Tráthnóna maith, a Chairde!

I have a couple of questions that I’m hoping someone can help me with. I honestly think I’m overthinking it, but I want to be sure my phrasing is correct.

1) To say, “Forgive me for any mistakes I may make,” would “Maithigí domh aon bhotúin a d’fhéadfainn a dhéanamh.” be the best way?

2) To say, “He bought it for me to wear,” would “Cheannaigh sé domh é le caitheamh.” be the most natural way?

And also, I think I finally understand this, but I want to be sure: in Ulster, “Gaeilge” is pronounced like “Gaelic” in nominative and accusative cases, but like “gae.lik.uh” in dative and genitive?

Thank you for any help!

Well I hope other people give a view as I don't know much about Ulster Irish. But I think the first one would be better as: Maithigí domh aon bhotúin a dhéanfainn.

I think the second one is correct.

It's not that Gaeilge is pronounced Gaelic. It's that Gaeilge is a Connemara word that doesn't exist in Ulster Irish. It is Gaelic in all cases other than the genitive, which is Gaelice.

This may be slightly wrong. Let's see if you get any other replies.

I nGaeilg Uladh, déarfainn : maithigí domh meancóg ar bith a dhéanfainn.



Cheannaigh sé domh é le go gcaithfinn é
(so that I wear it)



In Donegal, the nom. case is "Gaeilic" (I spell it Gaeilg if I use a more modern spelling and Gaedhlic if I use the old spelling). The genitive is either Gaeilic (also spelt Gaeilg / Gaedhlic) (as said by the seanchaí John Ghráinne, from Rann na Feirste) or Gaeilice (I'd spell Gaeilge / Gaedhlice), depending on the area.
The dative form is like the nominative. The accusative has disappeared.

Nowadays, almost everybody in Ulster write "Gaeilge" all the time even though they say "Gaeilic" and sometimes "Gaeilice" in the gen. case. Standard Irish ie. school Irish influences more and more local dialects, unfortunately.

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

Thank you both for the helpful explanations!
That way of saying “….for any mistakes I may make,” does sound a lot more natural!
And also, I wouldn’t have guessed that construction for “for me to wear,” but, when it comes down to it, I guess that makes sense…That’s one of my main challenges in learning Irish: relearning different ways to phrase things into ways that might not sound quite right in English…e.g. “He bought me this new shirt so that I’d wear it.” ….sounds kinda wonky in English, but it’s perfectly normal in Irish.

Anyway, thank you both again!

P.S. It’s gonna be nice not to have to wonder if I’m saying Gaeilg correctly anymore!

One thing I had often wondered about in the Donegal pronunciation of the word “Gaeilic” is the pronunciation of the “g” sound.

If you look up the pronunciation of the word “Gaeilge” in teanglann.ie https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fuaim/gaeilge, the Munster speaker says “Gaelainn”, the Connacht speaker says “Gaeilge”, and the Ulster speaker says “Gaeilic”.

The initial “g’” sound in the Munster and Connacht pronunciations is clearly a broad “g” sound. However, to my ears, the initial “g” in the Ulster pronunciation is a slender “g”. Although, arguably, it’s not fully slender, in that there is no [j] glide vowel to be heard directly after the “g”. So maybe this “g” sound would be better described as a “neutral” (i.e. neither fully broad, not fully slender) “g” sound, like occurs in the English language.

In other words, to me, the “g” sound of Ulster Irish “Gaeilic” seems identical to the “g” sound in the English word “Gaelic”. Nor sure what’s going on here.

(Cf. Ulster pronunciation of “géag” https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fuaim/g%C3%A9ag, where is the initial “g” is fully slender – you can hear a subtle [j] glide vowel after the “g”.)

Yes, you're right and the Ulster speaker seems to say Céilic, with an initial g.

Others explained this already, but to give a bit more historical background: the nominative and dative are the same (Gaeilic ~ Gaeilg ~ Gaeilig ~ Gaedhlig…) because they both continue the original dative form.

The Old Irish forms were: nom. Goídelc /ɡoi̯ð´əlɡ/, acc./dat. Goídilc /ɡoi̯ð´əl´ɡ´/, gen. Goídilce /ɡoi̯ð´əl´ɡ´e/
They gave Classical Gaelic forms (in the spelling of later grammatical tracts): nom. Gáoidhealg /ɡɯːð´əlɡ/, acc./dat. Gáoidheilg /ɡɯːð´əl´ɡ´/, gen. Gáoidheilge /ɡɯːð´əl´ɡ´ə/ (where /ð´/ was either [ðʲ] or [ʝ], it definitely merged with slender gh /ɣ´/ [ʝ] in later period).
By the 19th century those forms were commonly spelt Gaedhealg, Gaedhilg, Gaedhilge.

Most modern Gaelic dialects lost the nominative and use forms of the dative today. So Scottish Gàidhlig, Ulster Gaeilic continue older Gáoidheilg > Gaedhilg with the /ɯːɣ´ə/ sequence simplified into a single vowel (/eː/ across Ireland, /aː/ at least in parts of Scotland, /iː ~ ɪ/ in the Isle of Man) and an epenthetic vowel between the /l´/ and /ɡ´/. Munster forms Gaelainn, Gaeilinn seem to continue this form too, just with additional nasalization of the final consonant (-lig /-l´əɡ´/ → -ling /-l´əŋ´/, and in the west with broad /l/: → -laing /-ləŋ´/; perhaps under the influence of related words like Gáoidhealach → Gaelach).

So the genitive, at least more traditionally, in those places has the additional vowel: Gáoidheilge → Gàidhlige, Gaeilice, Gaelainne, except that in Scotland in multi-syllabic words the final unstressed reduced vowel was commonly dropped (thus nowadays na Gàidhlig also in the genitive, except for very old-school texts keeping the final -e).

The standard and Conamara form, Gaeilge, continues the genitive Gáoidheilge.

It’s possible that the nominative form survives as a variant form with broad ending in some dialects – but generally there is no separate dative form for the name of the language, because the main forms these days all come from the dative and pushed the nominative out.