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Numerals or How to write a cheque in Gaelic

Numbers ... yes, oh what joy, but there's no avoiding them.  There are three sets of numbers in Gaelic, just to keep life interesting, plus an old 'new way' they have dug up to make mathematics 'easier' for children in Gaelic Medium Education.

The first set of numbers is the "basic" set of numbers, the one you use for counting things.  The second set is used if you're simply counting or giving a phone number - and the third for counting people (the same in both systems).  Because we do not have the same space restrictions as books have, we are going to give you both systems up to a hundred (traditional first and further down the new old system) and then plenty of examples above 100.  Because we will need to explain a few things half way and again, we have made a break after the 10's and the 20's and stuck in the explanations there and then and then continue with 11/31 etc.  There are two examples each, one for masculine and one for feminine nouns.

Fun, isn't it?  It's going to get even better ... but first the footnotes:

1. Aon and dà lenite the following consonant (bearing the rule about blocked lenition in mind).  Is the nound followed by adjectives, dà lenites these as well e.g. dà thaigh mhór bhrèagha.

2. Dà is not followed by the plural, but what appears to be the singular.  This isn't as bizarre as it may sound (yet again).  Old Irish had something called the 'dual' a special number for counting two's - forms which looked very similar to the singular, so when the dual case went out of the window, pairs of things were grouped with the singular (in grammatical terms anyway).  The only thing which is a reminder of this not being the singular case but something else is with feminine nouns, which slenderise after dà i.e. dà bhròig.  Today this is mostly restricted to written Gaelic - but not to such a degree that you will sound odd if you do use it in spoken Gaelic, so the choice is yours.
   Dà also lenites adjectives following a noun regardless of its gender but does not slenderise e.g. dà ghob mhór, dà bhròig mhór.  Is the numeral phrase in the dative or genitive, the adjectives decline normally thus: leis an dà ghob mhór, leis an dà bhròig mhóir and an dà ghuib mhóir, an dà bhròige móire.  Notice that an is used in the genitve with feminine nouns rather than na.

3. When preceded by a, dà changes to a dhà.  Notwithstanding, you will hear people say things like dhà chù.  Also, a prefixes h- to the numbers beginning with a vowel, thus you get a h-aon and a h-ochd.

4. The singular is used with dusan, fichead, multiples of fichead, ceud and mìle, millean etc.
   The singular is also used with measures (length, monetary units etc) e.g. sgillinn (but not not 'pound' which has a plural, notaichean), mìle, tròigh, pùnnd, clach ...
   Bliadhna, which actually IS an old plural form, does not change either when counting, even though you say things like bliadhnaichean air ais 'years ago'.  Other time terms take the plural just as other nouns e.g. uairean, mionaidean, seachdainnean ...

5. Remember to lenite your adjectives after a masculine noun that pluralises by slenderisation e.g. seachd craobhan móra but seachd guib mhóra.

6. Instead of aon, aonan can be used in an emphatic sense, e.g có mheud a bha ann? Aonan!! 'How many were there?  One!!'.  Alternatively, you could answer Dìreach aon!

7. The ordinal numbers obey the rules for case according to gender i.e. prefix t- in front of s and nothing before vowels for feminine nouns and t- before vowels for masculine nouns.  A' chiad however is always a' chiad regardless of the gender of the noun.  Deug lenites after feminine nouns as if it were an adjective.  Adjectives themselves behave "normally" as if it were a simple noun phrase i.e. an t-siathamh bhròg mhór dheug 'the 16th big shoe' or air an t-siathamh bhròig mhóir dheug 'on the 16th big shoe'.
   EXCEPT that only a' chiad lenites a following noun i.e. even though it may be followed by a feminine noun, a' cheathramh never lenites.

8. Instead of aonamh you will see a number of variations such as aon and aona.  Some people prefer to use a' chiad instead of aonamh altogether.  Tritheamh is a variant of treas (behaves exactly the same way) as is dara of dàrna (behaving the same way too).  We recommend the use of the system outlined here, however.

9. Ordinal numbers are "abbreviated" as follows: a' chiad > 1^d; an dàrna > 2^na; an treas > 3^as; -eamh > N^mh.  Above 20, however, 1^d becomes 1^mh, because it changes from a' chiad to an aonamh.

10. a' chiad becomes na ciad in phrases like na ciad eòin 'the first birds', similarly na dàrna, na treas etc.  Ordinal numbers can also be lenited, e.g. by the possessive pronouns do dhàrna bean 'your second wife'.

11. There is a strong tendency in the spoken language to neutralise the masc/fem distinction if a numeral occurs between the definite article and the thing being counted.  In other words, lots of people say an aonamh gob deug instead of an t-aonamh gob deug.

Ok, enough footnotes ... here's the numbers up to 30 

1. Where to start?  Slightly contrary to current usage (and of course GOC), we have used ar instead of air.  Actually the Gaelic way of saying thirty etc is not <ten on twenty> but <ten over twenty> - deich thar fhichead (thar shortened to ar).  Ok, it still doesn't explain the lenition really, but it does explain why many people pronounce air here as /aɾ/ rather than /ɛɾʲ/.  Some people do pronounce it with a slender r, probably because of seing it written air all the time.

