Dia daoibh athuair,

Like I wrote before, I have read the pronunciation guide on the Standing Stones site. However, as it itself claims, it's intended to be communicative for English speakers to use, but not completely conclusive.

Also I have read other quides that give approximate english transliterations, but some of these confuse me, especially compared to the simple guide of S.S. So I have to turn to the wiser people again.

So far I have deduced that in most cases AO would work much as a broad Í, but there are obviously exceptions to it...

Then, broad DH or GH would be like CH but based on G... is this always G as in Girl, or has DH perhaps got some of English J characteristics, like G in Giraffe? And in their slender form, if they should be spoken like a Y, are they remarkably distinct?

Broad MH and BH would usually be W, but don't they differ a bit by how much you round your lips, right? One transliteration of "go raibh maith agat" suggests RAW for "raibh" (with AW like the OW in COW) but by the simple logic that would be RAV - is this a dialect thing?

And finally, I guess it would be close enough if I use my Finnish R for broad, and English R for slender?

Dh and gh have completely fallen together in Modern Irish. The slender form is like Finnish j; the closest equivalent to English g in giraffe is not slender dh but slender g, which is generally realised as a palatal stop. In Munster, final slender dh/gh is, in fact, pronounced exactly like slender g, but in the other dialects it usually drops or merges with the preceding vowel to form í, e.g. bealaigh "way [gen.]" -> bealaí (Donegal, Mayo), beala (Connacht), bealaig (Munster).

The broad form, on the other hand, combines the fricative nature of Irish ch or the German Ach-Laut with the voiced nature of g. In other words, it has no more in common with the g of girl than it does the ch of Bach. But this is only true in initial position. Elsewhere, it may be changed into /d/, /x/, /g/, or /w/ or deleted depending on the context and the variety.

For instance: bhriseadh sé "he used to break" (like d in northern dialects, deleted in Munster), bhriseadh "used to break" (like ch), briseadh "was broken [impersonal]" (like g only in Muskerry, elsewhere like ch), briseadh "breaking" (dh drops in southern dialects, changes final vowel to ú in Mayo).

Thoroughly confused yet?

And finally, I guess it would be close enough if I use my Finnish R for broad, and English R for slender?

You'd be better off using the Finnish r throughout. Slender r is nothing like any sound found in English; I often find it's one of the last consonants mastered by learners. Certainly, it's the one that causes me the most trouble. To me, it seems most similar to Mandarin r, albeit with considerably less retroflexion.

Okay, now to bh and mh. These are almost as troublesome as dh and gh. In initial position, they are /w/ when broad and /vʲ/ when slender in northern dialects. But the Munster pronunciations are generally /βˠ/ and /βʲ/, respectively. /β/ is a sound somewhat between /w/ and /v/; it shows up in some varieties of Spanish and German. In other positions, interesting things happen. It may drop out. For instance, in Muskerry, tábhacht "importance" is pronounced tácht and nimhe "poison [gen.]" is homophonous with ní "thing". It may form a diphthong, it may change into another sound, or it may stay.

You're correct that in raibh it would normally be [vʲ] or [βʲ], but because go raibh maith agat is a fixed phrase, I've noticed a certain tendency for it to drop out entirely. Haven't heard "AW" for the vowel there--it tends to be either e (as in air or ag, two other slight exceptions) or a shwa.

Oh, and speaking of vowel quality, ao varies by dialect. You're right that it's just like í flanked by broad vowels in northern dialects, but in Munster it's é. Aoi, on the other hand, is í everywhere.

(Of course, there are exceptions. Maothán "earlobe", for instance, is monn (i.e. [mu:n̪ˠ] in Cois Fhairrge and maghathán (i.e. [mʷəɪ'hɑ:n̪ˠ]) in Muskerry. Ah, the joys of a pan-dialectal writing system!)

(Message edited by Domhnaillín_Breac_na_dTruslóg on September 09, 2008)

A Dhomnhaíllin,

I have heard an English person speak some Irish, he used the English R all the time, and that didn't sound right, even when I didn't know the distinction. Also he pronunced Éire somewhat "airy"... would that be even close?

IPA is almost as bad as Hebrew to me, maybe better off trying to figure out the closest Finnish sounds and aid with English... have been speaking these languages for 20+ years and am quite used to them.

So, I guess I will get along well with sticking to Finnish R for R (I have a very rich, low roll rate Pirkanmaa district R).

Perhaps EA is closest to our Ä (at least the El Cheapo Roswitha Stone site sounded very much like FÄR with english R when pronouncing "fear", but then, someone warned that it is very far from the pronunciation he's familiar with).
It is often said that EA is like A in "cat", and my English teachers all along have insisted that it is good enough to use Ä in that case.

Well, laughed out loud when that same site, pronouncing "uisce" sounded like "ishkä" which reminds me of Austin Powers: Goldmember, where "fashah" (father) was translated "ishkä" in Finnish. Is it true that there the U is almost omitted, somewhat like "ishke baha"?

And then , I guess it should be OK to cough out the broad DH and GH from the back of the mouth, use a loose J for slender mostly, W for broad MH and BH, V for slender, at least for starters.

