Almost all applications support Modern Irish accents. Guidelines for typing and using accents are given below.
Irish is a Goedelic Celtic language spoken in several areas of Ireland and is closely related to Scottish Gaelic and more distantly related to Welsh, Breton and Cornish. In fact, many words in Irish and Scottish Gaelic are identical, but spelled with differently angled accents.
Historically, the name "Gaelic" refers to the Celtic languages spoken in Ireland and Highland Scotland. Some sources refer to Irish as "Gaelic", but some speakers find that term objectionable in modern contexts. The term Irish or Modern Irish is the least controversial term to use, although the native language name Gaeilge can able be used.
Old Irish spelling uses a series of dotted letters for lenited consonants instead of modern letter+h (e.g. ṡ, ḟ for sh,fh). The most commonly used dotted letters in Old Irish grammars and primers is ṡ and ḟ, although the use of other dotted letters is also attested in some older Irish language signs. The letters ṡ,ḟ,ḃ,ḋ,ġ,ṗ,ṫ,ċ,ṁ can always be substituted with sh,fh,bd,dh,gh,ph,th,ch,mh (and ṙ,ṅ can be replaced with r,n).
Note: Information on generating dotted letters in different platforms and tools is included below under each platform and tool where available.
Irish also uses a character, the amperagus, to represent the word "and". In form it resembles the number 7, but does have its own code point in Unicode (⁊ or "7" - U+204A). However very few fonts include this character. A font that does include amperagus is the Medievalist font Junicode or the Classics font Cardo.
In Windows, combinations of the ALT key plus a numeric code can be used to type a non-English character (accented letter or punctuation symbol) in any Windows application. More detailed instructions about typing accents with ALT keys are available. Additional options for entering accents in Windows are also listed in the Accents section of this Web site.
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You can use the following ALT key plus a numeric code can be used to type a Latin character (accented letter or punctuation symbol) in any Windows application. More detailed instructions about typing accents with ALT keys are available. See the list of Old Irish fonts to make sure the appropriate characters are installed.
NOTE: Codes with numbers over 255 are only available in Word 2003/2007. Users with older versions of Windows or not using may need to use the Character Map utility.
| Old Irish Dotted Letters | |
| ṡ | ALT+7777 s-dot (dot above) |
|---|---|
| ḟ | ALT+7711 f-dot |
| ḃ | ALT+7683 b-dot |
| ḋ | ALT+7691 d-dot |
| ġ | ALT+289 g-dot |
| ṗ | ALT+7767 p-dot |
| ṫ | ALT+7787 t-dot |
| ċ | ALT+267 c-dot |
| ṁ | ALT+7745 m-dot |
| ṙ | ALT+7769 r-dot |
| ṅ | ALT+7749 n-dot |
In order to use these codes you must activate the international keyboard. Instructions are listed in the Keyboards section of this Web site.
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| Acute Accent | ('+V) - Type apostrophe (singe quote), then the vowel. |
| £ | Control+RightAlt+4 |
| € | Control+RightAlt+5 |
Note: There is no method to input Old Irish dotted letters in the International Keyboard. It is recommended that the Character Map be used instead.
Here are the basic codes for Modern Irish accents in Irish.
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| Acute Accent | Type Option+E, then the vowel. For instance, to type á hold down Option+E, then type lowercase A. To type Á, hold down Option+E, then type capital A. |
| £ | Option+3 |
| € | Shift+Option+2 (may not work for older System 9 fonts) |
Old Irish spelling uses a series of dotted letters for lenited consonants instead of modern letter+h (e.g. ṡ, ḟ for sh,fh). The most commonly used dotted letters in Old Irish grammars and primers is ṡ and ḟ, although the use of other dotted letters is also attested in some older Irish language signs. The letters ṡ,ḟ,ḃ,ḋ,ġ,ṗ,ṫ,ċ,ṁ can always be substituted with sh,fh,bd,dh,gh,ph,th,ch,mh (and ṙ,ṅ can be replaced with r,n).
These can be replicated if you activate Extended Keyboard Accent Codes. The extended keyboard must be activated in the International System Preferences.
For any dotted letter type Option+W then the letter. For instance dotted s (ṡ) would be Option+W, then S. Note that most Old Irish grammars and primers is ṡ and ḟ, although the use of other dotted letters is also attested in some older Irish language signs.
To replicate the Old Irish symbol for "and" which is ⁊ (resembling the number 7), activate and switch to the Unicode Hex Input Keyboard and then type Option+204A.
Note: This character may not be visiable on a Windows machine unless a user installs a special font such as Junicode or Cardo.
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| Acute Accent | Type Option+E, then the vowel. For instance, to type á hold down Option+E, then type lowercase A. To type Á, hold down Option+E, then type capital A. (Also works with Extended Keyboard) |
| Dot Above | Activate Extended Keyboard. Type Option+W, then letter. |
These are the codes which allow browsers and screen readers to process data as the appropriate language. All letters in codes are lower case.
See Using Encoding and Language Codes for more information on the meaning and implementation of these codes.
Use these codes to input accented letters in HTML. For instance, if you want to type señor you would type señor.
The numbers in parentheses are the numeric codes assigned in Unicode encoding. For instance, because ñ is number 241, señor can also be used to input señor. These numbers are also used with the Windows Alt codes listed above.
The most commonly used dotted letters in Old Irish grammars and primers is ṡ and ḟ, although the use of other dotted letters is also attested in some older Irish language signs. The letters ṡ,ḟ,ḃ,ḋ,ġ,ṗ,ṫ,ċ,ṁ can always be substituted with sh,fh,bd,dh,gh,ph,th,ch,mh (and ṙ,ṅ can be replaced with r,n).
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Computers process text by assuming a certain encoding or a system of matching electronic data with visual text characters. Whenever you develop a Web site you need to make sure the proper encoding is specified in the header tags; otherwise the browser may default to U.S. settings and not display the text properly.
To declare an encoding, insert or inspect the following meta-tag at the top of your HTML file, then replace "???" with one of the encoding codes listed above. If you are not sure, use utf-8 as the encoding.
Generic Encoding Template
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=??? ">
...
<head>Declare Unicode
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8 ">
...
<head>
The final close slash must be included after the final quote mark in the encoding header tag if you are using XHTML
Declare Unicode in XHTML
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
...
<head>
If no encoding is declared, then the browser uses the default setting, which in the U.S. is typically Latin-1. In that case many Unicode characters could be displayed incorrectly. Also, older browsers such as Netscape 4.7 may not be able to process the entity codes correctly without the "utf-8" declaration.
Language tags are also suggested so that search engines and screen readers parse the language of a page. These are meta data tags which indicate the page of a language, not devices to trigger translation. Visit the Language Tag page to view information on where to insert it.
Note: Unicode is especially recommended if you plan to include Old Irish dotted letters.
