Christian Brothers

“ To produce the sound of the consonant “b,” the lips are pressed firmly together for an instant, and voiced breath is forced out on separating them. If we wish to produce the sound of b aspirated (or ḃ) , we must breathe the whole time whilst trying to form the sound of b—i.e., we must not close the lips entirely, and the resulting sound is like the English consonant “v.” ”

“ Rules for the Tonic Accent.
50. The position of the stress of the voice in the pronunciation of words is one of the main factors in producing differences of dialect. The position of the stress is greatly influenced by the pitch of the voice. In Ulster the “falling inflection” is prevalent, whilst in the south of Ireland the “rising inflection” is general—i.e., in Munster the pitch of the voice in the second syllable is higher than in the first; in Ulster it is lower than in the first. Between the two extremes of the country every shade of variety exists. ”

“ We shall now enter more fully into this very important subject of “glides,” and endeavour to show how they are formed. We shall first take a few English words—e.g., “awkward,” “oak,” “cool,” and show that glides really exist in English, although most persons are unaware of the fact. Take the first syllable of the word “awkward”—i.e., awk. To pronounce the “aw” the tongue is slightly arched up at the back (§ 11 (a) ) , and a current of voiced air is driven from the lungs (of course it is not voiced whilst actually in the lungs, it is voiced by the vocal chords (§ 1) ) . ”

“ The two methods employed in Irish for keeping the words short are Syncope and Metathesis.
Syncope may be described as the telescoping of a word, whenever a grammatical inflection or a suffix commencing with a vowel is added. A short vowel or digraph in the last syllable of a word of more than one syllable is usually elided and the consonants brought together whenever the word is lengthened. The bringing together of the consonants frequently results in one of them becoming silent (§ 128) , or else a short helping vowel may develop. ”

“ If every writer is to spell his words in accordance with the pronunciation of his own little district, the inevitable result will be that in a few years instead of having a modern literature we shall have a few hundred parochial scrips and scraps that will be read by no one outside the writer’s own parish.
75. The addition of any inflection beginning with a vowel will hinder the formation of a diphthong, or the lengthening of a vowel.
76. The development of a helping vowel (§ 124) will prevent a diphthong, or a long vowel, being produced,
Donnċaḋ (=Donnaċa) ; dorċa (=doraċa) ”

“ It has been already pointed out in § 12 that there is no single character to represent the first or low caol vowel. The long sound of this vowel is heard in the words “father” “rather” “farther” as pronounced by country people. The position and shape of the tongue necessary for the production of this vowel have been already described. The digraphs ea and ai denote the short sound of this vowel when there are no disturbing influences due to the consonants. Ea is preceded by a slender consonant and followed by a broad one, whilst ai is preceded by a broad consonant and followed by a slender one. ”

“ The incipient spirant which is heard, we sometimes refer to as, “a suggestive y sound.” Learners should pay particular attention to these two consonants, because there is a great tendency at present, even with Irish speakers, to drop the true Irish sounds altogether. In Connaught the English sound of “ch” is being substituted for that of slender t; and the sound of “j” for slender d; whilst in many places in Munster an opposite tendency prevails—viz., the substitution of the hard English “t” and “d” for the true Irish slender sounds. ”

“ An Irish consonant is slender whenever it is immediately preceded or followed by e or i in the same word.
In the above table the large letters denote the broad, and the small the slender, consonants.
18. All the Irish consonants, except the aspirated ones, require a much stronger contact than the English consonants. Likewise all the Irish long vowels are about half as long again as the normal long vowels in English.
Voiceless stops, such as p, t, c have no sound whatever in themselves, and are rendered audible only by the puff of breath or explosion which accompanies them. ”

“ When slender, ḃ and ṁ are pronounced like v or f (slender) voiced. In Munster they are usually silent when they occur medially (i.e., in the body of a word) , unless when followed by a long vowel sound, in which ease they retain their consonantal sound “v”—e.g., láiṁín, taoiḃín.
When broad, ḃ and ṁ (final) are pronounced like v; except in Ulster, where they are pronounced like ú—e.g., láṁ in Ulster=lá-ú.
Initial ḃ and ṁ (broad) are pronounced like “w”; except in Munster, where they are like “vw” before a broad vowel. ”

“ When we succeed in producing a nasal 6, the sound is almost destroyed by closing the nostrils with the fingers. If we tap the side of the nostril with the finger whilst pronouncing a nasal vowel we get an intermittent sound similar to that produced by bringing the hand up to and away from the mouth whilst sounding an ordinary vowel. ”

“ The tongue in passing up to the “hard rim” actually produces a slender glide. If we possessed distinct characters for the broad and slender sounds of the same letter, the writing of glides could be dispensed with; but we have not separate characters, therefore the glides are written to show whether the broad or the slender sound of the consonant is to be produced.
47. Sometimes the slender glide introduced affects the vowels already in the word. ”