Also, broad D ad T are said to be softer than their English or Finnish counterparts, by holding the tongue a wee bit back from those positions... I have a slight idea of the slender versions with this sharp, narrow aspiratory noise to them... DZH, TSH perhaps... ???

So far I have deduced that in most cases AO would work much as a broad Í, but there are obviously exceptions to it...

This was another challenging one for me.

The vowel sound of AO is indeed Í, but it's preceded by a "w-glide" so that it sounds approximately like (w)í. The "w" is produced in the back of the mouth, not with the lips.

If you speak French, imagine almost but not quite pronouncing the R in the word gris. I believe this will give you a fair approximation of Gaoith.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

This leads me to a question of my own.

grágaíl vs gaol

Is it correct to say that the only difference between gaol and the gaíl in grágaíl is that gaol has a w-glide and gaíl does not?

A Dhomhnaill,

I hear an onglide before the /i:/ in gaíl as well. YMMV. But even if it weren't there, that wouldn't be the only difference. The quality of the /l/ is different in each case: broad in gaol, slender in gaíl. This causes a slight shwa-like offglide to appear in the first case, but not the second.

A Fhinn,

Also he pronunced Éire somewhat "airy"... would that be even close?

Close, but not cigar.

IPA is almost as bad as Hebrew to me, maybe better off trying to figure out the closest Finnish sounds and aid with English... have been speaking these languages for 20+ years and am quite used to them.

The IPA is mostly there for the benefit of others. I have tried to make comparisons to Finnish and/or English whenever possible, but the problem there is that Irish contains a fair number of sounds which are not present in normative dialects of either. I think some Finnish dialects may have an equivalent of gh as a weakened grade of k, but I don't know which ones nor whether you'd even be familiar with them.

Perhaps EA is closest to our Ä (at least the El Cheapo Roswitha Stone site sounded very much like FÄR with english R when pronouncing "fear", but then, someone warned that it is very far from the pronunciation he's familiar with).

Again, this depends on the variety. The vowel in fear sounds like Finnish ää to me in some Conamara dialects, but in Muskerry it is between Finnish ää and Finnish aa. (Again, if you knew German, I could tell you it's like the ah in Bahn pronounced with a Northern German accent.)

Is it true that there the U is almost omitted, somewhat like "ishke baha"?

It depends. In isolation, there's no trace of the u, but it reappears after leading consonants, e.g. an t-uisce. Here it represents the kind of w-like onglide that Domhnall Ó hAireachtaigh struggled to describe.

Also, broad D ad T are said to be softer than their English or Finnish counterparts, by holding the tongue a wee bit back from those positions... I have a slight idea of the slender versions with this sharp, narrow aspiratory noise to them... DZH, TSH perhaps... ???

No, the technical term is "dental", which means that the tip of the tongue is up against the upper teeth rather than the gum ridge located just behind them. I understand that Finnish t and d are also dental, but you would know better than I.

Slender dh and gh =y in 'yet'
Broad dh and gh =devoiced French r (non-trill uvular variety)

Slender c =initial c in 'cumcumber'
Broad c =more broad than c in 'come'

Slender ch =h in 'human'

Slender g =voice slender c. I think I came across a word in English with it, but I've forgotten it. (Most seemingly odd sounds are only a step or two from an English equivalent.

"Also, broad D ad T are said to be softer"

They should be stronger, I'd say. If you want to make strong broad l, n, d, and t get a cup of water and take a drink, and then try to hold the water aloft by placing the tongue tip/blade behind the back teeth. When you do this, the tongue naturally fans out, dips in the middle and raises at the back. Voila! you have the means to 4 potentially difficult sounds

If you want, I can post a complete guide to how to make the sounds based on start-points in English.

Personally, I think the consonants if done right, push the vowels in the right direction anyway

Scríobh Domhnall,

The vowel sound of AO is indeed Í, but it's preceded by a "w-glide" so that it sounds approximately like (w)í. The "w" is produced in the back of the mouth, not with the lips.

Hence the marking GW in some guides, like "djeea gwitch" for "dia duit"?

OTOH with a word like "Braon" the lips would be almost shut from the B at the moment you get to AO.

And then, wouldn't initial AO usually work differently, like in Aonghus?

And in the "dia daoibh" such glide would be obvious, like "gweev" comparatively, or what?

A Bheairn, (correct lenition/slenderization?) scríobh tú:

If you want, I can post a complete guide to how to make the sounds based on start-points in English.

That would be neat..

Oh, "scríobh" sounds like one case where BH is slender regardless of the broad vowel, right?

---

Well, gotta run again, another night at the pictúrlann awaits.

quote:

The vowel sound of AO is indeed Í, but it's preceded by a "w-glide" so that it sounds approximately like (w)í. The "w" is produced in the back of the mouth, not with the lips.

It's a w-glide only after labial consonants (m, f, p, b, ph). After the other consonants, it's kind of a gh-glide.

quote:

Hence the marking GW in some guides, like "djeea gwitch" for "dia duit"?

That's how many non-native speakers pronounce... Natives don't.

quote:

OTOH with a word like "Braon" the lips would be almost shut from the B at the moment you get to AO.

And then, wouldn't initial AO usually work differently, like in Aonghus?