2. Note that the nouns lenite the numbers as if they were adjectives - so bròg being feminine lenites deug and guib lenites deug because it is an indefinite masculine noun which forms it's plural by slenderisation ... don't you just love it?

3. Full multiples twenty are not preceded by a when counting, thus a deich but fichead, fichead is a deich but dàichead.

Ok, you're bursting for more, yes?

And the footnotes:

1. 50: Instead of dàichead is a deich, leth cheud can be used, which does not lenite.

2. In spoken Gaelic is a is often shortened to 's a /sə/ not to be confused with sa 'in the'.

3. Dàichead is a shortened form of dà fhichead.  It is not only easier to read, but also reflects the actual stress placement better (only on the dà-) when counting which is why we prefer it.

4. Once you reach ceudamh, no gender distinctions are necessary anymore.

5. Sometimes the vigesimal system is used up to 200 i.e. cóig fichead, sia fichead, seachd fichead, ochd fichead, naoi fichead, but never beyond that.

Yes, we said we'd only go up to a hundred, but in real life we need to tackle larger numbers too, so here are a few further key numbers so you will get an understanding of how to tackle larger numbers.  And yes, many a Gaelic teacher will tell you that most Gaels use English numbers when counting anything complex above 50 or 100, but first of all that is beside the point and secondly that has much to do with the fact that almost all Gaelic speaking adults over 20 have been educated through the medium of English, particularly when it comes to maths, which is not a subject commonly taught in GME, especially not at secondary level.  Go on, how good are your number skills in French or German over 50?

So do learn how to express these numbers, but we advise caution as to with whom you can use them.  Learners, teachers, very literate native speakers and young people who have had GME.  If you feel like doing some language planning, you can alway use the Gaelic numbers regardless of with whom you are speaking and then gloss it by following it with the number in English.

Footnote or ten ...

1. The comma is only "notional" that is, it's a "speech break" you put in when saying the number.  You don't actually write it when spelling out numbers - we just put them in here to demonstrate where the breaks would be.

2. The numbers 2-6 lenite ceud, so you get dà cheud, trì cheud, ceithir cheud, cóig cheud and sia cheud.  This is NOT completely arbitrary but the last remining vestiges of something Gaelic lost.  Traditionally (well, several hundred years back in Gaelic terms), the number 1-6 lenite while the numbers 7-10 nasalize.  Meaning?  Well, seeing Irish still does this, let's have a look at how you count boats in Irish: bád, dhá bhád, trí bhád, ceithre bhád, cúig bhád, sé bhád, seacht mbád, ocht mbád, naoi mbád, deich mbád.  Cool, isn't it?  Gaelic stopped doing this a long time ago - except with the word ceud for whatever reason.  In older texts, you might also come across things like trì thaighean occasionally.

3. Between 1001 and 9999, you can employ "splitting" into hundreds as you would with a year, e.g. 1267 as dà cheud dheag, trì fichead is a seachd.

4. As mentioned above, there is the possibility to express numbers up to 200 in twenties e.g. 136 as ceud, sia deug ar fhichead or sia fichead is a sia deug.  So 136 ice-creams would be sia fichead reòiteag is a deich.

5. Leth refers to a half of the previous largest round 100, 1.000, 10.000 etc unit.  This gives a value of 50, 500, 5.000 etc.  These are then combined to give 150, 1.500, 15.000 etc.  Enter the "illogical" step.  You might imagine that trì cheud gu leth equals 450.  Wrong.  It equals 350.  This principle applies at each level (100, 1.000, 10.000 etc).  You can then add the numbers 1-9 to these expressions, but once you hit the next full 10, you have to revert to the "normal" way of counting, e.g. dà mhìle gu leth, dà mhìle gu leth is a h-aon, dà mhìle gu leth is a dhà ... dà mhìle gu leth is a naoi, dà mhìle is trì fichead.  Leth cheud, leth mhìle etc work the same way.  Alternatively you can just stick to the "normal" numbers

6. Possessives ... the ones that lenite, lenite numbers and the ones that add n- add n- to numbers beginning with vowels: mo dhà shùil, a thrì taighean, ar n-ochd caraidean. An so on.

7. Plurals.  Numbers form their plurals 'relatively' regularly by adding -(e)an, -than, -dhean, -tean: aon > aonan, dà > dàthan, trì > trìthean, ceithir > ceithirean, cóig > cóigean, sia > siathan, seachd > seachdan, ochd > ochdan, naoi > naoidhean, deich > deichean, fichead > ficheadan, ceud > ceudan, mìle > mìltean, millean > milleanan.  When will you ever need that? Well, try saying "I shook four sixes in a row" without using a plural of six ...

8. And last but not least, there is a tendency to stick the thing being counted at the very end with large numbers, especially with monetary units, so ¥51.655 would be dàichead mìle, sia ceud, trì fichead is a cóig Yen rather than dàichead mìle, sia ceud, trì fichead Yen is a cóig.

Hooray, you've cracked it ... except that Gaelic educationalists have had other plans ....
Oh, and there's a separate page on how to give the date and time in Gaelic.