As Monday is always a good occasion to boast about things done on weekend I will take this opportunity to share my joy! My copies of venerable Wagner's atlas have arrived this Saturday. Needless to say I spent whole weekend browsing, looking, reading and so on :))

But... After some time I realised that data in Wagner's atlas and say, "Irish of ..." is contradictory at times.

Let's take an example. In IWM (le Brian Ó Cuív) - the book nobody doubts - word "minute" is given as "neómat". The same pronunciation is found in TYI (le Dillon). Whereas in Wagner's atlas the whole Munster area has broad "n" - nómat, nóimint, except for point 13 (Bearhaven if I am not mistaken). So the question arises - whom should I believe, or let's say, whose form should I choose if I try to follow authentic Músgraí pronunciation?

There are many small things like this. "duit" is "doit" in IWM, but it is "duit" in Wagner's atlas.

Any ideas of more proficient users, than I am?

Is mise

Congratulations!

Well, there are slight differences that I notice, those concerning his elaborate vowel transcription for the most part. E.g. vowels /e o/ and /u i/ are practically always depicted as something close to [ə]. What is interesting with regard to Connemara Irish is his tendency to mark /a∙/ as [α] in West Connemara, though linguists (Ó Curnáin and others) show clearly that though the vowel can be retracted it is not that back as he claims. If I’m not mistaken there are no examples of [æ], so, e.g., something like ‘aire’ is transcribed as a:r’ə, but fronting in this position is typical of all Connemara. The most controversial issue is the tense vs. lax sonorants in Connacht Irish, as he clearly attaches no phonemic value to the opposition, see ‘tinn’ in his 1st atlas. The thing is that he for no good reason puts this or that symbol, N or L where we would expect to see n or l and vice versa. Sometimes his examples are far-fetched as speakers were forced to make up words for non-extant concepts on the spot. A speaker from Carna got scared of Wagner to the extent that he said dornə instead the usual daurnə, and ppl began writing theses on it ;)

So you are suggesting that Wagner's atlas should be taken with a pinch of salt, .i. useful in broad terms, but for finer details "Irish of..." is more reliable?

I think he's too subjective at times. And one must always bear in mind that there may be up to dozen different forms of a word sometimes, e.g. sul má, thar éis, cibé ar bith and the like have about 20 variants in Connemara Irish!!!

There's another thing about Donegal Irish. For example, everybody knows that in Gweedore, people pronounce most slender r's as a y-sound. And that fact isn't mentioned in Wagner's Atlas. He gives palatalised r's as [r'] and very palatalised r's as [r''], but he doesn't explain what it sounds like. He should have used [j] for the y-sounds for NW Donegal. Ó Siadhail does mention these y-sounds in 'Modern Irish'.

Dúirt Wagner féin sna 1980aidí go raibh aiféala air gur thug sé faoin Atlas ina óige. Mheas sé nach raibh an chluas aige don Ghaeilg forbraithe mar ba mhaith leis a bheith ina dhiaidh sin.
D'ainneoin na laigí sin a mheas sé a bheith ar an saothar, is mór an gar ina dhiaidh sin féin í.

Somehow I sadly believe that if he did his study in 80s we would end up with 40 points instead of 80 :(((. Most probably south Tipperary, Louth, Skiberrin, Ballymacoda, Roscommon, Antrim data would be lost for ever. At least we have SOMETHING from there.

Something for something.

forbraithe=? Níor aimsíos an focal so san bhfoclóir

forbairt [ainm briathartha][ainmfhocal baininscneach]
forás, borradh, dul chun cinn, méadú, leathnú; greannú, feargú (is furasta forbairt air).

AIDIACHT BHRIATH.
forbartha

I wonder if he did recordings of his informants. The corpus of speech samples could have been enormous. This would have been real 'gar'!!!

I think he did something in Tyrone, but it was confusingly not included in the LASID bar for the map. And there is alot of material (unrelated to questionaire) from the North Clare.

Still, I know there are huge archives at RTÉ of voice samples but the things were never published. This is a real shame.

Have you downloaded the Caint Ros Muc samples yet? Those posted at celt.dias.ie. Nice stuff indeed. That's how the work must be carried out: everything can be checked out with the tape. The most thorough description is still a description, no match for the audio recordings.

quote:

It is believed that the name 'Ros Muc' comes from the old Irish "the peninsula of rounded hills". Ros meaning peninsula and Muc meaning rounded hills.

In response to the one of your previous msgs ;)


And ! There's "Oileán Muscraí" in Connemara, close to the Iorras Aithneach shore. :)))

quote:

In response to the one of your previous msgs

People always find ways to explain things, even if they are obvious and don't need explanation ;P

Btw, Músgraí in Co. Chorcaí should be spelled with "g", as it is pronounced with [zg], not [sk]. One more example of bad caighdeánisation.

So there's [z] in Musgraí Irish. Is it a phoneme on its own or just a variant of /s/?