No difference, normally ao is an ay-sound in Munster, an ee-sound in Connaught and parts of Ulster (and an unrounded oo-sound in other parts of Ulster or with older speakers).

OK -here goes:

Glides:
Broad:
w sound

Slender:
y in 'yet'


Labials
Broad
b, m, f, w, p
Pout lips. More pronounced before front vowels

Slender
b, m, f, w, p
Purse lips. They have a 'y' glide before back vowels, but not before front ones


Strong dentals
Broad
l, n, d, t, s (careful not to make a dental fricative tho)
Use the water trick as described above to train the tongue. I doubt anyone will, sadly... :(

Slender
l, n, d, t, s
l & n: The l in 'million' and the n in 'minion'
d, t, & s: the same tongue position just create the expected characteristics of the above (aspiration on the t as in English)


Alveolar
Broad
Strong
Rolled r (does not contrast with weak r)

Broad
Weak
r: like the t in 'butter' in America (a single tap)
l: the English dark l in 'all'
n: maybe the dark n in some people's 'on', but an n version of the above

Slender
r: a) make a broad tap but 'dart it' with the tip of the tongue onto the alveolar ridge b) make the word 'modern' as 'modrn' and try not to release the r. This might approximate it for some
l: light l in pill/bill etc
n: light n in pin


C & G stops
Broad
c: a little further back than an English c beside a back vowel
g: voiced version of the above

Slender:
c: first c in 'cucumber'
g: voice the above



Lenited forms


Labials
Broad
bh
bh/mh =w
fh =0
ph =f
As their parents, lip rounded, especially before front vowels

Slender
bh/mh =v
fh =0
ph =f
Purse lips. They have a 'y' glide before back vowels, but not before front ones


Lenition in stops:
Broad:
ch: a) make a h sound, Next try to make it a bit 'rougher' b) devoice a non-trilled French uvular r
gh (dh): voice the above

Slender:
ch: the h sound in 'human'
gh (dh): the glide of 'y'


Strong (dentals) vs. weak (alveolar)
Broad & Slender for l, n, r, d, t & s
The system is built on strong and weak here too, but not oppositions all are in operation today:
L contrasts with l
L' with l'
N contrasts with n
N' with n'
R (dental/alveolar) contrasts with r
R' with r'
dh =gh (once a dental fricative)
th =h (also once a dental fricative)
sh =h


Pure nasals
Broad:
ng: like sung

Slender:
ng: like sing

By the way, I'm not a linguist, so any technical questions will have to be directed to Lughaidh et al

GRMA, a Bheairn!

Need to pore on that back at home. I already tried the water trick with some juice, LOL, and yes, I think I get the idea. Or maybe not. That allows a large space in the back of the mouth as it seems, and gives the consonants a thick sound.

A Fhinn,

Normally, when slenderising puts a short broad vowel between two slender consonants, the vowel slenderises as well. That's why I type "a Fhinn" and not *"a Fhioinn". In the same way, it should be "a Bheirn" rather than *"a Bheairn". (I could be wrong, but the spelling "eai" seems to be specific to loanwords, e.g. leaid "lad", meaisín "machine", leaisteach "elastic", etc.)

Long vowels are of course a different matter, e.g. "a Sheáin", "a Mhícheáil", etc.

quote:

Glides:
Broad:
w sound

Slender:
y in 'yet'

No, there aren't glides after all consonants. When you say "bean" (woman), there's no glide after the b (and no glide after the n either).

There are glides only between certain consonants and certain vowels.

"No, there aren't glides after all consonants. When you say "bean" (woman), there's no glide after the b (and no glide after the n either)."

I never said that

"There are glides only between certain consonants and certain vowels."

Which is what I said above. Strange you misread almost everything I write :)


I only added in 'w' and 'y' for completeness as their organ positions can be used to make a suite of other sounds (for example, for 'w' broad labials and for 'y' many palatal sounds. I might add, the above system will not map onto dialects specifically, as it is based on an 'economy of articulation' idea -the most sounds for the least positions, a bit like when you give a grammatical pattern, the most potential forms for the least number of rules. In real speech, of course it is not so simple

You wrote

quote:

Glides:
Broad:
w sound

Slender:
y in 'yet'

which would be understood by anybody as "broad consonants are followed by a w-glide and slender ones are followed by a y-glide"... That's why I prefered make it clear in my answer...

Oh right, sorry. Since it would be nonsense, I never assumed anyone would think that.

By the way, where did the idea of 'all broad consonants are followed by a w-glide' and 'all slender consonants are followed by a palatal glide' originate?

Sorry, been busy at work, weekend may not bring much relief.

Scríobh Domhnaillín:

Is it true that there the U is almost omitted, somewhat like "ishke baha"?

It depends. In isolation, there's no trace of the u, but it reappears after leading consonants, e.g. an t-uisce. Here it represents the kind of w-like onglide

I think I have a hold of the noise now, in this case it would sound very much like "huishke" with the H emanating from very deep... and of course the stress on the I... right?

And, what would be the case that requires the form "t-uisce"?

