Talk:Scottish Gaelic orthography

Duplicative content in Scottish Gaelic phonology
I've marked this as a merge, but actually I'm not sure if there's anything in that page that isn't completely superfluous with this one. Perhaps it can just be gotten rid of by someone more confident. 4pq1injbok (talk) 02:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * While I oppose a merger, I agree that there's duplication across the pages at the same time it's no worse than English phonology and English orthography. Both articles of course could be improved a lot. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:50, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Erk, that was totally unclear, sorry. I didn't mean to propose merging the entirety of those two pages, just the "Orthography" section in Scottish Gaelic phonology with this one.  It looks like the tables in Scottish Gaelic phonology are redundant with and less careful than the ones here, but they're not perspicuous and I'm not familiar enough to see at a glance.  4pq1injbok (talk) 00:12, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

By the way, an idea I think would be more perspicuous, i.e. giving a better view of the system as a whole, would be a two-dimensional table with spellings on one axis and environments on the other, to bring out the patterns like "(subject to other adjustments,) single V in a syllable closed by an unlenited resonant gets an extra mora; this is /ː/ before /r̴/ and otherwise /i̯/ or /u̯/ depending on slenderness of the resonant".

I'm deterred from sitting down and just doing it though because (1) I don't know which special-case environments have been left out of the current tables 'cause they don't occur in any word and which ones are actually exceptionally non-special; (2) the synthesis police would yell at me; (3) people looking for quick and easy usability rather than systemics would probably also yell at me. 4pq1injbok (talk) 00:22, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, this is hardly a contentious topic so OR isn't that much of an issue plus I can probably most things if needed but I'm not sure I get what you're driving at. Could you give me an example here? Akerbeltz (talk) 00:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Image file not appropriate to article content/subject matter
Suggest removing the image file file:Irish script.gif as it does not reflect the subject matter of the article, which is Scottish Gaelic orthography, not Gaelic typefaces. It seems contrary to the point of the article to show right next to a paragraph explaining modern Scottish Gaelic orthography's use of only the grave accent to have an image of Irish writing that depicts the acute accent throughout. In order to illustrate the meaning of the paragraph, an image or an example showing modern Scottish Gaelic spelling—regardless of typeface—would be better suited. Farefeerfalling (talk) 15:16, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It is not ideal, but not wrong given its age. The article says Prior the 1981 Gaelic Orthographic Convention (GOC), Scottish Gaelic traditionally used acute accents on $\langlea, e, o\rangle$ to denote close-mid long vowels, clearly graphemically distinguishing and, and   and. Of course it would be better to have a Scottish text set in a Gaelic typeface, but unless you can find one (that is out of copyright so it may be uploaded), I don't see how else to illustrate the text. (I considered File:Gaelic-fonts.png but IMO at least it would not be an improvement. Others may disagree?) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I've uploaded a scan of a copy of an out of copyright (republished 1882, author was 1808-1870) poem in ScG in the Gaelic script would that do? It's not the most stunning quality but it's ScG rather than Irish? Akerbeltz (talk) 20:47, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It certainly looks good enough to me. I've created a thumbnail so folk can see how it will look in context. Interestingly, the accents are acutes not graves but, as it predates the 1981 GOC, that should not be a problem. You found it so you should have the honour of changing the article accordingly, please. My only concern is that the article William Livingston (poet) calls him Uilleam Mac Dhunlèibhe (no Sh)? Ideally that issue should be resolved first if it is easy but should not be a cause of undue delay let alone a show stopper. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:41, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * ) As I said on the other page, feel free to add it, I'm really busy. Should be neoichiontas with an s at the end, by the way, it's the Gaelic ꞅ. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok. Will do. And thanks for the correction, I should have spotted that one. I have revised accordingly.
 * Google returns no hits for "Uilleam MacDhùnShléibhe" but plenty for "Uilleam MacDhunléibhe", so I have made that change too. I will add it now. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

History section needed
This article has some historical information it, but it is completely scattered, and there are relevant bits at Scottish Gaelic that aren't included. This badly needs a "History" section that provides a description, chronologically, of major changes, especially the switch in the diacritic direction, and other divergences that readers are apt to be looking for information about. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:31, 13 December 2023 (UTC)