't go into deep enough detail about the language. For me, what really worked, is talking to people. If I were you, I would go to Italki and book some lessons with either Patchy or Daniel (those are the best speakers) and just talk.

The base twenty system is indeed used in Irish. It is especially common in Munster. Diarmuid Ó Sé talks about it in detail. It goes (h)aon, dó, trí, ceathair, cúig, sé, seacht, ocht, naoi, deich = 1 - 10; haon ndéag, dó dhéag, trí déag, ceathair déag, cúig déag, sé déag, seacht déag, ocht déag, naoi déag, fiche = 11 - 20; aon is fiche, dó is fiche ... deich is fiche = 21 - 30; daichead, deich is daichead/leathchéad, trí fichid, deich is trí fichid, cheithre fichid, deich is cheithre fichid, céad/c(h)úig fichid, sé fichid = 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 120.

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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

I would also recommend the YouTuber AnLoingseach, who has excellent videos about pronunciation, the old spelling, and many other topics that you have asked about. I think if you spent a little time watching his videos you could drastically improve your Irish.

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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 for the great response!!