Also, broad D ad T are said to be softer than their English or Finnish counterparts

No, the technical term is "dental", which means that the tip of the tongue is up against the upper teeth rather than the gum ridge located just behind them. I understand that Finnish t and d are also dental, but you would know better than I.

Let's say that at least MY broad D comes off the rim of the palatal pit, slender from the back of the gum ridge... broad T comes from the front of the said ridge, and slender touches the teeth. An aspiration at that point approximately produces english TH. The closest to G in Giraffe would be an aspiration of the broad D.

These tongue positions (not the aspirations that came with English) occur by the vowels around the consonant without further thinking.

quote:

I think I have a hold of the noise now, in this case it would sound very much like "huishke" with the H emanating from very deep... and of course the stress on the I... right?

It's difficult to say from a verbal description like that. Is it voiced throughout? That is, if you put your finger against your throat just below your Adam's apple, do you feel it vibrating the whole time you're saying "uisce"? Because h is normally a voiceless sound (i.e. no vibration) like f or s, but the onglide in uisce is voiced (as with v or z).

quote:

And, what would be the case that requires the form "t-uisce"?

Nominative/accusative after the article. For instance:

Is glan an t-uisce. "The water is clear."
Tabhair dom an t-uisce. "Give me the water."

BUT

Tá mé insan uisce. "I'm in the water."
Snámhann sé ar dhromchla an uisce. "He floats/swims on the surface of the water."

Of course, you'd also have the glide there in a case like insan uisce because words tend to get run together in Irish. An uisce would be indistinguishable in speech from a n-uisce "their water" (or even from i n-uisce "in water" for that matter).

quote:

Let's say that at least MY broad D comes off the rim of the palatal pit, slender from the back of the gum ridge... broad T comes from the front of the said ridge, and slender touches the teeth.

Then it sounds like you may have them backwards. The broad versions are farther forward in the mouth than their slender counterparts.

(Message edited by Domhnaillín_Breac_na_dTruslóg on September 12, 2008)

Yes it appears they are reversed for us... then, again, we don't need to think of it in this sense. Only that the effect is there, especially affects the dental/palatal noises, and in the remote past it used to affect spelling (which way is now mostly used for humorous effect).

Back to Irish, this has now to be retrofitted to an old system, LOL, and guess I have to chisel a rough model and make it work before sanding the edges.

So... I would be well with my familiar R all over, use the G in Giraffe for slender G, TCH for slender T, English J for slender D? Then, would the broadness of labial noises be related to how much apart I keep my jaws?

And, apparently the W glide is not always put instead of the broad D like in DUIT? How do you tell when to, is this vowel specific, perhaps when dealing with U? DAOIBH would probably have it too, either for uniformnity or because the glide is included in AO?

quote:

So... I would be well with my familiar R all over, use the G in Giraffe for slender G, TCH for slender T, English J for slender D?

How do you pronounce the g in giraffe that it sounds different from an "English J"? In my speech, these are both [ʤ] (I know, damned IPA again!), which is way too exaggerated for Irish slender /d/, at least in the dialects I've heard. Ditto using English ch for slender /t/.

quote:

Then, would the broadness of labial noises be related to how much apart I keep my jaws?

It all has to do with tongue position; the location of the jaws should be irrelevant.

quote:

And, apparently the W glide is not always put instead of the broad D like in DUIT?

Glides don't replace consonants (except in the case of slender dh/gh), they follow them. Whether you have an onglide in duit depends on what vowel you have in it. In Cois Fhairrge (Connacht), for instance, the vowel is i. This puts a broad consonant before a slender vowel, so you have a broad glide. (Like /w/, but the lips aren't rounded.) In Muskerry (Munster), however, the vowel is a short Finnish o, so no glide.

It's also the case that in most varieties, the d of duit is aspirated after a word ending in a vowel. This is often shown in spelling, e.g. Dia dhuit. But this is a separate phenomenon, specific to this preposition, and nothing to do with general rules for pronouncing broad /d/.

quote:

How do you tell when to, is this vowel specific, perhaps when dealing with U? DAOIBH would probably have it too, either for uniformnity or because the glide is included in AO?

Daoibh does have it: broad consonant before slender vowel equals broad onglide. (In Muskerry, this form is pronounced díbh, so again no onglide.)

G in Giraffe was taught to me to aspirate a wee bit, compared to J in John. Then that J or a DJ is in some guides suggested for an approximate of the slender D.. seen both "djeea" and "jeea" for "dia", also the "gwitch" and "ditch" for "duit".

From the recordings I have heard, the D in "duit" is either very clear, seemingly without a glide, or, then the word seems to begin with glide, without a distinct D Then, the T seems to have a short "end hiss" if there's no better way to describe it. Or maybe the recordings aren't good or from native speakers, or my hearing isn't at its best anymore.

I'm afraid I will after all mix the easiest parts of diffenrent dialects, LOL, guess the "ditch" (or ("dot"???) and "deev" would be the Muskerry way then? As they may not get me too many cigars, they will definitely prove easier.

Dammit, maybe I need to renew my passport and find the time and money for an experience trip to Éire... At least Ryanair would be cheap transport.

Probably even there, so many, many fine people who speak Irish have learned it after English, and/or from people who possibly don't speak it natively either, so I guess that I won't be too far off with limitations that come with my high age and "strange" set of languages.

