Lughaidh et al,
do ye think the initial slender r was similar to the Czech sound?

Actually, having talked with a Czech man about that, he told me that some of the Czech ř's (there are some differences in sound according to where it is in the word) were just like the Irish slender r. The others are a bit different.

What about the version that is trill and fricative all at once. How different is that to an Irish one? From the sounds of it (pun sorry) it is difficult to make.

I'd say it's more fricative than trill in Czech, whereas in the Irish I heard it's the direct opposite. IMO. Coming to think of it, is it actually a trill that they've got in Irish? It seems that, say, in Russian the slender R-class counterpart is a flap, and I can say it's really uncomforable to trill it.

What words give the slender r in Russian? I think there is a very distinctive slender r in Belorussian too, AFAIK. I must ask mo bhean chéile about the Russian on -riveting as she'll find it...

I'm afraid there's no slender r in Belorussian at all, as Roman quite rightly pointed out to me once.

What Russian words? :) Common, it's everywhere!!!

The problem is that most people don't look at language analytically, so when I once ventured to ask about the 2 sets of consonants in Russian, I was met with blank stares.

Internet searches are confusing for the same soft of reasons of vague explanations that hold for Irish too. Just a few words spelt in Cyrillic that I can show would be appreciated! I've not heard anything like the Irish slender r tho, that is why I'm interested

As far as I know, the palatalised r in Russian is very different from the Czech and Irish ones. Even Russian palatalised m, p, f etc are different; except before long back vowels, they are not really palatalised in Irish, but simply pronounced with spread lips.

речь

Рим

репа

ряба

рюмка


The stress is on the first sylable. I've never said the Russian slender r and the Irish slender r are identical. Though in certain positions, e.g. word-finally in an unstressed sylable, it approximates the Irish counterpart since it gets partially devoiced > fricative. The main allophone of the Russian slender r is far from being fricative, though, and if I remember rightly statistics show r-class sounds are rarely trill in Russian. My remark was that it could be that the Irish slender r is a flap followed by friction rather than a trill (with the flap component missing in certain cases).

"word-finally in an unstressed sylable, it approximates the Irish counterpart since it gets partially devoiced > fricative"

Yes, at the end of these nonsense words it almost could be taken for the slender r http://listen2russian.com/lesson08/c/ (see bottom of page)


"statistics show r-class sounds are rarely trill in Russian" I hear the alveolar trill more in some people than others -might be due to all sorts of personal differences


"Irish slender r is a flap followed by friction rather than a trill"

I don't think it is a trill. One type is a clear tap to the ridge, and there is a 'dragged' one with friction as well as one with both, so yes there is a few of them.

I was wondering if the old strong slender r had a trill component -but since it was gone out even in 19th century, we don't know

"Even Russian palatalised m, p, f etc are different;"

Ya they are. There is that odd b with the really pursed lips and what might be the central consonant of Korean/Welsh or the old unrounded long u of Irish ('ao') -but I can make it out


Thanks Peter -I'll give them to people and see what I hear

For what it may be worth, on the site of Fios Feasa

http://www.fiosfeasa.com/bearla/language/caol.htm (native of Kerry)

the slender r's don't sound appreciably different from Russian sound (click Éire, leabhair), at least to my ear. "láir" is a bit different but not that much that you would pay a lot of attention in the rapid speech. You just wouldn't notice.

I wonder how would English speakers characterise the slender [r`] in those words? What association of the closest English sound it invokes for you?


(Message edited by róman on February 20, 2008)

Bearn - corrigendum: initial R is NOT slender in Irish (except cases like "mo rí", where it is counted as medial), what we are discussing here is a slender-r, which cannot be initial by definition.

quote:

"statistics show r-class sounds are rarely trill in Russian" I hear the alveolar trill more in some people than others

My university professor spent half his life in order to establish the predominance of the flap articulation :)

quote:

I was wondering if the old strong slender r had a trill component

Definitely, at some unspecified point in the past. I'm no maven in Irish diachronic phonetics, just simply have no idea...

quote:

Thanks Peter -I'll give them to people and see what I hear

No problem

quote:

Yes, at the end of these nonsense words it almost could be taken for the slender r http://listen2russian.com/lesson08/c/ (see bottom of page)

I hope it is a misunderstanding. The non-sense words have BROAD r, and the real words (first in pair) have a slender sound. Is it this what you meant to say?

A Rómáin, good to see you back again!

"What association of the closest English sound it invokes for you? "

For me, there is no similar one, as I hear it as nothing like an English sound. It is clear to me whenever I hear it in Irish, as obvious as a Spanish r is to an English speaker as different from their own r sound. Does that make sense? i.e. Irish broad and slender are easy for me to distinguish, so I don't think about nearest English sound. My slender r is much the same as the Kerry example you gave. I must post a sound sample for comparison.


"initial R is NOT slender in Irish "

Having read every dialect study book I could I am familiar with this fact -as a Munster lover it must interest you that there was once a broad r to slender r switch in cases where you would historically expect trill to tap (i.e. 'lenition' of r) in some part of Cork. I was myself, talking about in the past (maybe up to 18th century).


"half his life in order to establish the predominance of the flap articulation :) "

I hope he is remembered for it!


