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Tag Archives: faoi

How to say “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” in Irish AND Five Examples of Lenition (Séimhiú), to boot Posted by on Dec 24, 2018

(le Róislín) Around this time of year, we often see the phrases “Nollaig Shona” and “Athbhliain faoi shéan agus faoi mhaise duit.”  Today’s blogpost will look at how to pronounce these phrases and at the reasons why words like “sona” and “bliain” change to “shona” and “bhliain.”  This change of the first letter is called…

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Another Irish Word Beginning with the Letter ‘Y’ (‘Yólais’ as well as ‘yó-yó,’ etc.) Posted by on Aug 4, 2018

(le Róislín) A few years ago I ran a mionsraith of blagmhíreanna about Irish words that started with some of the litreacha neamhthraidisiúnta in the Irish alphabet, like v, w, x, and y (naisc thíos).  Among the few examples that we have for “y” are “yó-yó” (not surprisingly, just add the síneadh fada) and yaincín…

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How to Say ‘Happy New Year’ in Irish and How to Pronounce the Consonant Cluster “thbhl” Posted by on Dec 31, 2014

(le Róislín) Athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi mhaise duit.  Happy New Year to you. Athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi mhaise daoibh.  Happy New Year to you (plural). So how do we pronounce that, what does it literally mean, why are the actual words “happy” and “new” not in the phrase, and where does a consonant…

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