As a side note, I found that "An bhfuil ocras ort?" translates very directly to Finnish, "Onko sinulla nälkä?" Both use the "on" position melted into the pronoun, although we have a different word order, and a "postposition" in this sense. Both translate into English literally as "Is hunger on you?".

Many speakers say "Dia dhuit" (lenited) but "Dia duit" is the standard.

Irish d's and t's are dental, not alveolar so your tongue reaches your teeth and not your alveolar ridge (unlike English). Irish t's and d's don't sound as the English ones.

Scríobh Aonghus:

Many speakers say "Dia dhuit" (lenited) but "Dia duit" is the standard.

So will it be ok to use just the D without a glide?

Scríobh Lughaidh:

Irish d's and t's are dental, not alveolar so your tongue reaches your teeth and not your alveolar ridge (unlike English).

Scríobh Domhnaillín:

The broad versions are farther forward in the mouth than their slender counterparts.

Well, now I'm confused.

If I make my D much more dental it gets hard to me to distinguish it from T... T stands the risk of becoming fricative. To get back on the map... Would the slender noises now be more or less dental?

quote:

I'm afraid I will after all mix the easiest parts of diffenrent dialects, LOL, guess the "ditch" (or ("dot"???) and "deev" would be the Muskerry way then? As they may not get me too many cigars, they will definitely prove easier.

"deev" is Muskerry, but the corresponding singular is "dotʸ".

quote:

Irish d's and t's are dental, not alveolar so your tongue reaches your teeth and not your alveolar ridge (unlike English).

With all due respect Lughaidh, I'm not sure that's true of all dialects. Writing of Muskerry, Ó Cuív (1968, p. 35) says:

quote:

While the dental d' is the one used by...older speakers in general, it is replaced by the younger speakers by an alveolar d', similar to that used in English words such as "din", "kid". I have not heard the palatalized dental in general use with any younger speaker. On the other hand I have heard both types used by middle-aged speakers.

A Fhinn, it's probably more important to worry about whether your slender d and t are palatalised (i.e. produced with the body of the tongue raised toward the roof of your mouth) than whether they are dental or alveolar. That was a bit of dialect-specific phonetic detail I probably should've omitted for simplicity's sake.

" use the G in Giraffe for slender G". 'Giraffe' should be 'jiraf' by right

I pointed out above how to make a slender g; it is not affricative, but a pure, clear palatal stop.

Also, why the concern over glides? Glides occur naturally when going from a consonant of one quality to a vowel of another and from a vowel of one to a consonant of another -learn the basic vowels and consonants and they come naturally. All the talk of 'gwitch' etc will only confuse you. The examples I gave let you make a slender d from the l in 'million' and the broad d from strong broad l and the difference is wide

quote:

With all due respect Lughaidh, I'm not sure that's true of all dialects. Writing of Muskerry, Ó Cuív (1968, p. 35) says:

I was refering mainly to the broad ones, I wrote d's and t's but the apostrophy was not the mark of slenderness, but just to separate d and t from the s... :-)



Domhnaillín >

quote:

If I make my D much more dental it gets hard to me to distinguish it from T.

The difference is the voicing: d is voiced, t is not.

GRMA, need to train these.

...And the million minions seem to do the trick! Also now, it feels like I have a broad D (very close to my own broad L/N/D) which forces a slight U glide when I attempt to speak an I right after...

Now to reading a lot of Irish text aloud and honing the different noises... and trying to memorize the meaning of the words... guess old clunky can be trained yet a few more tricks.

GRMA athuair!

Níl a bhuíochas ort, a Fhinn!

OK, now some more questions.

If a H is inserted before a word which starts with a vowel, how does this work?

In a word like "Idirghréasán", is the GH in a seemingly awkward position omitted, slenderised, or what? I can train the acrobacy too it that's required.

BTW, off this topic, what would be the "My Files" folder name in Irish?

quote:

If a H is inserted before a word which starts with a vowel, how does this work?

It's a form of liaison. It always appears after certain words, i.e.:

1. The cardinal numbers trí, ceithre, and sé.

2. All ordinal numbers except cead "first".

3. The feminine possessive adjective a "her".

4. The prepositions chomh (pronounced as if spelled chó), go (including when it is used to form adverbs, e.g. go holc "badly"), and le (although this takes the form leis before the definite article).

5. The negative copula ní.

6. The negative preverbal particle ní, but only before the passive-impersonal form, and the negative preverbal particle ná, but only before the imperative.

quote:

In a word like "Idirghréasán", is the GH in a seemingly awkward position omitted, slenderised, or what?

It is slenderised in this example, but it's present. Have fun practising!

quote:

BTW, off this topic, what would be the "My Files" folder name in Irish?

"Mo Chomhaid", I should think, but I don't actually have access to the Irish version of MSWord to check.

Focal.ie has most technical terms in it.

Right, but this is more of a proper name than a technical term. All the computers I've owned have had my files on them, but not all have had My Files.

quote:

1. The cardinal numbers trí, ceithre, and sé.

These are followed by a prefixed h- only if the following noun is in its plural form:

ceithre áit / ceithre háiteacha...