"Definitely, at some unspecified point in the past"

I simply wonder why it was given up -purely from a structural perspective. It is not important to speaking or learning


"I hope it is a misunderstanding."

I'm confused. I hear something like a slender sound on дверь and a rolled r on the one underneath it -I have not yet got the orthography of Russian (due to no sight telling me how it is constructed) so I can only go by ear.

I hear: дверь (slender), двер : rolled

Bearn, you said:

quote:

at the end of these nonsense words it almost could be taken for the slender r

from which I induced that you hear a slender r at the end of non-sense word, .i. двер, январ, тепер. Correct me if I am wrong.

quote:

I hear it as nothing like an English sound.

But is it the infamous "Czech rz", or something else? Because from what I have heard while in Prague, the sounds at Fios Fease are nothing like this. Maybe "láir" is a bit in that direction, but only slightly, as fricative part is really minuscle. However, nothing of the kind can be said about "Éire" and "leabhair" where I hear ordinary Russian slender r's, without even a hint of fricativeness like in Czech. Did I make myself clear now?

As far as I know, the IPA analysis of the infamous Czech ř is that it is an "alveolar fricative trill" and it comes in two allophones, voiced and voiceless.

As a speaker of both Czech (native) and Irish I can confirm that the voiceless variety is indeed quite similar to the Irish aspirated /r'/, as you hear it in "láir" and the like. It is similar, but it is probably not the exact same sound. (Can such a thing even exist between two languages?)

The voiceless ř is also quite similar (although in other ways) to the Welsh sound written as "rh".

The voiced variety of ř, on the other hand, is not similar to anything in Irish or any other language on Earth - or so it is said. I like to believe that. It's ours, and ours only!

Well, Mbm, if you insist - the sound in "láir" on Fios Feasa's site is more alike voiced Czech ř, not voiceless! On the other hand, sounds in "Éire" and "leabhair" are not like Czech sound (regardless of variety) at all!

(Message edited by róman on February 20, 2008)

Could you please post recordings or links to recordings of these sounds in all these languages so I can hear the difference?

"But is it the infamous "Czech rz", or something else? Because from what I have heard while in Prague, the sounds at Fios Fease are nothing like this."

Román,
I for one have not taken a position on the similarity between languages -originally I asked if, just as an intellectual question, Irish had the famous 'difficult to pronounce r' but lost it.

I played samples from both pages in Irish and Russian last night to a Russian speaker, and they from them to be different. It would seem that there is a lot of variance possible just for such a particular region of sound, and here I am living in a place with a poor l/r difference. They would never understand...

> Well, Mbm, if you insist - the sound in "láir"
> on Fios Feasa's site is more alike voiced Czech
> ř, not voiceless!

Just listened to the recording of "láir" on the Fios Feass website and you are mistaken. It doesn't sound anything like the Czech voiced ř. It is rather similar to the voiceless one, though.

> On the other hand, sounds
> in "Éire" and "leabhair" are not like Czech
> sound (regardless of variety) at all!

The r sound in Éire isn't similar to anything in Czech, we are in agreement over that one. But the r sound in leabhair is, again, similar to the Czech voiceless ř. So maybe this similarity only applies to word-final r sounds in Irish.

"from which I induced that you hear a slender r at the end of non-sense word, .i. двер, январ, тепер. Correct me if I am wrong. "

I'll put it this way, on the sample for 'door', the way the girl says the final r would be workable as a slender r if speaking Irish, even if not exactly the same. You have to remember that humans can often accept functional equivalence even if structural equivalence is lower, strictly speaking. I have heard women in Connacht with a very similar slender r to дверь (on that recording). The woman on TG4 news is an example. None of the Russians I asked here make that sound there. Since дверь was one of the first Russian words I memorized, I recall it with a broad r (single tap) -been my interpretation, not the reality of course.

Russian is not easy unless you are experienced and well tuned in. For example, I find the syllabic structure very hard indeed. Irish and many other languages would have simplified on that level. It was a huge number of allophones too. Slender t, I've heard in every form you find in English and Irish just from one person (affricative, palatal dental, palatized, mixed)

quote:

None of the Russians I asked here make that sound there.

quote:

Slender t, I've heard in every form you find in English and Irish just from one person (affricative, palatal dental, palatized, mixed)

What you describe here is eerily familiar. Are you sure, your "Russians" are what they say to be? Because you just gave a compelling description of Belarusian accent. Paradoxically, Belarusian people keep their accent while speaking Russian years after moving to Russia. Maybe, the reason is that the differences are so trivial and never impede understanding, so they don't feel real must to better their pronunciation (feabhas a chur uirthi).

They are from Habarovsk and I just found out last night, two of them are ethnic Ukrainian. I'll ask about Bellarussian

Ok, but if they are ethnic Ukranian you should agree they are not precisely ethalon of "Russian" pronunciation, are they? Nobody doubts they master Russian very well, but it does not make their pronunciation Russian. Just like someone speaking Gaelic may speak good Irish, but pronunciation will be very different from real Irish pronunciation if the person does not make a conscious effort to fight interfering Gaelic pronunciation. The greatest differences between Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian are exactly in phonology, not grammar or lexis.