“ In this digraph the “o” is always the vowel, and, except in a very small number of words, gets its long sound—i.e., ó (except in Ulster) . The e is a very audible glide (resembling the English sound of “y”) . The “e” is not heard when initial, or when it follows s. In Ulster “e” is likewise the glide, but the “o” = “o” in “lord;” ”

“ In Munster ḋ and ġ slender at the end of the verb-stem, or verb inflection, are silent (just as in Connaught) when a personal pronoun immediately follows, otherwise they are like g.
G at the end of Surnames—e.g., Ó Dálaiġ is silent; except in the patronymic form in aċ—e.g., capall an Ḃrianaiġ (= Ḃrianaig) .
In Connaught and Ulster final ḋ broad has the sound of a very light “w” in all words ending in aḋ or eaḋ, whether verbs, nouns, verbal nouns, or genitives—e.g., milleaḋ (mill-oo) , teineaḋ (ten-oo) , cuireaḋ (Kir-oo) , &c. ”

“ In this latter word both the “u” and the “e” are distinct vowels—viz., the long, high, back vowel, and the short mid front vowel; whilst the “e” in “coo—el” is a mere glide.
45. Thus we see that glides do, and must, exist in English as well as in Irish, but the important point which we wish to emphasise is, that it is not necessary to write the glides in English (nor is it done) , but it is absolutely necessary to write them in Irish. This arises from the fact that in Irish we have two distinct sets of consonants—the broad and the slender. In English there are not two sets of consonants. ”

“ Again, the “a” in barr is short when a termination beginning with a vowel is added—e.g., barraiḃ, barra, showing that the “a” is not naturally long in barr.
A still stronger reason for not writing a síneaḋ on a vowel that is long by position is that this vowel may not be pronounced long in other parts of the country. For example: urlár is pronounced úrlár in Munster, but the “u” is not long in Connaught or Ulster; hence Munster writers ought not to mark the “u” long. ”

“ For example: it is now a common practice to omit one of the n’s sainnt, cainnt, muinntir, muinntearḋa, cionntaċ, cionntuiġ, ionntaoiḃ, conntaḃairt, ionnta, &c. This practice ought not to be followed, because “t” does not protect single “n”—e.g. cluintear, cantain, geinte, greanta, &c. The first syllable in cionnta, cionntaċ, muinntir, ionnta, conntaḃairt, &c, is pronounced short in some places, but this should not furnish writers with an excuse for omitting one of the n’s, since the nn is the correct spelling, and moreover the words are pronounced long in other places. ”

“ C, p, and t are always voiced (i.e., are pronounced g, b, d) after s, except when they are final. The student may convince himself of this by placing the forefinger on the pharynx while pronouncing such words as:—scéal, stól, sparán, &c, or the words school (sgúl) , speak (sbíc) , &c. ”

“ There are some short words which are never stressed in ordinary conversation or reading; such as— (1) the definite article an, na; (2) the possessive adjectives mo, do, a; (3) the modern relative particle, as also the particles do- and a- used before some of the irregular verbs ”

“ This arises from two causes: (1) the direct influence of the English language being spoken so generally throughout the country; (2) from slovenly pronunciation; just as we hear the words “tune” “dew” &c, pronounced by mutterers chune, jew, &c. ”

“ Metathesis is the transposition of letters or syllables in a word. Such transposition is common in Munster Irish, either to facilitate pronunciation, or else to prevent the development of a “helping vowel,” and thus the words are kept short.
↑ Aṫruġaḋ before the words indé, and amáraċ is always pronounced arú, this spelling might be adopted with advantage. ↑ Except in the case of sg, which for some time has been the accepted spelling. As, however, sd and sb have never bean usual it is illogical to insist on retaining sg, while rejecting sb and sd. ”

“ Notice also the tension in the muscles of the tongue, the sides of the tongue being pressed pretty firmly against some of the side teeth in the upper jaw. The passage left for the escape of the air is very narrow, just wide enough to prevent audible friction. ”

“ The accent is drawn from the first syllable by the long vowel in: neaṁṡuim (=na-heem) , soiscéal, leaṫtaoḃ, leiṫscéal, coigcríoċ, eascáirdear, foiréigin.
Both syllables are equally accented in neaṁníḋ (nav′-nee) , díombáḋ (dí-má) , seandraoi, naoiḋeanán. ”

“ In Munster the i would not be usually lengthened in such a case, but the ḋ or ġ would be sounded as g.
cruaiḋ, uaiġ, nuaiḋ, buaiḋ, ċuaiḋ.
(b) In the words smuain, smuainte, smuainim, &c., the uai=uí (u being a mere glide) . They are now usually written smaoin, smaointe, &c. ”

“ The student is recommended to test thus each pair of consonants given in the table in Chapter V. Progress is impossible without a constant and careful study of the way in which we ourselves pronounce the various sounds. ”

“ In Ulster, Munster, and Connaught ai=e in air, aige, aici; (and in raiḃ in Munster and Connaught) .
(b) In Ulster ai in the following words:=“e” in “error,” “enter:” aire, faire, airgead, baile, ainm, aiṫne, aimsir, ṫainic (Craig) . ”