I'm about ready to start drinking heavily or throw my CD player out the window.

Will somebody please for the love of God write out for me phonetically how this guy is saying "Gaelainn"?

It's like Goo-ay-uh-oo-er-ah-luh-ing or something equally unpronouncable. Plus every time he says it, it's a little different. Aaaaaah!

(Message edited by domhnall_Ó_h_aireachtaigh on September 29, 2006)

Does anyone here know how to pronounce the Irish word for 'her mother', máthair?

"how this guy"

what guy? Is that on Plimseur?

"'her mother'" is not a word...a máthair


ONe of these might do:

ə mʷɑːhiɼ

ə mʷaːhiɼ

ə mʷɑː(i)ɼ

or just 'ah maahir'

I dont know if there are dialect versions with a short a, maybe Lughaidh knows

Will somebody please for the love of God write out for me phonetically how this guy is saying "Gaelainn"?

The "g" is broad, so you're hearing a bit of a "hidden W" between the "G" and "a". By that I mean a "W" sound for which you do not pucker out your lips.

Additionally, some Munster speakers render a terminal "nn" as "ng" when it's slender.

I won't attempt it in IPA (someone else probably will), but here's how I'd write it phonetically ( and a bit over-simplified) using English sounds:

GwAYL-ing

Where the italic "w" indicates the "hidden W" -- don't forget to not pucker for that sound.

You can also put that "hidden W" to good use in the word Gaeilge, as well as many other broad G-fronted words.

Oh, and later in the CDs you'll hear the genitive case of that word: Gaelainne, which will have an extra syllable -- an unstressed vowel sound -- added to the end.

Thanks! Irish is similar in some ways to Australian English. They take a simple monosyllable like the word "no" and turn it into a quadrathong, if such a thing exists. It's maddeningly difficult to replicate! :)

There is no hidden "w" in Gaeilge or Gaelainn, it's a velarization, so it would be a hidden [ɣ]. In NW Donegal, máthair has a short a (as before all th's): in Gweedore we say [ˈmʷɛhɛj].