Am currently standardising a number of sources to IPA.

I am trying to merge Ó Searcaigh, Wagner, Sommerfelt and some of my own work using a very tight IPA transcription.

I was wondering if anyone knows of any article in which the sources mentioned and their transcriptions are compared to IPA?

Have you checked any of the journals such as Éigse, Ériu and Celtica?

The symbols that Wagner uses are explained in the beginning of the first volume of the Linguistic Atlas.
If some symbol is un clear I can help you, just ask.

Actually, I am now giving serious thought to abandoning the IPA and taking the easier option and going with Wagner's system and adapting everything to that.

The book is a dictionary primarily aimed at learners of Irish in Ireland and I am unsure of what the IPA will do for it.

Quite confused, will decide by the end of the week and go for it.

I also have to examine in detail any differences between Sommerfelt and Wagner, but I am in my comfort zone with them and the IPA is something I have only dabbled in whilst the 'Irish' system is one which I have a degree of skill.

I went through this IPA phase a while back but the computer kept destroying my fonts.

The problem is that Wagner uses a transcription that is between phonological and phonetic. More precise than phonology but not as precise as phonetics...

Sommerfelt uses phonology but not exactly the same symbols as in most other books about Irish (say, Foclóir Póca or Learning Irish).

The traditional phonological transcription of Irish is useless if you don't explain somewhere how every phoneme is realised (and when).
For instance, the glides : they are never written except in true phonetics (but nobody writes in true phonetics, unfortunately, but theses glides are explained in Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne and on several books about the phonology of certain dialects).

E.g.
the word "buí" is transcribed as /bi:/ in the traditional phonological transcription. Nothing says that there's a glide between b and i so that it is pronounced "bwee" ie. [bwiː]... That's one of the reasons the traditional phonological transcription is useless if you don't explain every phoneme. And actually, I think it is too complicated for most learners, to learn every phoneme and every realisation. To me it's better to write directly in phonetic transcription: you transcribe almost everything that is pronounced, you don't need to think that between a bilabial consonant and a front vowel there's a bilabial glide etc... :-)

(Message edited by Lughaidh on February 15, 2011)

Perhaps Irish has too many allophones. I really don't know for sure. I imagine not, though. Every dictionary I use in English has phonological transcription, even the OED, which uses IPA. I think some transcriptions need to be more narrow. This seems appropriate to me in the cases in which the sound is unique (for instance w instead of v'). Some stuff doesn't need to be transcribed, though. Like in English, we don't need to indicate that the first m Memphis is not the same as the second m. People will do it naturally. Overall Irish transcription can be cleaned up a lot.

Correction:
w instead of v
v instead of v'

Lughaidh

"The problem is that Wagner uses a transcription that is between phonological and phonetic. More precise than phonology but not as precise as phonetics..."

But Wagner says: "the item is given in phonetic transcription exactly as we have heard it from the informant"..."I have tried to get as near as possible to the real sound, and have therefore, used a fairly narrow transcription".

Could you tell me if there is any article that explains the errors and confusions of the work of Wagner?

quote:

"The problem is that Wagner uses a transcription that is between phonological and phonetic. More precise than phonology but not as precise as phonetics..."

But Wagner says: "the item is given in phonetic transcription exactly as we have heard it from the informant"..."I have tried to get as near as possible to the real sound, and have therefore, used a fairly narrow transcription".

given you know what his symbols means to him...

quote:

Could you tell me if there is any article that explains the errors and confusions of the work of Wagner?

I never said there were errors, I said "Wagner uses a transcription that is between phonological and phonetic. More precise than phonology but not as precise as phonetics".

Have a look at the LASID... When you know Irish you know what he means. When you don't know, I think you won't really know how the words precisely sound like.

quote:

Have a look at the LASID... When you know Irish you know what he means. When you don't know, I think you won't really know how the words precisely sound like.

One can say the same thing with IPA.

Lughaidh

I'm sorry but my English is not as flexible as I would want. "Error" probably is not the right word.

But Wagner says "in phonetic transcription exactly as we have heard" and you claim that the result was not "s precise as phonetics". At some point, Wagner failed its purpose, not?

I bought the Atlas by the phonetic transcription. Now I would like to know where there are discrepancies.

Not word for word, but whether these are related to the quality of certain phonemes or can be found randomly distributed throughout the work.

quote:

Have a look at the LASID... When you know Irish you know what he means. When you don't know, I think you won't really know how the words precisely sound like.


One can say the same thing with IPA.

If you know the IPA (and to know it, there are several websites with recordings, Wikipedia etc), and if the Irish words are transcribed in a precise way, you'll know quite precisely how the words are pronounced. I tried it once with a friend of mine who has no Irish but who can read the IPA. I wrote Irish words in the IPA and asked him to pronounce them. His pronunciation was very good.

quote:

But Wagner says "in phonetic transcription exactly as we have heard" and you claim that the result was not "s precise as phonetics". At some point, Wagner failed its purpose, not?

LASID volume 1 :

for example :

Where does he explain how /N'/ is pronounced? /L'/ ?
I don't find explanations about the pronunciation of broad single n, l. He doesn't say they are velarised.

He indicates bilabial glides after b, f, p, m but not velar glides after /d, g, k, l, n, t/. Why? For instance, in caora (p.26).
He often writes [ˈkɪːrə].
In IPA it would be something like [ˈkɰiːɾə].

"Where does he explain how /N'/ is pronounced? /L'/ ? "

LASID volume 1, page XXIV: "Capitals letters indicate fortis-varieties of the corresponding basic sounds represented by small letters. The fortis-variety (eg.T,N) is as a rule relatively longer than the basic sound but may not be classified as long consonants".

But how do you know /N'/ is pronounced [ɲ]?

By the way the difference between /N/ and /n/, /N'/ and /n'/ is not really length, but the place where they are pronounced (dental/alveolar or palatal/alveolar)...

Lughaidh,
I agree with you about IPA. IPA is much easier because you can also relate to a language you may already know, or a sound you're familiar with. Since the Irish systems are insulated, those symbols which are not common with the IPA are hard to decipher, and even worse when the descriptions are vague or they leave things out! For me, IPA has been very beneficial.

I have to admit, this morning I think that I will just fix/check/revert everything back to the original transcriptions, compose a line explaining that for the Réamhrá agus just get the thing out there.

Yes, it would be much more primitive but it would avoid a lot of work and frnakly controversy.

For example, 'long' and 'short' vowels, in my opinion they are (normally) simply different vowels.

However tradition dictates otherwise - would I stick in ':' whenever the spelling indicates it is necessary or simply follow my ear.

At this stage - its back to Wagner ....

I agree with Lughaidh about the benefits of using a phonetic notation over a phonological one but why is it that all of the Irish monographs use a broad-based phonological system with its own peculiarities such as marking palatalised consonants with a symbol similar to an apostrophe?

The first descriptions of the sounds of Irish have been made before the IPA was created (or officialised), I think, so there's a "tradition" with certain sounds. But to me, it would be better to keep the apostrophes etc for phonology, and to use the normal IPA for phonetics. And to use more phonetics because it is much more precise. Many books use the phonological transcription without explaining precisely how the phonemes are to be realised (e.g., glides), so learners can't know what are the precise sounds...

In my own dictionaries I used the IPA.