Fòram na Gàidhlig

I've just created a vocabulary collection for Parley containing rules that need to be memorised like masculine/feminine nouns:

http://kde-files.org/content/show.php/S ... ent=137944

I've noticed that there are spelling rules for broad and slender vowels. This is a long shot but rather than having to 'reinvent the wheel', is there any links that contains easy to memorise rules like the English 'i before e except after c'?

If there's a broad vowel before a consonant (or consonant cluster), there'll be a broad vowel after it. The same goes with slender vowels. There are a few exceptions, but a lot of these are archaic.

The important category is compounds:
If a word is a compound created out of two words, the rule doesn't apply.
So
Diluain (Monday) is made from "di" and "luain" (from Latin for "day" and "moon" respectively, IIRC) and "dimàirt" (màirt is a Gaelic rendering of the Roman god "Mars"). "Diciadaoin" follows the rule, but that's by accident rather than design.

It's a bit more complictaed than that. There are occasions when the broad/slender rules are suspended. The most notable one are Initial clusters: usually only the last sound obeys broad/slender e.g. in br, bhr, sr, shr, chr, cr, str, ...

It was always interesting for me: why sgoil is pronounced with , but sreang with [sh] (so I heard -- a bheil sin ceart?), agus Steòrnabhagh cuideachd.
Is it any pattern here?

Virtually all consonant clusters fall under the rule I described. A few don't, st is one of them; sl and sn are the other ones.

Mòran taing!

There's a short guide on how the spelling system basically works on our homepage http://www.foramnagaidhlig.net/index.php?page=41

Nothing as detailed as akerbeltz has done though

Mòran taing!

I'll have a look at the links and see if I create some rules that hopefully are easy to memorise and remember!

You're welcome to try but remember there comes a point at which "easy" results in so many errors that there's little point to the rule at all. I think it's just an inherent thing about that Gaelic spelling system that it's very precise but rarely easy from the English point of view.

Let me know if you come up with anything, always welcome a good debate on text to phoneme!

akerbeltz wrote:You're welcome to try but remember there comes a point at which "easy" results in so many errors that there's little point to the rule at all. I think it's just an inherent thing about that Gaelic spelling system that it's very precise but rarely easy from the English point of view.

Let me know if you come up with anything, always welcome a good debate on text to phoneme!

Making errors is a thing that I do worry about.

I'm going to approach it by trying to 'refine the process' so to speak and share this just in case another learner might find it useful.