Attention all IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) Fans - a link for the Pronunciation Key for the basic IPA symbols used in understanding Irish pronunciation has been included in the Grammar section of the Daltaí website. There are also audio examples for each of the IPA symbols. It doesn't get easier than this!

Thanks Caoimhín for this additional link. And thanks again Lúcas for originally creating the table.

Le meas,

Dáithí

I've listened to these recordings: the man doesn't sound like a native speaker (english consonants, and english diphthongs instead of irish long vowels). And some sounds are missing, like broad c.

Could be much better...

It always make me laugh when i hear learners like that who pronounce Irish r's like the English ones, and who disperately try to make a difference between broad and slender r's :-) . I think it's easier to pronounce the real slender r than to try to pronounce a palatalized English r, that is physically impossible to do !!!

I agree completely, the sound recordings should be removed from this site. It is a very good idea having sound recordings, but then they should be in Irish. I am sure there are Gaeltacht speakers who would be willing to help.

What an arrogant response, from both Jonas and Lughaidh!

It makes you LAUGH when a learner mispronounces r's!?!?! The recordings should be "removed" from this site!?!?!

This is exactly the arrogance that pisses me off. Someone went to the trouble to TRY and provide some assistance. While the shortcomings of their efforts might be debatable, your responses are fully and completely out of line.

During the 9 months I spent in Djibouti we had a French priest come to our camp to say Mass. His english was HORRIBLE. But you know what...he was TRYING! For that, and for that alone, I was thankful.

How would you feel Looey (see, we're back to Looey) if I told you that it cracked me up when I heard a Frenchman try to pronounce the English "th"?

And Jonas...Oh... I expected so much more from you. What a dissapointment.

THis site is about LEARING and TEACHING! The two of you academic snobs need to learn the art of constructive criticism. God help any of your students.

We all have our areas of expertise. We should be grateful and thankful for our talents. We should use them to be helpful not to beat people over the heads with our intelectual superiority.

James,

"polite and related to the Irish Language"

People are entitled to their opinions (as are you), but rebuttals should be directed to the message, not the messenger.

Caoimhín

Hey, LOOEY and Jonas...I really need your help!!!

Had a 52 y/o WNWM c/o CPX3D in the ER. There was some associated SOB with diaphoresis earlier. Also a bit of N/V but w/o D. 12 point ROS was unremarkable. FHx significant for CVD and CVA. SHx at 1ppd x 20yrs. Denied ETOH use. PT states he has WPW. Pt had a GXT several years ago followed by a Cath that revealed 70% occlusion of the LAD with mimimal occlusions in remaining vessels. An echo done earlier this year showed LV dysfunction with an EF of 35%. Pt also gives hx decribing sx c/w TIA about 2 years ago but this was never followed up by the PCP. Pt also states he was told he had a AAA but there was no mention on an earlier ABD CT.

Exam showed a RRR with S1/S2 and a 3/6 M at the LSB but or R or G. No JVD nor HJR appreciated. ABD was without masses or megaly. No CVAT noted. Lungs CTA B. And, of course, HEENT was NC/AT, PERRLA with EOMI. TM's were clear B. CN II-XII intact. Pt A/O x 3 during entire exam. MS exam indicated 5/5 strength B U/L with DTR's at 2+ in U/L. Pulses = B.

EKG revealed NSR at 68BPM with PR less than .2. Of course, a Delta wave was present. PVC's were also present but not frequent. There was no ST elevation, depression or inversion.

Lab work revealed a TNI that was less than .01. CPK was 438 but the MB was less than 2.0. PTT and PT were a bit elevated but INR was, again, normal. A BNP to r/o CHF was less than 100 and the CT indicated no PE. UA showed +LE with no Nitrites but UMIC was negative. UDS was + for MJ but otherwise negative.

During the ED stay Pt's PN improved with 3x NTG SL and MSO4. Of course, 325mg ASA was also given.

What do you guys think I should do?! Given the Hx of WPW would you think an ACEI would be better or should I go with a Ca+ Channel blockade? Certainly not at Beta Blockade, though...huh?

OH...don't worry this doesn't violate HIPPA and we were fully EMTALA and COBRA compliant. But, then again, we always are!

I hope none of us end in up an emergency room, military or not, as a result of discussions here....