Tá sin aisteach, is cinnte dhom go bhfaca "trí huair" roimhe sin. Difríocht idir canúintí?

Mo Chomhaid seems right...

From http://www.irishnews.com/anteolas.asp?catid=5794&subcatid=5798&sid=595470

Mo chomhaid means my files and it’ll contain your íomhánna - images, fuaimeanna - sounds, music and whatever else you’ve collected on your...

It's at least on a Sam Sung phone... well sometimes you need to know half the answer already to get anything remotely conclusive from google.

Guess I can't use the name of a known Finnish city here either.

Just tried, no I can't.

(Message edited by curiousfinn on September 17, 2008)

And about the H, I was interested in how it affects pronunciation... good to know where to use, but for cases like this...

Bord Scannán Na hEireann (which I looked up on a movie poster in our ad stand)

would it actually produce a H there, or affect how you start the vowel, etc? Sorry I'm a n00b, LOL

As miraculous as may seems to someone accustomed to the arbitrariness of the English spelling system, the h is written there because an honest-to-goodness /h/ appears in pronunciation. (At least, in all the varieties I'm familiar with. Some dialects, like Cois Fhairrge, dispense with word-internal /h/ [spelled th] so they may do that here as well.)

Oh, and I should've consulted Ó Siadhail earlier, because there were several cases I left out:

7. After the interrogative pronoun cé "who/what" (except before personal pronouns, including prepositional pronouns, e.g. Cé air? "On who/what?")

8. After the article na in the feminine singular and nominative/accusative/dative plural.

9. After the counting particle a (used before cardinal numerals).

10. After Ó in surnames and Dé in the names of days of the week.

Aon rialacha eile go bhfuil dearmad déanta orthu agam?

So far the logic seems to be that the H wouldn't be necessary if the previous word ended on a consonant... right? So this works somewhat as spacing which prevents the words from melting together?

Well, the numbers, weekdays and months are one case, which seem to have almost nothing in common with other languages... 3 and 8 are very similar, 1 and 2 recognizable... there will be a dickens of time for me to go through this, but I have made my feeble mind.

quote:

So far the logic seems to be that the H wouldn't be necessary if the previous word ended on a consonant... right? So this works somewhat as spacing which prevents the words from melting together?

Exactly! In other contexts (generally one where consonants would be eclipsed), /n/ gets inserted, e.g. go n-éirí "may [it] rise", len ithe "to eat", faoina ainm "under his name", i n-úsáid "in use", etc.

quote:

Well, the numbers, weekdays and months are one case, which seem to have almost nothing in common with other languages.

Look a little more closely. Half the days wear their Latin origins like a badge. Cf.

Dé Domhnaigh ~ DIES DOMINICA
Dé Luain ~ DIES LUNAE
Dé Máirt ~ DIES MARTIS
Dé Sathairn ~ DIES SATURNI

The other half are derived from aoin "fast". Wednesday is the "first fast" (céad aoin), Friday is just "day of fasting" (Dé hAoine) and Thursday is the "day between two fasts" (dé idir dhá aoin -> Déardaoin).

The traditional Irish months names are generally based off of saints' days and such, e.g. an chéad mhí den bhliain "first month of the year" (January), mí na Féile Bríde "month of Brigid's feast" (February), etc. But half have been replaced with Latin-derived names have been reintroduced through the school system, i.e. Eanáir, Feabhra, an Márta, an tAibreán, Iúil.

And I really don't know where you're coming from with the numbers. They simply scream "Indo-European" to me: a haon, a dó, a trí, a ceathair, a cúig, a sé, a seacht, a hocht, a naoi, a deich. How can you not be put in mind of, say, French un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix? Even céad "hundred" and míle fit in perfectly with cent and mille.

But then, "...seem to have almost no..." allows this much. And I don't really know Latin or French quite so well. B)
But on a better look, yes, they start looking obvious.

My aunt knows some French, and she says it's the most difficult language in Europe... well, does she happen to be right, or have I taken the tougher bite?

My aunt knows some French, and she says it's the most difficult language in Europe...

For her, that might be true--but I'd be more than a little surprised if she had actually tried to learn every language of Europe from Abkhaz to Welsh before arriving at that conclusion. Language difficulty is a very personal thing; it depends on many factors, such as what your background is, how you learn, and what you find interesting. I enjoy learning Irish more than I ever did studying Russian, so for me it's "easier". But that won't be everyone's experience.

quote:

Tá sin aisteach, is cinnte dhom go bhfaca "trí huair" roimhe sin. Difríocht idir canúintí?

Níl "trí huair" ceart i nGaeilg : is "trí huaire" atá ceart, agus is "uaire" an t-iolra speisealta a mbaintear úsáid as i ndiaidh na n-uimhreach (3 > 10), sin an tuighe a mbíonn h- roimhe i ndiaidh uimhreach.


Curiousfinn > I don't think French is the most difficult language: there are no declensions in it, most of its sounds are easy and the accent is quite flat. What may be difficult in French, is its spelling (even most French people make mistakes !) and its verbs. (French is my mothertongue ;-) ).
Among the most difficult languages in Europe, let's mention Basque, Icelandic, Czech, Sami, Lithuanian, Irish and Gaelic (I learnt or tried to learn all of these :-) ).

