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A chairde,
The subject title I wanted to use was
'clarification concerning the pronunciation of 'th' in the English of people in Ireland and its relation to the broad 't' of the Irish language'
but it apparently there too many letters in it for a subject heading.
Anyway, I’ve noticed that the letters ‘th’ are sometimes used on this site to represent the pronunciation of broad ‘t’ in the Irish language. This makes perfect sense from an Irish perspective because ‘th’ (as in ‘think’) is pronounced by many (most?) people in Ireland (apart from Northern Ireland) as a dental plosive and as such is identical to the broad ‘t’ in Irish.
However, the problem with this is that most people in North America, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand do NOT pronounce ‘th’ as a dental plosive but rather as a dental fricative. When the pronunciation of the word ‘tá’ is given as ‘thaw’ they would understand it to mean that they should pronounce it the same way as they would say ‘thaw’ in English which is most emphatically NOT the case.
When giving ‘th’ as the pronunciation of broad ‘t’ in Irish, one should qualify it by saying “ ‘th’ as in Hiberno-English” or “ ‘th’ as it is commonly pronounced in the word ‘thin’ in Ireland” or something similar.
(That which follows might be a wee bit technical to those with no background in phonetics so if you want a more down-to-earth explanation go down to the bottom of the post)
Non-Irish English speakers (those from the countries above, for example), for their part, who believe that most Irish people pronounce ‘th’ and ‘t’ identically are equally mistaken. Their ears are attuned to distinguishing ‘th’ from ‘t’ by the former’s fricative quality as opposed to the latter’s plosive quality. Therefore, when they hear an Irish person say ‘th’ their ears latch on to its plosive quality and interpret it as a ‘t’ sound. They’re oblivious to the fact that the only difference in this 'th' sound to the 'th' sound they make themselves is a gap of a fraction of an inch which allows air to pass between the tongue and the upper teeth (people usually pick up on what’s different in somebody else’s speech and are oblivious to that which is similar). They then make the mistaken assumption that Irish people pronounce ‘t’ and ‘th’ alike*. Irish people's ears, in contrast, are attuned to distinguishing ‘th’ from ‘t’ by the former’s dental quality as opposed to the latter’s alveolar quality.
The origin of this difference is, not surprisingly, the Irish language. Historically, the letters ‘th’ were pronounced in Irish exactly as they are in standard English today but this pronunciation was lost in the 13th century and ‘th’ (the letters 'th', that is) in Irish was thereafter pronounced as a ‘h’ sound (as it is today). Therefore, when Irish people began to learn English as a second language en masse a half a millenium or so later, they equated the dental quality of the (unvoiced) dental fricative in English ‘th’ (as in ‘thin’) with the dental quality of the (unvoiced) dental plosive in Irish, i.e., the broad ‘t’. They also equated the dental quality of the (voiced) dental fricative in English ‘th’ (as in ‘the’) with the dental quality of the (voiced) dental plosive in Irish, i.e., the broad ‘d’. This is, therefore, the origin of the characteristic Irish pronunciation of the two ‘th’ sounds in English; they’re Irish language sounds which the Irish people grafted into the English language when they first began learning it as a second language and which have remained in the English of many Irish people to the present day .
If you take nothing else from this post I would like you to understand two things:
1. IRISH PEOPLE DO NOT PRONOUNCE ‘TH’ THE SAME WAY THEY PRONOUNCE ‘T’ (OR ‘D’) IN ENGLISH*
Irish people pronounce ‘t’ or ‘d’ in English they same way an American/British/Antipodean person would – by touching their tongue against the alveolar ridge, i.e., the part of mouth which is just above and behind the upper teeth, and producing a plosion.
(Many) Irish people pronounce ‘th’ in English by touching the tongue against the upper teeth, i.e., as a dental sound, and producing a plosion.
2. NON-IRISH PEOPLE SHOULD NOT PRONOUNCE ‘TÁ’ THE SAME WAY THEY’D PRONOUNCE ‘THAW’
When the average American/British/Antipodean person says the English word ‘thaw’ he/she pronounces then ‘th’ part of it by putting the tongue just under the upper teeth and by allowing a very minute opening between the tongue and the upper teeth to allow air to pass through the opening, thus producing audible friction ( you can carry on saying a fricative ‘th’ sound indefinitely by allowing the air to pass between the tongue and upper teeth whereas you can only make a plosive ‘t’ last a split second because an alveolar ‘t’ sound is a result of the plosion. If you attempt to make an alveolar ‘t’ sound last, you’ll end up by saying an ‘s’. – t >sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss, etc.)
To make the broad ‘t’ sound in Irish of words like ‘tá'/'tú'/'Taoiseach', etc.,
place your tongue against your upper teeth and make a plosive sound, i.e., a ‘t’ -like sound. Do NOT allow a opening to allow air to pass between the tongue and the upper teeth because if you do you’ll be pronouncing the fricative ‘th’ sound of standard English (you can’t carry on saying a broad ‘t’ in Irish indefinitely – if you attempt to do so, you’ll end up by saying the fricative ‘th’ of standard English – t > thththththththththththththththththththththththththththththth, etc.)
If anybody is completely confused by any of the above (and can be bothered), you can send me a PM and I’ll do my best to clarify anything that might not be clear.
*there are some exceptions - some Irish people, mostly in urban areas, pronounce 'th' the same as they'd pronounce 't'/'d'.
meas mór,
Tadhg an mhargaidh