1. I never wrote anything about laughing at anyone.
2. I encourage everyone to do their best, and my own Irish pronunciation is definitely not perfect. However, I do feel that learners should be able to trust the pronunciation they hear.
3. Obviously my mistake was that I pointed out an error on this site. For that I got these responses from James. It would be easy to answer in the same tone, but I can't see what good it would do.

James get a grip on your self man! walk away count to ten take a deep breath calm down. dude you are being boorish! to keep constantly being offensive i bringing the Valu otf this site down. I havent gleamed an help in Irish in days

The foolish laugh at other's mistakes or shortcomings... the wise offer assistance in correcting them.

Sorry, I have no business responding here. I've only posted a couple of times over the 3 years I've been reading this forum. But laughing at someone’s mispronunciation is not the way to go. You should try to help them overcome the problem. In the area I live, there are lots of Spanish speakers. Many are new to the US. Most are trying to learn English (I don't envy them). I speak Spanish at an elementary level. Rather than laughing at them when they mispronounce an English word or use incorrect grammar, I offer to help them correct it. You'd be surprised at how much most of them appreciate it. They generally thank me, and once in a while I have a new friend—which means that I can practice my Spanish, make mistakes and have them help me. I haven't tried laughing at them when they make mistakes with English, nor do I intend to do so—I don’t think they would be nearly so friendly, do you?

Lughaidh's comment was not about any learner's mispronunciation, it was about "faulty teaching".

What is the point of having sound recordings if the sounds are not genuinely Irish? LPA already serves this very purpose.
This is not "my friend from Dublin tries to teach me the little Irish he's learned at school"... This website can provide much better than that...


PS : James, I don't understand the paradox within you. You're the one who talks about "friendly neighbourhood", but instead of soothing the tensions, you fuel them with personal attacks.

Mais il a dit

quote:

It always make me laugh when i hear learners like that who pronounce Irish r's like the English ones

The other, second, comment not pertaining to 'faculty teaching' but rather to learners mispronunciations is the matter which caused offence. The comments which followed immediately make direct mention of such.

Is féidir a bheith ceart ach gan a bheith cóir leis an duine eile anseo.
One may be correct and yet may be unjust while dealing with ones peers here.

Watching over the years here I tend to feel that different cultural views, when accentuated in the usual daily turmoil, causes more upset to progress than any other matter.

I believe that we cannot stress enough the import of 'mol an óige is tiocfaidh sí' enough. http://www.daltai.com/proverbs/cat01.htm#section10

Being a learner-based site I imagine that we, who may be more fluent or ortographically correct (both are not always equally so due to the lack of written Irish in daily life in both Gaeltacht and Galltacht), ought to be praising the learners on their faltering efforts. Who knows what delight another learner may experience in creating ones own sentence, changing it and having some one understand you. The fact that any of us might improve their sentence is best left in the ether. We ought to stop ourselves and let the seed develop in its own distinct way. Each may develop in ways that we ourselves may have avoided. They may not, even with encouragement, ever develop in the way that any of the rest of us may have done. They have their ways and they are best left to how they may proceed. Let us not help but let us rather offer to help. Of more importance to them as learners, more important than any other element that we may offer to them, is praise.

Móraimis iad agus tiocfaidh siad linn.
Cabhraimis leo agus feabhsóidh siad.

Praise and offers to help on a site like this may yet do wonders. There are those few loyal people who keep answering queries down through the years. Tá siad molta agus mise im' thost. I would like to see others join in and help along. Let us all look over our shoulders for those learners, who in some awe and trepidation, pause rather than post. If they take the plunge, let us all, and not the few, be there to praise them.
Sin a bhfuil ann. Sin a bhfuil i gceist.

Together we could do so much - ní neart go ... .. ......

about those proverbs/phrases in here, what is the general concensus on the
#1- the ipa renderings
#2- the quatlity of the translation of the idiom
#3 -how well are the phrases are spoken.
to avoid dispute a proper response would be good -very good native or learner lets keep responses nice:-)
http://www.daltai.com/proverbs.htm
http://www.daltai.com/phrases.htm
note! in the phrases section it says NATIVE SPEAKER
when i was trying to figure out the ipa thing this helped me out....a lot but i still dont know if my vocal rendering is correct of the ipa
go raibh maith agat dan
oooh and what dialect is it spoken? no debate on dialect just which one is spoken grma

(Message edited by dan on May 27, 2005)

>During the 9 months I spent in Djibouti we had a French >priest come to our camp to say Mass. His english was >HORRIBLE. But you know what...he was TRYING! For that, >and for that alone, I was thankful.

