What Does Irish Look Like? Sound Like?

Here is the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father, in Irish:

Ár n-athair, atá ar neamh: go naofar d'ainm. Go dtaga do riocht. Go ndéantar do thoil ar an talamh, mar dhéantar ar neamh. Ár n-arán laethiúl tabhair dúinn inniu, agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha, mar mhaithimid dár bhféichiúnaithe féin. Agus ná lig sinn i gcathú, ach saor sinn ó olc. Óir is leatsa an Ríocht agus an Chumhacht agus an Ghloir, tré shaol na saol. Amen.

Here is an attempt to show the pronunciation (but, alas, without the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, the only way to give a halfway accurate account of the sound of speech). I'll use typical American English sounds and spellings in the following attempt.

Aur NAH-hir, ah-tah ar nahv, guh NEE-fur DAHN-um. Guh DAHG-uh duh REE-ucht. Guh NANE-tur duh hull er un TAHL-uv, mar YANE-tur ar nahv. Aur nuh-RAHN lay-hool tor DOO-in INN-yoo, AH-gus mah DOO-in aur VEE-uch-uh, mar WAH-huh-midge daur VAYCH-oon-uh-huh fane. AH-gus nau lig shinn ih GAH-hoo, ach seer shin oh ULL-uck. Oar iss LAHT-suh un REE-ucht AH-gus un KUH-wacht AH-gus un Glore, tray heel nah seal.

The "ch" digraph above (as in REE-ucht) is used to represent the ch sound we hear in the word Loch or the German word Nacht; I capitalize stressed syllables in multi-syllabic words (if I don't capitalize a syllable, the stress is rather even).

What might strike you as astonishing is my claim that Irish is quite phonetic, far more regular and predictable than English pronunciation and spelling. But there are things you must learn to unlock the system of Irish sound-letter correspondence. More on that at some other time.

There are some Irish-Gaelic songs posted on the website "youtube." Here's a link to an Irish song from the Donegal Irish-speaking region (Gaeltacht): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcxNfm-siL0 The song is called "Sláinte na nÉanach (Cór Thaobh a' Leithid)" and you can follow the text as you hear the song. There are many other Irish songs on Youtube. Try to find "Oro, Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile" by Sinead O'Connor. This link might work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JmUYF7kHro Unfortunately, these performances are sometimes deleted from the Youtube site (copyright issues?).