Middle Irish, also called Middle Gaelic (, , ), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland, and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of Late Old English and Early Middle English. Early Modern Irish, and by extension the modern Goidelic languages—Later Modern Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic and Manx Gaelic—are all descendants of Middle Irish.

Phonology

Consonants

Middle Irish retained the Old Irish consonant inventory, though some assimilation and simplification of consonant clusters occurred. Stops were dropped when adjacent to /l/ or /n/, e.g. Old Irish cland ("progeny") > Middle Irish clann //. /ṽ/ lost its nasalisation before a vowel, e.g. Old Irish memaid (s/he broke) // > Middle Irish mebaid //, while /v/ was nasalised after nV, e.g. Old Irish noeb ("saint") /noiv/ > Middle Irish náem //. Initial /m/ was additionally fortified to /b/ before liquids /r/ and /l/, e.g. Old Irish mrath ̈(treachery) // > Middle Irish brath //.

1. {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan="2" | ! Labial ! Dental ! Alveolar ! Velar ! Glottal |- ! rowspan="2" | Nasal ! | | colspan="2" | | | |- ! | | colspan="2" | | | |- ! rowspan="2" | Plosive ! | | colspan="2" | | | |- ! | | colspan="2" | | | |- ! rowspan="2" | Fricative ! | | | | | |- ! | | | | | |- ! rowspan="2" | Nasalized fricative ! | | | | | |- ! | | | | | |- ! rowspan="2" | Approximant ! | | colspan="2" | | | |- ! | | colspan="2" | | | |- ! rowspan="2" | Lateral ! | | colspan="2"| | | |- ! | | colspan="2" | | | |}

Vowels

During the Middle Irish Period, the nuclei of multisyllabic vowels shifted from those of Old Irish to the initial secondary articulations of the succeeding syllable, e.g. Old Irish duine ("person") /ˈdu.nʲe/ > */ˈduʲ.nʲe/ > Middle Irish /ˈdʷi.nʲe/. In interconsonantal /e/, this also involved a post-vocalic /ᵃ/ ephentesis, which briefly resulted in /CeᵃC/ before shifting to /CʲaC/, e.g. Old Irish fer ("man") /fʲer/ > */fʲeᵃr/ > Middle Irish fear /fʲar/. Disyllabic proclitics also lost their initial vowels, e.g. Old Irish inna ("of the" [fem.]) > Middle Irish na,. Unstressed vowels were reduced to /ə/, while the Old Irish diphthongs /ai/, /oi/, and /ui/ first shifted to */əi/, and were then monophongised to /əː/. In Ireland, a process of simplifying two vowels in hiatus to a single long vowel occurred except for the late /ia(ː)/ and /ua(ː)/. In Scottish Gaelic, hiatus were retained to the present. These processes created the following inventory of vowels and diphthongs:

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! ! Front ! Central ! Back |- ! Diphthong | | | |- ! Close | | | |- ! Mid | | | |- ! Open | colspan="3" | |}

Orthography

Consonants

At the end of the Middle Irish period around 1200, scribes began using digraphs bh, gh, mh to indicate the fricatives /v/, /ɣ/, and /ṽ/ (lenited versions of /b/, /g/, and /m) by analogy with the lenited ch, th, ph. Lenition of these respective stops went unmarked. Diacritics derived from the Ancient Greek rough breathing mark (◌̔) could also be used to represent lenition. However, both methods remained sporadic and irregular until at least the 16th century, in the Early Modern Irish period.

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|- !colspan=6|Broad consonant phonemes |- !rowspan=2|Letter !colspan=3|Word-initial !colspan=2|Non-initial |- !unmutated !eclipsed !lenited !single !geminate |- |b | | | colspan=2| | |- |c | | | | , | |- |d | | | colspan=2| | — |- |f | | | | | — |- |g | | | colspan=2| | — |- |h | colspan=5|See explanation below |- |l | | — | colspan=2| | |- |m | | — | colspan=2| | |- |n | | — | colspan=2| | |- |p | | | | , | |- |r | | — | colspan=2| | |- |s | | — | | | — |- |t | | | | , | |}

Vowels

The digraph ao was used to indicate the new vowel /əː/, and e or a to stand for /ə/:

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|+ Vowels |- ! Letter !! Short !! Long |- | a || , || |- | e || , || |- | i || || |- | o || || |- | u || || |- | ao || — || |- | ia || // || // |- | ua || // || // |- |}

In addition to the previously described diphthongs, digraphs could also stand for a vowel followed by an off-glide, which then shifted to a non-palatal or a palatalised back vowel:

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|+ Off-glides (Simplified) |- ! Letter 1 !! Letter 2 !! IPA (Early) !! IPA (Late) |- | a, o, u || i || [a o u]ⁱ || i |- | á, ó, ú || i || [a o u]ːⁱ || iː |- | e, i || a, o, u || [e i][ᵃ ᵒ ᵘ] || ʲ[a o u] |- | é, í || a, á, o, u || [e i]ː[ᵃ ᵒ ᵘ] || ʲ[a o u]ː |- |}

Grammar

Middle Irish is a fusional, VSO, nominative-accusative language, and makes frequent use of lenition.

Nouns decline for two genders: masculine and feminine, though traces of neuter declension persist; three numbers: singular, dual, plural; and five cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, prepositional, vocative. Adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number, and case.

Verbs conjugate for three tenses: past, present, future; four moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative; independent and dependent forms. Verbs conjugate for three persons and an impersonal, agentless form (agent). There are a number of preverbal particles marking the negative, interrogative, subjunctive, relative clauses, etc.

Prepositions inflect for person and number. Different prepositions govern different cases, depending on intended semantics.

Sample texts

Poem on Eogan Bél

The following is an untitled poem in Middle Irish about Eógan Bél, King of Connacht.

See also

• Dictionary of the Irish Language

Notes

References

Further reading