Irish Translation Forum

mhwombat · Last edited by mhwombat on June 27 2006, 17:36 PM; edited 1 time in total

This is one in a series of threads designed to help you improve your Irish by practicing with others.

You can join this series at any time, at any thread. The first thread in the series is available here.
http://www.irishgaelictranslator.com/translation/ftopic26565-0-asc-0.html

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Up to now I've written a series of practice threads that build on each other. But now I'd like to do something different, at least for a while. I want to skip around a bit and cover some topics that people have expressed an interest in.

Pronunciation
On this thread, you can practice figuring out how to pronounce a word from its spelling along. Aside from a few very common words, Irish pronunciation is very regular. Of course, some of the letters and letter combinations are pronounced differerently than in English.

NOTE: This really isn't something you need to learn per se. As your vocabulary grows, you will naturally figure out the pronunciation rules. You'll be able to look at a word and just know how to pronounce it because you can think of similar words that you're already familiar with. So although this thread doesn't really assume you know anything but how the vowels are pronounced, it's not really intended for beginners. It's for people who are frustrated by not knowing how to pronounce Irish words, and anxious to understand it.

The terms slender and broad refer to two categories of vowels.

* The broad vowels are a, o, and u.
* The slender vowels are i and e.

One of the rules of Irish spelling [1][2] is that that the vowels on either side of a consonant (or group of consonants) should agree; they should both be broad or both be slender. That's because consonants have two pronunciations, broad and slender. A consonant that is is flanked by broad vowels is pronounced broad, and a consonant that is flanked by slender vowels is pronounced slender.

Don't let the fact that every consonant has two pronunciations panic you. In most cases, the difference between the broad and slender pronunciation is subtle, and you really don't need to worry about all the subtleties at first. [3] The most dramatic changes are:

broad d is pronounced /d/ as in "door"
slender d is pronounced /dj/, like the "dg" in "edge"
broad s is pronounced /s/ as in "say"
slender s is pronounced /sh/ as in "sheep"
broad t is pronounced /t/ as in "talk"
slender t is pronounced /tch/ as in "tchah!" or "hatch"

Aside from that, broad consonants have a slight "w" sound associated with them, and slender consonants have a slight "y" sound. This is usually not noticeable except when you change from slender to broad within a word, or vice versa. To make it clear when this occurs, I'll write the "w" or "y" in a tiny font like this: w, y. But I'm only going to do that where I think it helps to clarify the pronunciation, so don't worry about figuring out why I include it in some words and leave it out in others.

Let's work through some examples in detail. We'll start with some words you know, but we'll look at them with fresh eyes, and pretend we don't already know how to pronounce them.

bád
We can tell that the "b" and "d" are broad, because they are next to a broad vowel, "a". Broad consonants are generally pronounced pretty much the way they are in English, so this word shouldn't be too difficult. The fada over the "a" tells us it has a long sound, and is pronounced AW (or AA in Ulster, but I'm going to stick with the most commonly used pronunciation on this thread. )
We have:
broad b + á + broad d
So bád would be pronounced BAWD.

Bríd
This word has a consonant cluster "br" at the beginning, but you treat it as a unit when deciding whether they're broad or slender. In this case, "br" is slender, as is "d". Remember that slender "d" has a special sound.
We have: slender br + í + slender d
So Bríd would be pronounced BREEJ. (If you want to be precise, slender "r" has a sort of "d" quality to it, so you could write the pronunciation as BRdEEJ... but maybe that's too confusing.)

bábóg
The only vowels in this word are broad, so all the consonants are broad too.
We have: broad b + á + broad b + ó + broad g
So bábóg would be pronounced BAH-BOHG. (Don't worry about which syllable is accented/emphasised for now. We'll talk about that later.)

feadóg
In this word, we have both broad and slender vowels. The "f" is next to a slender vowel, so it's slender. The "d" and "g" are next to broad vowels, so they are broad. Since we'll be sliding from a slender sound into a broad sound, you'll hear a bit of that "y" sound I mentioned -- but don't overdo it. That "y" shouldn't really be audible, it's more of a hint to get your lips and mouth into the right shape.
We have: slender f + ea + broad d + ó + broad g
So feadóg would be pronounced FyAA-DOHG.

Caoimhín
Oh no! There are three vowels in a row, what unearthly sound will they make? For the purpose of deciding whether a consonant is broad or slender, you only look at the adjacent vowels. So the "C" is broad, the "mh" is slender, and the "n" is slender.
We have: broad c + aoi + slender mh + í + slender n
Now we just have to figure out the sound that "aoi" makes. Take a moment and read this sounds of vowel combinations. I'll wait for you... Back already? OK, now we can tell that Caoimhín is pronounced KwEE-VEEN. (I put the tiny "w" in there because we're going from an initial broad consonant into a medial slender consonant.)

súil
siúil
I put these two together because they really illustrate the difference one little vowel can make. That article I referred you to doesn't explicitly list these two vowel combinations, but here's a tip: When you see a vowel combination where one of the vowels has a fada, the vowel with the fada is how it's pronounced. In other words, the vowel with the fada is the "real" vowel, and its companions are just there to tell you how to pronounce the consonants on either side. So both these words have the same vowel sound, OO. And both have a slender "l" on the end. But one has a broad "s" and the other a slender "s", and that makes all the difference.
For súil we have: broad s + ú + slender l
For siúil we have: slender s + ú + slender l
The only difference in pronunciation is the quality of the initial "s". So...
súil is pronounced SOOL
siúil is pronounced SHOOL

Give it a try. Take a word you're where you're not sure of the pronunciation, or a word whose pronunciation surprised you, and analyse it as I have done above. You can post your attempts on this thread, and get some feedback. Or if there's a word that you still can't figure out how to pronounce, post it here and I (or someone else) will analyse it and explain why it's pronounced the way it is.

