Where is the S

[blackbeard]

This may seem to be a silly question, but my inquiring mind wants to know.

I can understand almost every idiosyncrasy between spelling and pronunciation in Gàidhlig. This one baffles me.

Where is the 's' (or sh) in ort or ceart?

Or, another question is:
Why is there no 's' in the spelling of ort, cunnartach, ceart, etc.?

[figheadair]

This may seem to be a silly question, but my inquiring mind wants to know.

I can understand almost every idiosyncrasy between spelling and pronunciation in Gàidhlig. This one baffles me.

Where is the 's' (or sh) in ort or ceart?

Or, another question is:
Why is there no 's' in the spelling of ort, cunnartach, ceart, etc.?

The 's' does not appear in all dialects in the same way that a word like croc etc can be pronounced 'nok' or 'crok' depending on the region. I'm not a linguist per se and cannot explain how or why the 'r' and 't' are sometime run together is a 'sht' sound But they certainly do. Port is another word that is often, but not always, pronounced thus.

Similarly, certain words will change their gender in different areas - dealbh for example, thus dealbh mor or dealbh mhor.

[DrumMayer]

This may seem to be a silly question, but my inquiring mind wants to know...Where is the 's' (or sh) in ort or ceart?...Why is there no 's' in the spelling of ort, cunnartach, ceart, etc.?

In technical linguistic terms, this is the difference between phonology and orthography. Phonemes are the "smallest" identifiable units of sound in a language. Orthography refers to the set of symbols used to represent those sounds. So, letters are not sounds. Consider the different pronunciation of "x" in English: example compared to xylophone.

My example also illustrates that the rules by which the symbols get put together change the pronunciation, ie the sounds you produce in speaking. This is the linguistic property that describes the "invisible s" in your examples above.

Hope this helps, or at least satisfies. I honestly don't mean to lecture, but I'm an anthropologist and college professor, and would not have been able to get to sleep tonight if I didn't get this out of my head!