The hardest part about Modern Irish isn’t when the words mutate or how—so far that bit is a lot easier than in Japanese. The problem is that it’s a phonetic language, so you basically know how to pronounce by looking at it. At least in theory. It has far too many vowels and consonants and I get very uncertain about which on the vowels are there to be heard or which is there to tell the speaker how to pronounce the letters around it. I’m beginning to remember stuff like mh is pronounced “w” and fh is silent.

Personally, I want Modern Irish to be the new Latin—don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I want the language to die. But Latin has found a niche to fill for people around the world. Let’s replace it with Irish. It’s even harder to understand for a non-speaker and it sounds far more beautiful so why not use it more often?

Comments

1. Don’t worry, every dialect has different pronunciation rules, so you’ll be pronouncing things wrong whatever you say.
   
   Hmm, maybe “Don’t worry” was the wrong things to start this comment with…
   — Johan A    (@ 17. September 2004, 16:47)
2. No, it was the right way to start. Because if they have that many different pronounciations, then one can just make up a dialect and get away with it. But that’s plan B.
   — Nicklas    (@ 17. September 2004, 17:01)

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