No, she hasn't tried much more than I have. Currently my English is in far better shape than hers... haven't tried French, from Russian I have learned some of the cyrillic alphabet, but only for humorous "russianism" effect.

In the previous pictiúrlann I worked at, we had an old amplifier on which it said "STEREO" with big letters. We couldn't help but tape a scrap of paper over it, with "CTEPEO" written on it.

Scríobh Lughaidh:

Irish and Gaelic

You mean, Irish along with Manx and Scots Gaelic?

Well, Sami is a Finnic language, which group some people say to be hard because of the declension and word order... then there are some African people who find the Finnic languages very logical just because of the very similar word order.

I could say that outside our irregular "to be" verb, Finnish has very little un-obvious declension. I may be wrong with this. I'm not a linguist. I probably think it obvious just because I have spoken this language for 30+ years.

Well, I was 10 when I started English, and that word order was yet rather analoguous at least in simple sentences... the Germanic word orders that were introduced to me at 13 (Swedish, German) were rather odd to me. Irish at least has a word order that is commonly used in Finnish for poetic effect (not that the others aren't).

BTW, we have an old, now mostly poetic word for horse, "hepo". It has been replaced by "hevonen" in modern Finnish, and it was derived through "heponen" which would be a diminutive form of "hepo". Now that the Greek have "hippo" and some Celts had an "epona" horse goddess... probably nothing to do with our "hepo" and its later forms anyway. At least one linguist that I talked to, said they aren't related, but developed independently. What do you think?

(Message edited by curiousfinn on September 17, 2008)

(Message edited by curiousfinn on September 17, 2008)

(Message edited by curiousfinn on September 17, 2008)

quote:

Irish and Gaelic

You mean, Irish along with Manx and Scots Gaelic?

I mean "Irish and Gaelic" (normally when you say "Gaelic" alone it means "Scottish Gaelic"). Manx is easier than Irish and Gaelic because it has almost lost its declensions, the pronunciation is much simpler than those of Irish and Gaelic, etc.

quote:

Well, Sami is a Finnic language, which group some people say to be hard because of the declension and word order... then there are some African people who find the Finnic languages very logical just because of the very similar word order.

What I find complicated in Sami is the morphology of nouns...

quote:

I could say that outside our irregular "to be" verb, Finnish has very little un-obvious declension. I may be wrong with this. I'm not a linguist. I probably think it obvious just because I have spoken this language for 30+ years.

It looks like you can't know the roots of a noun (the consonantic one and the vocalic one) from the "basic form", so you can't know how to decline nouns if you don't know them (or at least I've not understood how you know these roots)

quote:

BTW, we have an old, now mostly poetic word for horse, "hepo". It has been replaced by "hevonen" in modern Finnish, and it was derived through "heponen" which would be a diminutive form of "hepo". Now that the Greek have "hippo" and some Celts had an "epona" horse goddess... probably nothing to do with our "hepo" and its later forms anyway. At least one linguist that I talked to, said they aren't related, but developed independently. What do you think?

I don't know. Did Celts and Greeks have enough contacts with Finns so that they may borrow words from each other in the Antiquity? It looks strange. But I don't know that subject so I may be mistaken.

There was a theory that claimed that vast areas of Europe were occupied by Finnic peoples before the IE peoples and languages spread... definitely don't know whether that is true, but they would have been in contact with Celts by then. That one also claimed that the Celts were the first to come together with Finns. They would now have been squeezed in the north mainly, and it appears that some vaguely similar words to their languages survive in the remote western languages.

This theory came from a person of Finnish descent, so there may be a lot of ethnic pride behind it.

Someone said he thinks Vichy is one such relict of Celtic/Finnic connection, assuming that it is a water related word (he suggested uisce/vichy/vesi are related). Then there's beagán/vähän, faedhb/vaiva, etc... but as I'm not a linguist, I must tread with care.

Also, I have now treaded off the topic again.

Of course that was "fadhb".
And no, I'm not trying to troll or anything like that. B)

quote:

I could say that outside our irregular "to be" verb, Finnish has very little un-obvious declension. I may be wrong with this. I'm not a linguist. I probably think it obvious just because I have spoken this language for 30+ years.

That would be true if not for astevaihtelu! I gave up on Finnish after the second lesson when the partitive was introduced.

quote:

BTW, we have an old, now mostly poetic word for horse, "hepo". It has been replaced by "hevonen" in modern Finnish, and it was derived through "heponen" which would be a diminutive form of "hepo". Now that the Greek have "hippo" and some Celts had an "epona" horse goddess... probably nothing to do with our "hepo" and its later forms anyway. At least one linguist that I talked to, said they aren't related, but developed independently. What do you think?

I think you should trust that linguist. The reconstructed root form of this word is *ekwo; the /p/ is an independent innovation in both the Hellenic and Continental Celtic branches of Indo-European. The Goidelic Celtic languages (Irish, Gaelic, and Manx) didn't undergo this change and there the word became each.[*] Neither did Italic, e.g. Latin equus. Note how the initial /h/ is unique to Greek and doesn't belong to the protoform.

quote:

Someone said he thinks Vichy is one such relict of Celtic/Finnic connection, assuming that it is a water related word (he suggested uisce/vichy/vesi are related). Then there's beagán/vähän, faedhb/vaiva, etc... but as I'm not a linguist, I must tread with care.

