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Tag Archives: fricative

Fools on Hills, and Otherwise, with Irish Pronunciation Tips Posted by on Apr 1, 2012

(le Róislín) On the topic of fools (amadáin), Irish seems to have an endless supply of words.  Probably other languages do as well (Welsh offering up ffŵl, ffwlcyn, hurtyn, lolyn, penbwl, twpsyn, and ynfytyn, just for starters), but our focus here, ar ndóigh, will be on Irish terms.  We’ve recently discussed quite a few (gamal…

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Saying “I love you” in Irish and Minding Your Velar Fricatives Posted by on Oct 9, 2011

(le Róislín) We’ve recently been looking at different ways to say “I love you” in Irish.  Some of you might have been wondering how to pronounce them, especially the phrases where the straightforward “grá” [graw] changes to “ghrá” [γraw, to be explained below, note the IPA gamma symbol for the “gh”] and the straightforward “croí” changes…

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Treoir don Treoir: A Guide to the Guide (for Pronunciation), Cuid a 3 Posted by on Jul 29, 2010

(le Róislín) The past few blogs discussed the use of the superscript letters “zh” and “y” and the use of the gamma symbol (γ) to represent broad “dh” and “gh.”   This blog will deal with the use of “kh” to represent the “guttural ch” pronunciation in Irish in words like “ach” and “loch.”  The linguistic term…

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Treoir don Treoir: A Guide to the Guide (for Pronunciation), Cuid a 2 Posted by on Jul 27, 2010

(le Róislín) Treoir don treoir, an ea?  Well, here’s more! The most accurate way to transcribe the sound of the broad Irish “gh,” as in “gharbh,” is by using the Greek gamma symbol, γ. It looks a little like a “v” with an extra loop at the bottom. It represents the voiced velar fricative, a sound…

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