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PostPosted: Tue 03 Mar 2026 12:23 am 
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So, my main Irish learning resources have been Teach yourself Irish and reading the Duoay-Rheims bible side by side the PUL's Cork bible translation.

I've been dabbling in the ABN translation, and it's very common that I see verbs ending with suffix -í

Here is Luke 6:37:
Ná tugaigí breath agus ní thabharfad breith oraibh. Ná daoraigí agus ní dhaorfad sibi. Maithigí agus maithfear daoibh.

What is going on here? How would the Cork Irish bible conjugate the verbs?

If anyone could enlighten me as to some of the other major differences I can expect to find between reading the ABN and the cork bible I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!


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PostPosted: Tue 03 Mar 2026 2:13 am 
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Joined: Thu 22 Dec 2011 6:28 am
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Location: Corcaigh
msv133 wrote:
So, my main Irish learning resources have been Teach yourself Irish and reading the Duoay-Rheims bible side by side the PUL's Cork bible translation.

I've been dabbling in the ABN translation, and it's very common that I see verbs ending with suffix -í

Here is Luke 6:37:
Ná tugaigí breath agus ní thabharfad breith oraibh. Ná daoraigí agus ní dhaorfad sibi. Maithigí agus maithfear daoibh.

What is going on here? How would the Cork Irish bible conjugate the verbs?

If anyone could enlighten me as to some of the other major differences I can expect to find between reading the ABN and the cork bible I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!


What you're seeing is the post-spelling-reform 2nd Plural imperative form of the verb. In Irish, unlike English, if you're telling multiple people to do something, to follow an order of some sort, you use a different form of the verb than if you were just commanding one person to do it.

What you're probably used to is the older spelling -(a)idh (page 142 in Teach Yourself Irish I think). This is pronounced the same way as , however, and functionally, they do the same thing.

Ná tugaigidh breath agus ní thabharfad breith oraibh. Ná daoraigidh agus ní dhaorfad sibi. Maithigidh agus maithfear daoibh.


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PostPosted: Tue 03 Mar 2026 3:15 am 
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Okay, cool, thanks. Interesting to hear you say that the -í is pronounced the same as -idh. I've been pronouncing the -idh suffix like "ig" in English. Like on the future tense of regular verbs, i.e. glanfaidgh sé and glanfaidh sibh.

And then also on the future of "to be", beidh sé and beidh sibh.

I don't mind mixing dialects. Is there a dialect where -idh sounds like "ig" in these circumstances? thank you


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PostPosted: Tue 03 Mar 2026 4:05 am 
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Joined: Thu 22 Dec 2011 6:28 am
Posts: 496
Location: Corcaigh
msv133 wrote:
Okay, cool, thanks. Interesting to hear you say that the -í is pronounced the same as -idh. I've been pronouncing the -idh suffix like "ig" in English. Like on the future tense of regular verbs, i.e. glanfaidgh sé and glanfaidh sibh.

And then also on the future of "to be", beidh sé and beidh sibh.

I don't mind mixing dialects. Is there a dialect where -idh sounds like "ig" in these circumstances? thank you


I should have specified. The Cork Bible is obviously in Munster Irish. "Teach Yourself Irish" also teaches broadly Munster Irish spelling and pronunciation. ABN is (I assume) in the official standard. In Munster Irish, you would expect it to be pronounced "ig" or "íg". It's in other dialects that -idh is phonetically alike , and so the post-reform spelling is really only a feature of the official standard for the language, based on these other dialects, not on Munster Irish.

Even here, I am massively oversimplifying the issue. If you really want more information on this dialectal distinction, I'd advise reading chapter VII of T.F. O'Rahilly's "Irish Dialects Past and Present", with a particular focus on pages 58-62.


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