Gaeilge Comhráiteach/Conversational Irish

[Aodhán01]

I’m a secondary school student but I don’t really have much experience with any Irish you would use in a general conversation (usage of apostrophes and shortened versions of words m.sh ad->agat a’am->agam and more confusing ones that I find hard to understand. Does anyone have a good source of common shortened words, videos and websites would be appreciated.

[Onuvanja]

A Aodháin, a chara, I’m not really aware of any specific online resource dedicated to contracted forms, but there’s a pretty thorough website dealing with Irish grammar in general, including contractions (e.g. ‘Prepositions’ – ag) and other features commonly found in spoken language. Hope this is of help!
http://nualeargais.ie/gnag/gram.htm

[Labhrás]

I’m a secondary school student but I don’t really have much experience with any Irish you would use in a general conversation (usage of apostrophes and shortened versions of words m.sh ad->agat a’am->agam and more confusing ones that I find hard to understand. Does anyone have a good source of common shortened words, videos and websites would be appreciated.

There aren’t really “shortened forms” in Irish.
There is nothing comparable to English forms like “I’m, can’t, won’t, ‘ll, ‘d” etc.

“A’m” is just a dialect pronunciation of “agam”. (agam > agham > ám)

[Onuvanja]

I don’t know if I completely agree with you, Labhrás. Of course, you’re right in saying there’s nothing comparable to English where shortened forms are very common, but both “agam” and “am” exist in Connemara Irish, so technically you could argue that the latter is a shortened form frequently used in spoken language… Plus, it’s useful to be aware of the fact that certain words are pronounced differently from dialect to dialect, e.g. “chugam” becoming “chúm” in Munster Irish or “fá dtaobh de” in Ulster Irish. But yes, it doesn’t usually work the same way as in English.

[Héilics Órbhuí]

I agree with Onuvanja that you could think of these as “shortened forms” in the context of the original question, even if they don’t work exactly like contractions in English.

I’m unaware of a complete list, but a few others that are similar off the top of my head:

lem’ = le mo, and I think also led’ = le do
dom’ = do mo, etc. similar to above

‘Sé, ‘sí = is é, is í

Again, it’s debatable whether these qualify as what you’re asking for, but I’d say they’re similar enough to warrant mention. It also might interest you, if you don’t already know, that there are other “shortened forms” that are built into the language, like “níl” is technically from “ní fhuil”, and “céard” is basically “cén rud.”

[Onuvanja]

“Agus” and “is” also spring to mind. But it would be fair to say that shortened forms are an exception in Irish, rather than the rule. Actually, I can’t think of any other language where shortened forms would be so widespread and systematic as in English … German has some, but they seem to be absent in most Romance languages, such as French, Spanish and Italian. Would be interesting to know why. Don’t know if this specific area has ever been researched in linguistics.

[Labhrás]

Most shortened forms became normal orthography and fully substituted “full forms”.
So, you write “darbh” not “d’ar’bh’” and nobody would ever write “do a ro bha”

Irish is full of this kind of “cumaisc”, esp. copula forms.

[Onuvanja]

That’s interesting! Thanks a lot for making that point, Labhrás.

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