Irish missing sound changes + unnatural language

[Moilleadoir]

I was trying out the addition of text numbers in LibreOffice Calc and found some problems. I haven’t tested any other function supplied by libnumbertext so there may be more.

A distinctive feature of Celtic languages is a set of sound changes that apply to the beginning of words in different grammatical contexts. In Irish there are two of these, called lenition (séimhiú) and eclipsis (urú). Lenition applies to nouns following the numbers 1-6, eclipsis follows 7-10.

Lenition adds an h after b, c, d, f, g, m, p, s & t.
Eclipsis adds letters in front: b → mb, c → gc, d → nd, f → bhf, g → ng, p → bp, t → dt.¹

In the Calc context, these changes should apply to nouns like céad (hundred), míle (thousand), milliún (million), billiún (billion), etc.

1-6 chéad / mhíle / mhilliún / billiún²
7-10 gcéad / míle / milliún / billiún²

There is no change after the other tens, e.g. fiche “twenty”, tríocha “thirty”, etc.

A further complication, is that the number one (aon) by itself can mean “any” so it either requires an additional amháin (“only”) after the noun or it should be left out. In the case of large numbers, it’s more natural to just use the noun, e.g. céad = “one hundred”, míle = “one thousand”, milliún = “one million”, dhá chéad = “two hundred”, etc. Aon chéad (or the current aon céad) just look very wrong.

Footnotes

1. Irish initial mutations ↩

2. Exceptions since mhilliún/bhilliún and milliún/mbilliún would sound the same. ↩ ↩²