I know they aren't called accent marks for the Gaelige language, I actually forgot what the instructor called them, but I was wondering how to type them on the computer. I can't type Gaelige properly because I don't know how to add those marks. Can anyone help me on how to do it? I would appreciate that.

Slan,
Jon

There are a couple of ways to do it, depending on your computer.

One option is to change your keyboard preference to "Ireland -- Irish." That will turn your right "ALT" key into what is, on European keyboards, the "ALT GR" key. Once you've done that, all you have to do is hold down that key while typing the vowel you want accented.

Doing that will change some other things around as well, though, so it it's a shared computer, or if that seems inconvenient to you, you can use ALT codes instead. To use an ALT code, you hold down either ALT key while typing a series of numbers on the number pad on the right-hand side of your computer (not the numbers across the top of the keyboard). Make sure your NUM LOCK is set to "on," then use the following codes:

ALT 0225 = á
ALT 0233 = é
ALT 0237 = í
ALT 0243 = ó
ALT 0250 = ú

ALT 0193 = Á
ALT 0201 = É
ALT 0205 = Í
ALT 0211 = Ó
ALT 0218 = Ú

ALT codes may seem fussy, but once you get used to them, you just touch type them without even thinking about it.

BTW, for those of you who are learning Scottish Gaelic, the ALT codes for those accents are one less than for the Irish accents. So, ALT 0224 = à, ALT 0232 = è, etc.

I don't know what the accents are called in Scottish Gaelic, but in Irish the technical name is "síneadh fada" (long accent), or just "fada" for short. Most folks just say "fada."

Redwolf

That's it, fada.

Gabhaim buíochas Redwolf.

I hope I used that in the correct way. Thanks for that.

Isn't it síneadh fada?

FWIW, my favorite Windows keyboard solution has long been the US International layout, since the time when I was heavily involved in internationalization and localization issues (though not Irish specifically).

In this layout, the single-quote (tick) and back-quote (backtick) keys become dead keys for acute (fada) and grave accents, respectively. Other Latin diacritics (circumflex, umlaut, cedilla, tilde) are similarly available. Otherwise, the standard US English keyboard is unchanged, so the learning curve is effectively zero compared to other national keyboard layouts that may move the locations of letters and punctuation.

'Sea...rinne mé botún beag. Cóireoidh mé é i mo theachtaireacht féin.

GRMA!

Redwolf

Where is the back-quote key? Is that the one at the far left of the second row, just before the !/1?

Redwolf

Yes, that's it!

For very occasional use, I open the windows character map, and then copy and paste the symbol I want into my document. This does not always result in a websafe character, however. Another workaround when I know I want a symbol but can't be arsed opening character map is to type the word, sans accents, into a google searchbox on my browser. There will usually always be a link to a page in the target language in the top ten, and I just copy and paste the entire word into my doc. For an example, this is an easy way to turn resume into résumé, for instance. It's especially helpful if I'm a little vague on which funny character is the correct spelling.

I wouldn't try the Google option with Irish. There's more misspelled Irish than not out there on the web. Most people aren't aware that there's a world of difference between Éire and eire.

Redwolf

I was going to pile on her for saying "or just use 'fada' for short".

On a Mac, you get the Irish fada (aka acute accent) by typing the [option] key plus e, then the vowel you want to accent. e.g., to get báta you type [b] [option+e] [a] [t] [a]

For Scottish Gaelic accents, you type [option+`] followed by the vowel.

And [option+u] gets you umlauts, [option+i] gets you those little hats above the letters, [option+n] gives you the tilde, and so on for all the other weird anti-American characters.

Oh, and the grave accents in Scottish Gaelic are called "sràc" (pl. "sràcan"). I've also seen it written as "stràc", which is how many speakers would pronounce it.

For simplicity I use Ctrl+Alt and get éáóúíÉÍÓÁÚ without any problems.