Those who pronounce the Irish r's like English ones aren't TRYING because everybody knows that in the Gaeltacht the r's are trilled, just shut on Raidió na Gaeltachta and you'll hear that five times in a sentence. And everybody is able to trill an r or at list to make a tap (such sound exists in US English) with his tongue.

Yes understood, I find it very easy to trill my rrrrrrrrrr's (many years of Spanish and Italian) but how does that pretain to my previous q? some positive feed back welcomed Dáithí- Jonas -Aaonghus -FMB?- hello is this thing on? tap tap...... tak my wife please...ohh livley crowd in this room (last part a poor attempt at humor :) :)

Mar a deirtear, i ndiadh a chéile tógtar na caisleáin. As they say, by degrees the castles are built.

I agree that the phonetic guide on this site could be improved. So let's improve it. Jonas and Luadhaigh are right; none of the voices you hear are from native speakers. At the time this site was built, we thought it was better to provide some guidance than none at all. Perhaps we were wrong.

So let's fix it. The only restriction is that we can not use copyrighted material without written permission of the copyright holder. I already tried that and the lawyers here strickly forbid it. So we could make our own recordings.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to visit the Gaeltacht anytime soon to make new recordings. However, someone else could. Send me (Lúcas Ó Catháin) suggestions and sound files (wave format, mpg format, whatever) and we will rebuild it.

We did use native speakers for the Proverbs page. Peg Cloherty was kind enough to help as was the late Barra Ó Donnabháin. Go ndéana Dia trocaire ar a anam. However, I am responsible for any of the IPA transcription errors. I tried to follow the An Gúm version of IPA used in Foclóir Póca. We can correct these as well. We could also add new ones if someone could record the voice of a friendly canteoir dúchas.

A Dan, a chara,

Barra Ó Donnabháin, who recorded the majority of the proverbs for us, had a beautiful Munster accent. Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas síoraí dá anam. Peg Cloherty gave us her sonorous Connacht accent. She is from Loch Con Aortha, Co. Galway.

(Message edited by lúcas on May 28, 2005)

A Lúcas, a chara,

The phonetic guide has been a great resource for a beginner like me. Thanks again for your effort. I'm very interested in the improvements you mention above, and along those lines, I had an idea (good or bad, I don't know)

Could Daltaí make contact with the schools in Ireland, like Oideas Gael, that Daltaí has friendly relations with, and ask whether they could provide some recordings for us? Someone at their school might be willing to make the recordings and the schools might have the recording information already. Just an idea.

Since the Proverbs Section has the Munster and Connacht accents, does that mean the Phonetic Guide should have the Ulster accent? - just kidding!

Le meas,

Dáithí

A Dhaithí, a chara,

I like your suggestion.

quote:

Could Daltaí make contact with the schools in Ireland, like Oideas Gael, that Daltaí has friendly relations with, and ask whether they could provide some recordings for us?

Donnachadh Ó Cuin and Eibhlín Zurrell just won Daltaí scholarships to go to Oideas Gael this summer.

I suspect while they are there, they will visit Soisear and Mollaí Mac Ceannaí in Mín na Claddaigh. I will ask them if they can help us. Of course, there is a high likelyhood that

quote:

the Phonetic Guide should [would] have the Ulster accent

What exactly should I ask them to record? Who else can we ask to contribute? Who else would volunteer to help?

(Message edited by lúcas on May 28, 2005)

Lucas a chara,
GRMA but for me it was alot of help to find renderings at all.Any is better than nothing. My Irish is very very small but the IPA here helps to be able to "sound" the word. It is funny that my favorite web (Daltaí na Gaeilge) site was founded by (Ethel) I grew up just about 3-4 miles from her, i move all the way to Seattle to find that Irish was being taught rightin my backyard I shoudda neva left. once again thank you and all here D

A Lúcas, a chara,

I can only speak from a beginner's perspective, so I don't mean to sound authoritative on the subject, but I think that the current phonetic system embraced by Daltaí, and also used in (the only?) popular dictionaries that contain phonetic guides, is quite sufficient for a beginner. I don't know if this makes sense, but I notice in An Gúm's dictionaries and the Daltai guide that some of the consonants don't have any English equivalents, so does that mean there aren't any English equivalents for those consonants? If there are English equivalents for some of those not having an English equivalent shown, I think it would help to add English equivalents, and I'm willing to help locate examples, if needed.

