Irish Words Can Mutate!

Before you pronounce Irish names or thumb through a dictionary, you should know that Irish words do something quite unusual. They can mutate their starting sounds.

~ CREDITS ~

Outro theme - Celtic by Joshua LF Mitchell

Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang

Doc full of sources for claims and credits for imgs, music and sfx:

~ CORRECTIONS ~

"i nGaeilge" : "as Gaeilge" is the expected phrase here! Thank you to multiple commenters for pointing this out.

~ I GCUPLA FOCAL, BRIEFLY ~

I'm preparing a video that explores the entire history of Irish. As I stitch together my notes, I'm noticing I often just have time to name-drop terms like "Proto-Celtic" and "Ogham". Today let's spend time on one of the more unusual ones: "initial mutations".

Archaic or "Primitive Irish" had neat Celtic syllables, but when Old Irish pops in just a couple centuries later, it's already full of worn-out endings and these strange mutations.

Two types. First, lenition: a word's starting sound gets softer, like /p/ turning into /f/. Second, eclipse: the starting sound gets more voiced or nasalized. The textbook Sengoídelc adds a third type, aspiration: adding h before a vowel.

What makes these devious is that they're triggered by grammar. We'll take a look at a few examples.

I'll close out by thinking about how Irish's "will mutate for grammar" strategy likely developed. I'll also consider how, even though they now look so uniquely Celtic, mutations are not inherited from the common Proto-Celtic ancestor.

[seanosull]

Native speaker here. And I have to say I am very impressed by your pronunciation. A few hiccups here and there but I have rarely met a foreigner with such a grasp of the pronunciation. Maith thú

[gufcfan]

I am a native speaker.

I have never seen a video of this type about the language done as accurately as this.

I could hardly fault the pronunciation either.

[DublinAviation]

As a native Gaeilge speaker I commend you on your pronunciations!! Maith thú!

[TheAnthraxBiology]

I'm fluent in Irish and have been speaking it since I was extremely young and because of that I'd never thought about this XD It was there under my nose the whole time but to me it was just "Yeah, a seimhú goes there or an orú" and so on. It's funny how the languages we understand the least are often the ones we know the best.

[jaxonlag]

A pleasant change to see a video about Gaeilge with no mistakes. Pronunciation wasn't too bad either. Great video!

Athrú deas chun físeán faoin nGaeilge a fheiceáil atá gan bhotúin. Ní raibh an fhoghraíocht ródhona ach an oiread. Físeán iontach!

[atty]

I'm from a gaeltacht, where we speak Irish often if not daily, your pronunciation is perfect, you sound like a local. And Hollywood stars can't come close to getting the accent even close to anyone on the island of Ireland, yet you have managed to sound like some fellah from the village.... 👍

[lentilsoup]

As a Welsh learner, these mutations are SO hard to get down, I guess it's the tradeoff for the super easy verbs! Celtic languages are so interestingly divergent from their neighbors!

[EmmetWA]

mh being pronounced /v/ is still very common in irish, not lost at all! (for example in the word séimhiú :P)

[finnsalsa]

People of Ireland! I beg please don't let this language die!

[MultaVerba]

I wish Irish was still our majority language

[ImColmss]

Native Irish speaker here, kinda surprised how well your pronunciation was! You must have had some help cause Irish people can't even tell the difference sometimes! Of course there are a few pronunciations a little off but I understood everything without having to look at the screen and that's all that matters! Some people on yt try speak Irish and I've got no idea what the hell theyre saying so I turn on sub titles, not for you though!

[DoctorWhoFan]

From an Irish person, your have excellent pronunciation. I commend you on it, and thank you for actually taking time to learn how to say it. Keep up great work.

[llinoswilliams]

Can you also look at Welsh mutations and it's various 'double letters'? I'd love to see what you make of my language. Frankly anything to do with Welsh will make me happy though!

[rzeka]

You explained eclipsis better than I've ever seen, and you did it in like 2 sentences.

[NativLang]

This time, zoom in for grammar. Next time, zoom out for history.

[tomatoe]

I'm a native speaker of Gaeilge and it makes me so happy to see my language being given the attention it deserves! Thank you so much! Also your pronunciation is nearly perfect, I am very impressed!

[HogandDice]

"mhór" is still pronounced "voor" in some dialects. That's the way I learned to pronounce it in school growing up. I'd also pronounce "mhuc" as "Vuc".
It get's really confusing doing oral exams because we learn one dialect but have to answer questions based on recordings of people speaking lots of different dialects.

[hentehoo]

Could you do a video about the *Uralic languages*, please?

[nicolasespindola]

I always have to watch these videos at least 5 times before I barely start to understand them. Your work is simply amazing

[BrancheOrtiz]

I have seen this video many times, like since it first aired. It’s one of the few hidden gems that speak about Celtic languages and their particular grammar. I wish there was more content like this, showing respect for this languages that have been unceremoniously displaced and oppressed by English and French. I don’t know if you’re interested in continuing doing videos on Celtic languages, since you’re busy, but it’s nice to revisit this video time and time again !