Almost all applications support Modern Irish accents. Guidelines for typing and using accents are given below.

About Irish

About Irish

Irish is a Goedelic Celtic language spoken in several areas of Ireland and is closely related to Scottish Gaelic and Manx 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.

Note on Term "Gaelic"

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.

Manx

Manx (language code gv) is a language related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic, but its spelling system is much closer to English and does not use accented letters.

Irish Links

Windows ALT Codes

In Windows, combinations of the ALT key plus a numeric code from the number keypad can be used to type a non-English character in any Windows application.

See the detailed instructions on the ALT Code How To for complete information on implementing the code. Additional options for entering accents in Windows are also listed in the Accents section of this Web site.

Alt Codes for typing Modern Irish characters:

Capital Vowels
Vwl ALT Code
Á ALT+0193
É ALT+0201
Í ALT+0205
Ó ALT+0211
Ú ALT+0218
Lower Vowels
Vwl ALT Code
á ALT+0225
é ALT+0233
í ALT+0237
ó ALT+0243
ú ALT+0250
Currency
Sym ALT Code
£ ALT+0163
ALT+0128
 

Windows International Keyboard Codes

In order to use these codes you must activate the U.S. international keyboard. Once the U.S. International keyboard has been activated, you can use the codes below.

International Keyboard Codes
Character Code
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.

Macintosh Accent Codes

Here are the basic Mac Option codes for Modern Irish accents.

Mac Option Codes
Character Option Code
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

Traditional Irish Dot Above

First activate Extended Keyboard Accent Codes
Type Option+W, then the letter (will not work for all fonts)

Old Irish Characters

Dotted Letters

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 and, 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).

Fonts for Dotted Letters

Modern versions of many fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Palatino, Cambria and others include dotted letters. However many decorative fonts may be missing these characters

Note: Information on generating dotted letters in different platforms and tools is included below under each platform and tool where available.

Ameragus and Insular Characters

A commonly seen Old Irish abbreviation is 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). Finally, the insular letter forms for d,g or Ꝺ,ᵹ and others are encoded in Unicode as well.

Fonts for Ameragus and Insular Character Forms

Although these characters are in the Unicode standard, they are not present in many fonts. The list below includes fonts which do have these characters.

Old Irish Character Codes

Windows Word ALT Codes

The following numeric codes work only in Microsoft Word, and you must use the numeric keypad. More detailed instructions about typing accents with ALT keys are available.

These characters can also be inserted from the Character Map.

Old Irish Dotted Letters
Word ALT Codes
Let ALT Code + Description
ALT+7777
s-dot (dot above)
ALT+7711
f-dot
ALT+7683
b-dot
ALT+7691
d-dot
ġ ALT+289
g-dot
ALT+7767
p-dot
ALT+7787
t-dot
ċ ALT+267
c-dot
ALT+7745
m-dot
ALT+7769
r-dot
ALT+7749
n-dot

ALT Codes for Insular Letters

Sym ALT Code + Description
ALT+8266
Amperagus /Tironian ET
ALT+42873
Cap Insular D
ALT+42874
Lower Insular D
  ᷘ  ALT+7640
Combining Lower Insular D
ALT+42875
Cap Insular F
ALT+42876
Lower Insular F
ALT+7545
Lower Insular G
ALT+42877
Cap Insular G
ALT+42878
Cap Turned Insular G
ALT+42879
Lower Turned Insular G
ALT+42882
Cap Insular R
ALT+42883
Lower Insular R
ALT+42884
Cap Insular S
ALT+42885
Lower Insular S
ALT+42886
Cap Insular T
ALT+42887
Lower Insular T
 

Macintosh Codes

Dotted Letters

Dotted Letter Option Codes
Character Option Code
Traditional Irish Dot Above

First activate Extended Keyboard Accent Codes
Type Option+W, then the letter (will not work for all fonts)

Irish And Sign (Trionian Et) and Insular

To use the option codes below, you must activate and switch to the Unicode Hex Input Keyboard. Note that not all letters have a separate "Insular" counterpart.

Option Codes for Insular Letters
Sym Option Code + Description
Option+204A
Amperagus /Tironian ET
Option+A779
Cap Insular D
Option+A77A
Lower Insular D
  ᷘ  Option+1DD8
Combining Lower Insular D
Option+A77B
Cap Insular F
Option+A77C
Lower Insular F
Option+1D79
Lower Insular G
Option+A77D
Cap Insular G
Option+A77E
Cap Turned Insular G
Option+A77F
Lower Turned Insular G
Option+A782
Cap Insular R
Option+A783
Lower Insular R
Option+A784
Cap Insular S
Option+A785
Lower Insular S
Option+A786
Cap Insular T
Option+A787
Lower Insular T

HTML Accent Codes

This section presents information specific to Irish. For general information about developing non-English Web sites, see the Encoding Tutorial or the Web Layout sections.

Unicode Encoding

If you use long marks, Unicode (utf-8) is the required encoding for Web sites. If the following encodings are used instead, you may encounter display problems:

Avoid These

  • iso-8859-1 (Latin 1),
  • iso-8859-15 (Latin with euro (€) symbol)
  • win-1252 (Windows 1)

Note: There is a "Celtic" Latin-8/Latin-14 standard (ISO-8859-14), but it has been supplanted by Unicode. Few applications support this standard.

Language Tags

Language Tags allow browsers and other software to process text more efficiently.

Language Codes:

  • ga (Irish)
  • sga (Old Irish/Sean Gaeilge)
  • mga (Middle Irish)
  • gv (Manx)
  • gd (Scottish Gaelic)
  • pgl (Primitive Irish/Ogham)

HTML Entity Codes

Use these codes to input accented letters in HTML. For instance, if you want to type fáilte you would type fáilte.

The numbers in parentheses are the numeric codes assigned in Unicode encoding. For instance, because á is number 225, fáilte can also be used to input fáilte. These numbers are also used with the Windows Alt codes listed above.

Note on Old Irish Dotted Letters

The most commonly used dotted letters in Old Irish grammars and primers is and, 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).

HTML Entity Codes for Modern Irish Accented Vowels and Characters:

Capital Vowels
Vwl Code+Desc
Á Á (193)
É É (201)
Í Í (205)
Ó Ó (211)
Ú Ú (218)
Lower Vowels
Vwl Code+Desc
á á (225)
é é (233)
í í(237)
ó ó (243)
ú ú (250)
Currency
Sym Code+Desc
£ £ (163)
€ 
 

HTML Entity Codes for Old Irish characters

Dotted Letters
Let Code + Desc
ṡ s-dot (dot above)
ḟ f-dot
ḃ b-dot
ḋ d-dot
ġ ġ g-dot
ṗ p-dot
ṫ t-dot
ċ ċ c-dot
ṁ m-dot
ṙ r-dot
ṅ n-dot
Insular Letters
Sym Code+Desc
⁊
Amperagus /Tironian ET
Ꝺ
Cap Insular D
ꝺ
Lower Insular D
  ᷘ  ᷘ
Combining Lower Insular D
Ꝼ
Cap Insular F
ꝼ
Lower Insular F
ᵹ
Lower Insular G
Ᵹ
Cap Insular G
Ꝿ
Cap Turned Insular G
ꝿ
Lower Turned Insular G
Ꞃ
Cap Insular R
ꞃ
Lower Insular R
Ꞅ
Cap Insular S
ꞅ
Lower Insular S
Ꞇ
Cap Insular T
ꞇ
Lower Insular T
 

Irish Links

Linux/Unix

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