Again, my remarks are only from one beginner's viewpoint and encourage others to provide their suggestions.

Dáithí

A Dhaithí, a chara,

I am not an expert in the phonology of Irish either. However, I do believe your observation is correct that

quote:

... some of the consonants don't have any English equivalents...

That is why we thought it imperative to create sound files to hear the foreign sounds.

However, we failed in some instances to capture the correct sound. Take Lughaidh's example from above

quote:

I think it's easier to pronounce the real slender r than to try to pronounce a palatalized English r, that is physically impossible to do !!!

I think what he means is that there is no equivalent of an Irish slender r in English.

It is deja vous all over again.

quote:

If there are English equivalents for some of those not having an English equivalent shown, I think it would help to add English equivalents, ...

I suggested the same thing to the webmaster when we built the sight. If I recall correctly, the webmaster shared Lughaidh's view that there are few, if any, trully equivalent sounds in Irish and English.

For example, Americans tend to add a w-glide to the pronounciation of a long o. Irish speakers do not. An Irish speaker will say bó but us hapless Americans will tend to say bow as in bow and arrow.

Ar scor ar bith, it is a mute point. The webmaster would not allow it then. He will not allow it now.

Keep them ideas coming.

A Luagaidh, a chara,

I am sorry I did not mean to put words in your mouth. I suspect you believe, as my webmaster does, that there are really very few, if any, equivalent sounds in Irish and English, especially American English. However, I do not know that. My apologies.

I am curious about your opinion. Are there any English phonemes that are equivalent to Irish phonemes?

Dan,

Your welcome. It's great to get feedback from your work. I appreciate the positive as well as the negative. The former keeps you going and the later makes it better.

Lughaidh knows the Irish phonetics better than I do.

Still, I can try to clear a few things up....


It's important to understand the difference between PHONEMES and SOUNDS.

- The SOUNDS are what you hear whenever you listen to a human language.
We can record them, put them in a machine that will process them and give us all their caracteristics. Sounds are written between [ ] and are listed in the IPA.

- A PHONEME is not a sound, it is an abstract unit within an abstract system (called phonological system).
To make it simple: we'll say there is a unit each time a change at the level of the sounds changes the meaning. Phonemes are written between / /.
For instance:
1/ [bæd] (bad) is not [dæd] (dad) ; therefore two phonemes: /b/ and /d/
2/ [L] (like in ill) only occurs when [l] (like in live) cannot, and vice versa ; therefore only one phoneme /l/ although we have two sounds [L] and [l].

- A phoneme exists only within its system, therefore, none of the English phonemes are aquivalent to the Irish ones, because the English and Irish phonological systems are different.

- The phonemes are rendered in speech by sounds, and each language uses a certain set of sounds. There is no such thing as "French -a-" and "English -a-": French uses the sound [a] and English uses the sound [æ].

- The vowel in "bó" is a long vowel whereas in "bow" it's a diphthong (that is to say the vowel shifts). In English, a shift always occurs when the vowel is long, even though you wouldn't pay attention to it : now, low, I, see, root (all of these vowels are diphthongs).

- It is true that few of the sounds used by Irish are also used by English, this is why the learners need to hear the sounds pronounced by a native in order to have a chance to percieve the difference with the English sounds.

- I think it's easier to pronounce the real slender r than to try to pronounce a palatalized English r, that is physically impossible to do !!!
What Lughaidh means is: if there were only one -r- in Irish, it woundn't be a real problem, because we could pronounce the words with the English -r- and still be understood (like English when they pronounce French and vice versa). But their is in Irish a difference between broad and slender (or palatalized versus non palatalized): the Irish -r- being rolled, this difference can be rendered (that is to say pronounced) but the English -r- being "retroflex" (with the tongue backwards), this difference cannot be rendered (that is to say physically impossible).

- In American, the -tt- in "better" is flapped : it is the same sound as in the Spanish "pero". Those who can pronounce with an American accent had better start to isolated the flap, and try and practice with this sound instead of using the English -r-


hope this helped
sorry for the jargon

Max

(Message edited by Max on May 28, 2005)

(Message edited by Max on May 28, 2005)

A Lúcas, a chara,

Thanks for the clarification of this website's approach to the phonetic guide. In my request above to include some more of the consonants (not necessarily all), I also had in mind the fact that the slender r doesn't exist in English, so Luagaidh's point is well taken. I find it slightly amusing that when the educational group, Institiúd Teangeolaíochta Éireann, put together the guide to consonants, they used the phrase "Nearest English Equivalents," yet three of them (the hardest in my opinion) are in other languages. :)

Couldn't they have just continued with all of the consonants, including that elusive "slender r?" Max mentions the Spanish word "pero" as an example for the slender r; why don't we use that? In all due respect to the language experts who worked at the time the Department of Education put together their phonetic list, I think most if not all of the consonants can be represented, especially when you see the slender "b'" represented but don't see the broad "b" represented. The same goes for "f,m,n,p," (broad d and t might be exceptions, see below).