NOTE TO SELF: add more examples tomorrow.

Notes:

[1] This rule is called caol le caol agus leathan le leathan, and if you're curious, you can read more about it here.

[2] There are a few exceptions to this rule, but very few.

[3] If you are ready to know more about the differences, see this excellent article.

_________________

Seans Eile - free software to help you practice your Irish
Scéala na Wombait - Muddle-headed Memes and Musings

mhwombat

*bump* for the day shift
_________________

Seans Eile - free software to help you practice your Irish
Scéala na Wombait - Muddle-headed Memes and Musings

Redwolf

We should put this in the "articles" section for posterity. Good stuff!

I remember when I first started with this language, looking in despair at the words and thinking "what do they DO with all those letters???" lach

Redwolf
_________________
Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste
Is fearr Gaeilge na scoile ná gan Gaeilge ar bith

mhwombat

Here are some short words that might not be familiar. Anyone want to try figuring out the pronunciation of some of them? You don't need to do them all. In some cases I've put a pair of words separated by a comma; doing both of them is a good way to focus on the distinction between broad and slender for a particular consonant.

Don't worry about what the words mean. All we care about is how they're pronounced.

sos
cas, cais
cláróg
leas, léas
rois, ros
géin
scar, scair
fram
casla
íle
scil, scál
doirt
leá
sall
séid
fras
fadú
siolp
sábh, seabhac
osar
féidín
séirse
sár, sáir
ósais
_________________

Seans Eile - free software to help you practice your Irish
Scéala na Wombait - Muddle-headed Memes and Musings

mhwombat

It would be great if I had a way to make broad letters s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d o-u-t and slender letters really skinny, but I'll make do with blue-for-broad and green-for-I'm-green-with-envy-because-you're-so-skinny!
_________________

Seans Eile - free software to help you practice your Irish
Scéala na Wombait - Muddle-headed Memes and Musings

sean mhic cuarta

Great Stuff a whombait! I'm learning tons! GRMA! Keep it coming!

Garthstone

Wombat,

Did you want us beginners to try your pronounciation word list on this thread or just do it for ourselves?

Garth
_________________
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son,
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Also beware any of my translations. I am very much a beginner so always get other opinions.

mhwombat

Give it a try right here on the thread! I'll offer corrections, or others will. And when those words are done, I'll come up with more. Ádh mór!
_________________

Seans Eile - free software to help you practice your Irish
Scéala na Wombait - Muddle-headed Memes and Musings

Garthstone

Ceart go leor a Wombat, seo duit.

sos - soss
cas - kahss
cais - kash
cláróg - klahr-ohg
leas - lass
léas - lay-as
rois - resh
ros - ross
géin - gay-in
scar - skahr
scair - skar
fram - frahm
casla - kahs-lah
íle - eel-eh
scil - skil
scál - skahl
doirt - dehrt
leá - leh-ah
sall - sahl
séid - shay-id
fras - frahs
fadú - fah-doo
siolp - shil-up
sábh - sahv
seabhac - shah-vak
osar - oh-sahr
féidín - fay-deen
séirse - shayr-sha
sár - sahr
sáir - sawr
ósais - oh-sahsh

I think I am doing ok with the single vowels and consanants. I do have some trouble with vowel combinations though.

GRMA for all your help. These are great threads.

Garth

mhwombat

xxxHere are my "answers". Don't worry if you didn't write the pronunciation exactly the way I did, as long as you had the right sound in mind. Also, don't worry about which syllable has the emphasis; we'll cover that in another thread.

sos SOSS
cas KAHSS
cais KASH
cláróg KLAR-OHG
leas LASS
léas LAYSS
rois ROSH
(The vowel sound is somewhere between ROSH and RUSH.)
ros ROSS
géin GAYN
scar SKAR
scair SKARdj
fram FRAM
casla KASS-luh
íle EEL-uh
scil SHKIL
scál SKAHL
doirt DERCH
leá LyAH
sall SALL
séid SHAYD
fras FRASS
fadú FAH-DOO
siolp SHOL-up
sábh SAW - Be sure to pronounce that final "w".
seabhac SHAH-wuk
osar OSS-er
féidín FAY-djeen
séirse SHAYR-shuh
sár SAHR
sáir SAHRdj
ósais OH-sash

Garthstone, I only saw one real mistake, but there are some other things that you might want to double-check:

léas, géin, leá - I think you got these right, you just wrote them a little differently than I would. As long as you know these are one syllable, then give yourself full marks.

scar, scair - The vowel sound is actually the same for both words. The only diffference is the final "r". Again, if you realised that, give yourself full marks.

scil - Aha! Gotcha! That's a slender "s", because the consonant cluster "sc" is next to a broad vowel, "a".

doirt - What you had was probably fine, as long as you realised that final "t" is slender.

sábh, seabhac - Broad "bh" is pronounced w, slender "bh" has more of a v sound.

osar - There's no fada on that "o", so it's short.
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Seans Eile - free software to help you practice your Irish
Scéala na Wombait - Muddle-headed Memes and Musings

Irish Translation Forum

Practice Thread: Pronunciation