Weel, we all know that Gaelic RULES, but it's time we learned some of the Gaelic rules as
      well.
      We've all loved listening to Rita's WAV files and dancing with Jamie from Mercedes. Now,
      I'm here to get us down to the business of learning some of the rules of pronouncing the
      unpronounceable.

      These rules are taken from The Scottish Banner, The Gaelic Column by Dr. Philip D.
      Smith. All rights reserved.

      Since I can't do accent marks, any letter that should be accented, I've made red in color.
      And, in the interests of keeping you all awake through this, I'm only doing half the column
      this time.

      "Gaelic has twelve consonants and five vowels and the "sign" h.

      a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,l,m,n,o,p,r,s,t,u

      Many of the consonants have more than one sound, sometimes referred to as "broad" and
      "slender" pronunciations depending on which series of vowels that they touch. "Broad"
      pronunciations are indicated when the consonant is in contact with a "broad" vowel (a,o,u).
      "Slender" pronunciations when the consonant is in contact with a "slender" vowel (e,i).

      There is one accent mark in modern spelling - it goes up to the left and indicates that the
      sound of the vowel is to be held about half longer than the non-accented vowel (accented
      vowel in red) -
      a=ah a=aah
      o=oh o=ooh
      u=u u=oo
      e=eh e=ey
      i=e i=ee.

      You must be sure to hold the accented vowel a little longer than the unaccented one.

      bata=BAH-tuh is "stick" but bata=BAAH-tuh is "boat".

      Most of the consonants can also have two additional sounds, spelled with the "sign" h. All of
      this is very confusing (He's right there). Just remember - about one third of Gaelic letters are
      not intended to be pronounced! They are just there to show you how to pronounce the
      letters with which they are in contact.

      (If you are all still awake, I will give you a couple of examples and continue the rest the next
      time it's my turn - no sense giving you Gaelic Grammar Overload).

      b is b at the beginning of a word, but p in the middle or at the end:
      bata=BAAH-tuh (boat) piob=peep (pipe)

      bh is v at the beginning of the word, but w in the middle and silent at the end of most
      one-syllable words:
      bha=vah (was) sabhal=SOW-uhl (stable) dubh=doo (black)."

      As you can see, Gaelic is nothing, if not complicated. For the sake of all those glazed over
      eyes out there, I'll stop here and pick up next time where we left off.

      Valerie L.