Here's what "Learning Irish" (Míchaél Ó Siadhail) has in its Table of Sounds for the missing consonants:

b - put
d' - duty
d and t - Ó Siadhail indicates that "The sounds /d/ and /t/ are said to be 'dental', i.e. the tip of the tongue is placed against the upper front teeth (with English t and d it is advanced only as far as the teeth-ridge." (For the broad d and t, maybe we could have a similar note?)

f' - few
m - much
s- such
t' - tune

I think if Dáltaí's web-master considers the fact that more resources, such as published books and experts like Lughaigh on this very website, have become available since the publication of that seminal work by the Institiúd Teangeolaíochta Éireann, that maybe some, just some... of these "poor, overlooked" consonants can get their fair share of the spotlight. :)

Le meas,

Dáithí

The spelling of my Irish name is Lughaidh: not Luagaidh nor Lughaigh or whatever :-)

I didn't write that the -r- in "pero" was slender... I just said that it was the sound used in American "better".

Slender and broad are phonological traits. This means that they are abstract concepts (see my post above). This is a difference not shared by all languages : Russian has it, but not English, nor French, nor Spanish...

as a consequence:
-r- in "pero" in neither slender nor broad.


Plus:
this difference between slender and broad will be rendered in different ways, depending on: the language (Russian vs Irish), the dialect (Ulster vs Connacht), the different pairs of consonant themselves (/t/ vs /t'/ ; /s/ vs /s'/ ; /x/ vs /x'/).

see:
http://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/20/13764.html?1115654794

Sorry Lughaidh about the incorrect spelling your name - it wasn't intentional.

Dáithí

Here's a website, http://nagaeilmagazine.com/pronunciation/introduction.htm, that I found by way of the Gerry Tobin Language School http://www.scoilgaeilge.org/.

Besides having a pronunciation guide, there's a lot of details (from my beginner's perspective), including mp3 clips on some of the linguistic aspects of the Irish Language.

Dáithí

the problem in this website is that there is a confusion between the letters (in spelling) and the sounds.

For instance, the term "diphthong" (a vowel that shifts, like in "boy") is used in place of "digraph" (to letters used to convey one sound, like "th").

I think it's easier to learn the sounds used in Irish first, and only then to learn the spelling conventions. Otherwise, the risk to mix things up is very high...

Max

A Lucas, a chara: There is a knot in your grapevine. Donncha Quinn won the Oideas Gael scholarship so he will be studying there. Eileen Zurell won the scholarship for study in Ireland which gives the winner the choice of where to go.

I stand corrected Dear Dear Blabby,. GRMA. Thanks too to Max for the clear explanation of phonemes. It reinforces the need to update the phonetic page with the sounds of native speakers.

Unfortunately, nobody has volunteered yet to help record them. Mar a deitear, is ionúin leis an chat iasc, ach ní háil leis a chrúba a fliuchadh. The cat likes fish, but does not like to wet her paws.

A Lucas - What exactly do you mean when you say native speakers? As far as I know the speakers on the Daltai phrase site with one exception were born in Ireland and came here with Irish. If you mean cainteoirí dúchais - people born and raised in a Gaeltacht - I think that is too narrow a field. It seems to say that only those folks have true Irish. That's like saying that only the people of Boston are qualified to teach English.

Dear Dear Balbby,

Almost all the voices given on the phrase pages belong to native speakers. However, the voice on the Phonetic Guide page belongs a Dublin-born fluent Gaeilgeoir. Some have mocked his contribution because he was not born in the Gaeltacht. Yet none of these experts has volunteered to contribute to updating the page.

(Message edited by lúcas on May 31, 2005)

(Message edited by admin on May 31, 2005)

And how many of these "experts" were born in a Gaeltacht?

Ok,

I think this horse is well past dead

This thread will close at 11:00 PM, EST (US).

Caoimhín