How would the word "beo" be pronounced.
Thank you.
Donald

Maybe - byoh? The phonetic transcription is [b'o:]
Daithí

I have a very similar question.

Is there any difference at all between the actual "B" sound in beo and the B in bó? This is frustrating because pronunciation descriptions routinely insist that the "B" is different in each word - the former being slender and the latter being broad.

I think that's poppycock! Try as I might, I can hear absolutely no difference in the actual consonant sound, just a difference in the following vowel sound: "byoh" versus "bo".

There is no difference between the 'B' in 'bó' or 'beo' as far as I'm concerned. Then again, I was taught Dublin Irish, which ignores broads and slenders.

Beo = byoh (like the smell of yer armpit but much faster)
Bó = boh (as in 'bow and arrow')

(Message edited by ceolmhar on August 16, 2006)

quote:

I was taught Dublin Irish, which ignores broads and slenders.

Beo = byoh (like the smell of yer armpit but much faster)
Bó = boh (as in 'bow and arrow')

But if you make that distinction, you're not ignoring broads and slenders! :-) The difference between broad and slender in the case of the "b" sounds is just a matter of "glide vowels" or "transition vowels": the y-glide or not above, and the w-glide or not here:

bí = bee
buí = bwee

quote:

Then again, I was taught Dublin Irish, which ignores broads and slenders.

I couldn't ignore this. Are you really insisting that in Dublin people are taught not to distinguish broad and slender? Or this is what people in Dublin manage to learn.

I think it's more to do with what Dubliners manage to learn, rather than what they are taught. As a fourth generation Dub myself (yes, there are such creatures), with a strong Northside accent, I like many of my citymen always found difficulty with certain sounds while learning Irish in school, notwithstanding the fact that one of my most influential teachers was from Corca Dhuibhne. For example, it took a long time for me to pronounce "Gaeilge" correctly, it always came out as "gwail-ge".

Only last week end I was in Ceathru Rua, where my youngest daughter, Caitriona, was on her annual visit to the Colaiste Samhraidh, and she commented on how the bean a'ti pronounced her name, with a soft t almost like Caitsriona. This is the pronunciation I would aspire to, but it most often comes out as Katrina.

In Donegal:

beo > "byaw"
bó > "baw" (both without any w-glide at the end).

Suaimhneas, the ts pronunciation of slender t's is mainly a Connemara women pronunciation.

Most of the time, Caitríona should be pronounced [kˠaˈtʲɼiːnˠə] in Irish, actually no consonant of that word would have an English equivalent...

I'm amazed that women in Connemara pronounce sounds differently to men, although I have found the bean a'ti in question far easier to understand than her husband, but I put this clarity down to the fact that she is more used to speaking to the students and their parents who mat not have great Gaeilge.

I noticed she also used a soft N sound when referring my other daughter Niamh. Is this another Connemara female trait? Do tell more. I would be more familiar with the Corca Dhuibhne dialect as I have started to live there for part of the year. I have to say that I have not noticed differences in male/female pronunciation, although in general women there speak "clearer" Gaeilge, and Bearla for that matter

I dunno any other case of differences in language between men and women in Irish (or I don't remember any now).

What do you mean, with "soft N sound" in Niamh? Explain.

Women speak clearer Irish because their voice is more high-pitched, maybe. :-)

A Lughaidh

Is your claim that only female speakers use [ts'] based on some research or is it only your feeling? I didn't notice any difference in male and female speech while in Conamara. Also the fact is that males (older ones) have a lot of sissing noices while speaking (from their weaker lungs?), so maybe it is not that obvious that there is sybillant, but if one of them has clear voice (that meants e.g. no coughing) - you hear [ts'] galore.

quote:

Is there any difference at all between the actual "B" sound in beo and the B in bó?

