A2
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D' athair? Do mhàthair?

Your father? Your mother?

In A1 Cuspair 4 of SpeakGaelic we learnt about the possessive adjectives. These are:  

mo/m’ (before vowels) my 
do/d’ (before vowels) your (singular) 
a  his 
a/a h (before vowels) her 
ar/ar n- (before vowels) our 
ur/bhur or ur n-/bhur n (before vowels)  your (polite/formal/plural) 
an/am (before b, f, m, ptheir 

mo, (my) do (your) and a (his), lenite the following noun, where possible, meaning a change in the spelling of a word, by adding an ‘h’ after the first consonant for the following letters: 

b, c, d, f, g, h, m, p, s, t 

And what doesn’t lenite? 

  • Vowels 
  • The letters d, t and s don’t usually lenite if the word before them ends in an n 
  • words beginning with sg, sm, sp and st never lenite. 

In the conversation Mairead mentioned mo (my) and do (your) and also d’ (your).  

Tha mi dìreach a’ cur cairt gu mo bhràthair, Calum.

I’m just sending a card to my brother, Calum (Malcolm).

Dè mu dheidhinn an teaghlaich agad fhèin? D’ athair? Do mhàthair?

What about your family? Your father, your mother?

You can perhaps see better how it all fits together by playing with the questions and responses below.  

A bheil

Does
mo mhàthair my mother do mhàthair your mother a mhàthair his mother a màthair her mother ar màthair our mother ur màthair your mother am màthair their mother

a’ fuireach ann am Pàrtaig fhathast?

still living in Paisley?