These are all trivial similarities. You can find similar matches for any two languages you want. Typically, they fall apart as soon you delve even a little into the history of one of them. The protoform of uisce is *udskjo; the first element is a reduced (or "zero-grade", to use the terminology of IE studies) form of the root *wed which (with a different suffix) underlies such words as Greek hydôr and English water. Vichy, on the other hand, comes from the Gallo-Roman toponym Vippiacus. (Many Gaulish place names were formed from a personal name--in this case Latin Vippius--and the suffix -acus.)


[*]Each is now archaic/poetic in Irish; the usual word is capall, which is akin to Vulgar Latin caballus. In the same manner, caballus ousted equus in the Romance languages, e.g. cheval, cavallo, caballo, cal, etc.

Scríobh Domhnaillín:

quote:

So far the logic seems to be that the H wouldn't be necessary if the previous word ended on a consonant... right? So this works somewhat as spacing which prevents the words from melting together?

Exactly! In other contexts (generally one where consonants would be eclipsed), /n/ gets inserted

Could the H be compared to a lenition performed on a non-consonant letter, if N is for eclipsis?

Also someone posted a HaLoRaN rule for no lenition, MS HaLoRaN for no eclipsis... well that makes it easy to remember.

(Message edited by curiousfinn on September 18, 2008)

Could the H be compared to a lenition performed on a non-consonant letter, if N is for eclipsis?

No, because the /h/ shows up specifically in context where there is no lenition. For instance, some prepositions cause lenition, others don't. Those that do never insert /h/ and those that insert the /h/ never cause lenition. Cf.:

le hathair "with father"
le máthair "with mother"
ó athair "from father"
ó mháthair "from mother"

The same goes for forms of the copula:

ní hathair é "he's not a father"
ní máthair í "she's not a mother"
níorbh athair é "he wasn't a father"
níor mháthair í "she wasn't a mother"

With possessive adjectives, the a which inserts /h/ means "her" whereas the one that causes lenition means "his". (And the one that causes eclipsis is "their".)

Scríobh Domhnaillín:

That would be true if not for astevaihtelu! I gave up on Finnish after the second lesson when the partitive was introduced.

Well that can be one thing... for example, "vesi" and "maito" would work very differently. And so would "viski", too, different of the two former.

Then there's been hot debate with the language office about whether "viive" (delay) should become "viipeellä" or "viiveellä" (with delay)... the office suggests the former, and says it's similar to "taive" -> "taipeella" (joint, on joint)... BUT then, the latter form has been used for a long time, and, there's nothing physically "on" the delay, compared to having a fly walk literally "on" on your elbow joint etc, as the "-lla, -llä" suffix would imply... Also a joint would physically bend ("taipua") but the delay won't be delayed ("viipyä"), perhaps prolonged.

And if you want a Finnish dialect that sounds really odd to an average Finn, that would be Rauma (IMHO)... Turku, Tampere, Ostrobotnia, Savo and Karelia would be mutually very intelligible, but the speakers of any of those could find it hard to decipher the Rauma dialect at first.

quote:

which is akin to Vulgar Latin caballus

Before being Vulgar Latin, it was a Gaulish word, caballos. So no wonder there's a related word in Irish (and in Welsh: ceffyl).

Well, obviously "chevalier" is derived from that, as well as "kavaljeeri" (a rather modern loan, I know).

Hmm, the Gauls were continental and therefore not Q-Celtic, but it appears that a derivant still lives in the Goidelic languages... Don't the Scots pronounce Gaelic somewhat "Gallick"?

OTOH Celtiberian is Q-Celtic and claimed to be a precursor to Goidelic... the word Iberia doesn't happen to have anything to do with Hibernia? The latter comes from Latin and means wintry, right?

(Message edited by curiousfinn on September 19, 2008)

A Fhinn, I recommend that you forget the terms "Q-Celtic" and "P-Celtic". I purposely avoided them in my post because I think they're of little linguistic value. Simply because the Gaulish and Brythonic branches share the change /kʷ/ -> /p/ doesn't mean they're more closely related to each other than either is to Goidelic.

Moreover, the retention of /kʷ/ in Celtiberian doesn't indicate closer relationship with Goidelic. It is common innovations that demonstrate kinship between languages branches, not common retentions. Both of these branches are peripheral to the main body of Celtic, so it's not surprising to find them more conservative in certain areas. In other areas (e.g. word order, verbal morphology, etc.), Goidelic patterns with Brythonic, sharing innovations not found anywhere on the Continent.

Furthermore, the /kʷ/ -> /p/ happens elsewhere in Indo-European. It's one of the features that differentiates Oscan-Umbrian from Latin-Faliscan with the Italic branch and, as pointed out above, it's a general change in Hellenic before /a/, /o/, and consonants. (In other circumstances, PIE *kʷ becomes /t/ or /k/.) So it's not such a rare change that it couldn't have occurred independently in two branches of Celtic.