In Ó Síadhail's "Learning Irish," he describes the differences between slender and broad consonants, and for "b" he use "bo" and "beo" as examples. A slender "b" is defined as having a slight, short "i" sound immediately succeeding it, and a broad "b" is defined as having a short "u" immediately succeeding it. So,

beo = b(i)o

bo = b(u)o

where (i) and (u) represent short "i" and "u" respectively.

The examples shown above are also contained on the first cassette that comes with Learning Irish. I found that this first cassette was very helpful for me to understand the differences between slender and broad consonants.

Is your claim that only female speakers use [ts'] based on some research or is it only your feeling?

Based on what I have heard, and on one discussion on some mailing list, between other members; I don't remember if it was Gaeilge-A or Acmhainn or another one like that. They did say that ts and dz normally was a feminine feature. And I noticed, from what I heard of Connemara Irish, that most women had these sounds although most men had not.

quote:

...one discussion on some mailing list, between other members; I don't remember if it was Gaeilge-A

Is mise thosaigh díospóireacht mar sin ar Ghaeilge-A thiar i Mí na Feabhra 1999. Scríobh mé:

Ar thug sibh faoi deara go bhfuil difríocht shuntasach idir an tslí a fhuaimníonn fir agus mná "t caol" agus "d caol" i nGaeilge Chonamara? Mura a bhfuil dul amú orm, fuaimníonn na fir (agus cuid de na mná) "cinnte" mar KEEN-tyuh /ki:n't'@/. Ach i leaba "ty", séard a chloisim ó na mná (na mná óga ach go háirithe) ná "ts": KEEN-tsuh. Agus deir siad "féidir" mar FAY-dzir agus "brídeach" mar BREE-dzuhkh. Níl an litriú seo in ann na fuaimeanna a chur in iúl go beacht, ar ndóigh, ach an rud is tábhachtaí ná go bhfuil "sex differentiation" le sonrú i labhairt na teanga. An bhfuil an ceart agam? An rud sách nua é seo? An bhfuil sé ag leathnú?

Agus d'fhreagair Antony Green:

Deir na sochatheangeolaithe (? - sociolinguists) go dtosaíonn athrú na teanga go minic nó fiú de ghnáth le mná óga, mar sin níorbh aon ionadh liom dá mbeadh sé ag leathnú. Más ea, is dócha go mbeidh [ts] agus [dz] ag an dá ghnéas araon den ghiniúint ina diaidh seo.

Sin go díreach a’ díospóireacht a bhí mé a mhaíomh. Grma.

That's true. I also heard, when I was in Conamara, that lots of women, especially younger ones, pronounce their broad r's exactly as they pronounce the r when speaking English. Men on the other hand often had a slightly trilled 'r'. When flanked by a 'th' (eg. in orthu) this r was devoiced (something like the Welsh rh).

As for the difference between broad and slender labials (p, b, m), they indeed are pronounced in a slightly different manner (the broad ones are a bit rounded and perhaps velarised, and the slender ones palatalised) which results in their influence on the adjacent vowel. So bí isn't so different than English bee because both /b'/ and /i:/ have something to do with the front palate, while buí is - it sounds a bit like bwee. This 'w' however is not a phoneme, it's just an onglide that results from the influence of the rounded /b/ on the following unrounded /i:/. Something similar happens in words like bó and beo. The glide in beo [b'o:] (byaw) is nothing more than the result of the slendernes of the b passing into the backness of the ó. However, it's much easier for people whose mother tongue doesn't have the broad-slender distinction to think of these glides as of separate sounds - buí (bwee), beo (byaw) etc.
For Irish speakers on the other hand it's the way they pronounce their b's, and p's what's important, while the glides appear automatically, only because human speech organs are not so quick and precise to be able to switch in a tenth of a second from one position to another when pronouncing two rather different sounds.

Daithí

Maith thú, a Dhaithí! Very precise observations concerning glides. I was under pain to produce them - and never succedeed, but then I realised that you have to get consonants write (like roundedness for labials and velarisation for other non-coronals) and glide will follow. Nothing to invent for slender sounds as I have them in my mother tongue (and father tongue too ;-).