{"id":327,"date":"2010-07-29T13:57:13","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T13:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=327"},"modified":"2015-09-18T09:57:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T09:57:42","slug":"treoir-don-treoir-a-guide-to-the-guide-for-pronunciation-cuid-a-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/treoir-don-treoir-a-guide-to-the-guide-for-pronunciation-cuid-a-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Treoir don Treoir: A Guide to the Guide (for Pronunciation), Cuid a 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

(le\u00a0R\u00f3isl\u00edn)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The past few blogs discussed the use of the superscript letters \u201czh\u201d and \u201cy\u201d and the use of the gamma symbol (\u03b3) to represent broad \u201cdh\u201d and \u201cgh.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 This blog will deal with the use of \u201ckh\u201d to represent the \u201cguttural ch\u201d pronunciation in Irish in words like \u201cach<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cloch<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 The linguistic term for this sound is \u201cvoiceless velar fricative.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination \u201ckh\u201d is widely used in pronunciation guides for many languages, not just Irish, to represent the voiceless velar fricative.\u00a0 This sound is a bit easier to deal with than some other distinctively Irish sounds (like the slender \u201cr\u201d or the broad \u201cdh\u201d and \u201cgh\u201d), since it shows up in various other languages.\u00a0 Hopefully at least one is already familiar.<\/p>\n

1. loch<\/em> (lake) Scottish pronunciation<\/p>\n

2. bach<\/em> (small) Welsh, as in \u201cO, bois bach<\/em>!\u201d or \u201cO, bobl bach!<\/em>,\u201d which are among the best-known Welsh interjections!<\/p>\n

3. Buch<\/em> (Book) German<\/p>\n

4. Chutzpah, Chanukah <\/em>in Hebrew\/Yiddish (but remember, many English speakers don\u2019t actually pronounce these with the guttural sound, since it\u2019s unfamiliar, so they just make do with an initial \u201ch\u201d sound, as represented more by the spelling \u201cHanukah\u201d).<\/p>\n

Why do I list examples from so many different languages, you might wonder.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t one enough?\u00a0 Not necessarily!\u00a0 Over the years, I\u2019ve heard lots of students saying, \u201cWell, the book says to pronounce this like German \u201cBuch<\/em>,\u201d but that doesn\u2019t help me since I don\u2019t know German.\u201d\u00a0 Or Welsh.\u00a0 Or whatever.\u00a0 So I figure, d\u00e1 mh\u00e9ad is amhlaidh is fearr \u00e9<\/strong> (the more the merrier), within reason.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t an inventory of all the possible guttural \u201cch\u201d sounds, just enough to point people in the right direction, I hope.\u00a0 In fact, of all the examples, \u201cChutzpah\u201d seems to resonate best with Americans.\u00a0 Even Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett mastered the sound for their song of the same name, although at one point Ball has to coach Burnett to make the sound more guttural.\u00a0 The song is easy to find on YouTube, if you want to listen.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples in Irish:<\/p>\n

seacht<\/strong> [shakht] seven<\/p>\n

ocht<\/strong> [okht] eight<\/p>\n

a Ch\u00e1it<\/strong>! [uh khawtch] C\u00e1it! Kate! (in direct address)<\/p>\n

Donncha<\/strong> [DUN-uh-khuh] Donncha or Dennis<\/p>\n

Sorcha <\/strong>[SOR-uh-khuh] Sorcha or Sarah<\/p>\n

dorcha<\/strong> [DOR-uh-khuh] dark<\/p>\n

ach<\/strong> [ahkh] but<\/p>\n

och<\/strong> [okh] alas<\/p>\n

teach<\/strong> [tchakh] house<\/p>\n

beach <\/strong>[bakh] bee<\/p>\n

i mo ch\u00f3na\u00ed<\/strong> [i muh KHOH-nee] living (1st<\/sup> person singular form)<\/p>\n

Contae Chorca\u00ed<\/strong>\u00a0[KON-day KHOR-kee] County Cork<\/p>\n

Irish words and phrases spelled with a \u201cch\u201d that DON\u2019T have this sound (though I sometimes hear them pronounced that way!) are:<\/p>\n

o\u00edche<\/strong> [EE-hy<\/sup>eh], as in \u201cO\u00edche mhaith<\/strong>\u201d [EE-hy<\/sup>eh wah], Good night<\/p>\n

a Chiar\u00e1in<\/strong>! [uh Hy<\/sup>EE-ur-aw-in], Ciar\u00e1n! (in direct address)<\/p>\n

a cheann<\/strong> [uh hy<\/sup>un] his head<\/p>\n

an chiar\u00f3g<\/strong> [un Hy<\/sup>EE-uh-rohg] the beetle<\/p>\n

Contae Chiarra\u00ed<\/strong> [KON-day Hy<\/sup>EE-uh-ree] County Kerry<\/p>\n

These all have a breathy \u201ch\u201d sound, like English \u201chuman\u201d or \u201chew,\u201d which is completely different.<\/p>\n

How do you tell the two \u201cch\u201d sounds apart?\u00a0 It\u2019s quite consistent and is based on the vowels (once again).\u00a0 The broad (\u201cguttural\u201d \/ voiced) \u201cch\u201d is next to a broad vowel (a, o, u) and the slender \u201cch\u201d (the breathy \u201chy<\/sup>\u201d sound) is next to a slender vowel (e, i).<\/p>\n

The actual IPA symbol for the broad \u201cch\u201d is \/x\/, which I used to use in my pronunciation guides.\u00a0 But it seemed to generate more confusion than it was worth, as people constantly read it as the \u201cx\u201d sound of either \u201cox\u201d or \u201cxylophone.\u201d\u00a0 The Irish-modified IPA for the slender \u201cch\u201d is \/x\u2019\/ but overall, I found that adding the indication for slender (a small tick mark) to the side of an already non-intuitive symbol didn\u2019t seem to offer much assistance.<\/p>\n

So, there ye are now!\u00a0 Voiceless and voiceless velar fricatives in two easy lessons.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the quizeen:<\/p>\n

What happens to the name \u201cDonncha<\/strong>\u201d as a noun of direct address?\u00a0 How many velar fricatives will it have?<\/p>\n

Freagra:<\/strong> You say, \u201ca Dhonncha<\/strong>,\u201d as in \u201cC\u00e9n chaoi a bhfuil t\u00fa, a Dhonncha<\/strong>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Transcribed as [uh \u03b3UN-uh-khuh] it has both the voiced and voiceless velar fricatives, so the answer to the second question is “two.”<\/p>\n

Sl\u00e1n go f\u00f3ill<\/strong>—R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(le\u00a0R\u00f3isl\u00edn) The past few blogs discussed the use of the superscript letters \u201czh\u201d and \u201cy\u201d and the use of the gamma symbol (\u03b3) to represent broad \u201cdh\u201d and \u201cgh.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 This blog will deal with the use of \u201ckh\u201d to represent the \u201cguttural ch\u201d pronunciation in Irish in words like \u201cach\u201d and \u201cloch.\u201d\u00a0 The linguistic term…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[111216,207457,111219],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-fricative","tag-velar","tag-voiceless"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7105,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/7105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}