{"id":4346,"date":"2013-08-24T19:54:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-24T19:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=4346"},"modified":"2013-08-30T17:10:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-30T17:10:28","slug":"fuaimniu-fu%c9%99mnu-foo-im-nyoo-pronunciation-x3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/fuaimniu-fu%c9%99mnu-foo-im-nyoo-pronunciation-x3\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuaimni\u00fa, \/fu\u0259m’n’u:\/, [FOO-im-nyoo] (Pronunciation x3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A few weeks ago, I received a request for more pronunciation tips, so this blog will be dedicated to pronouncing some of the vocabulary in “Deir Tusa \u2018Sl\u00e1n,\u2019 Deirimse \u2018Hal\u00f3\u2019 (Saying \u2018Hello\u2019 and \u2018Goodbye\u2019 in Irish, Cuid a hAon: Hello)<\/a>, which was published several months ago (24 Bealtaine 2013<\/b>).\u00a0 \u00a0Go raibh maith agat, a N\u00e9ill<\/b>, as scr\u00edobh<\/strong> (and for asking about the Hello\/Goodbye blog).<\/p>\n

\"Abair<\/a>

Abair mar seo \u00e9!<\/p><\/div>\n

Ultimately we want to reach a point in learning a new language where we can confidently predict how to pronounce a word by looking at it.\u00a0 That may be as much of a challenge for people learning English as for those learning Irish, since English is notorious for the inconsistency of its spelling\/pronunciation rules (aye, my eye, fie, cough, tough, taught, thought, and countless other short, seemingly simple one-syllable words, not to mention the lengthier “pterodactyl,” “chthonic,” and “syzygy,” some of my more obscure favorites).\u00a0 But for native English-speakers, most of these words are taken for granted (well, except maybe those ‘pt-” and “chth-” examples and words with only “y” as a vowel, which range from the fundamental “my” and “rhythm” to the more or less obsolete “symphysy” and “twyndyllyngs”).\u00a0 For English-speakers learning Irish, though, the pronunciation rules may seem daunting.\u00a0 And, of course, native speakers rarely think consciously of the rules, unless they become teachers themselves.<\/p>\n

Anyway, getting back to the Irish examples, here are some of the words from that “Hello\/Goodbye” blog.\u00a0 Many of the other blogs in this series also include pronunciation tips.\u00a0 In fact, if you type “pronunciation,” “pronounce,” or “fuaimni\u00fa<\/b>” into the search box on any of the Irish blog web pages (https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/<\/a>), you should get lots more sampla\u00ed<\/strong> [SAHM-plee].<\/p>\n

I mostly use a rough guide to pronunciation here, not the IPA symbols, but there are some sounds for which only the IPA symbol will suffice, most notably \/\u03b3\/, for which there is no equivalent in English.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

Here are a few reminders for the transcription system I’m using:<\/p>\n

kh: like the “ch” in Hebrew “Chanukah,” Welsh “bach<\/i>,” and Scots “Loch”<\/p>\n

rzh: an “r” combined with a sound like the “j” of “Jacques<\/i>” or the “s” of “leisure” or “pleasure”<\/p>\n

aw: like English “paw” or “claw,” not like Welsh “naw<\/i>”<\/p>\n

dj: almost like an English “j” and similar to the British pronunciation of “Duke,” which is very different from the American pronunciation of “Duke,” as m\u00f3id\u00edn\u00ed John Wayne<\/strong> may confirm.\u00a0 Also similar to the American English contraction “howdja,” as in “Howdja do that?”<\/p>\n

tch; almost like a “ch” as in “church” but with a “t” element; similar to a typical Irish English pronunciation of “tunes,” which sometimes, for effect, is written as “choons”<\/p>\n

\/\u03b3\/: the “dh” sound of “Dia dhuit<\/b>!”\u00a0 This sound is written as “gh” or “dh” in Irish, when adjacent to “a,” “o,” or “u” (not “e” or “i”).\u00a0 The linguistic name for this sound is “voiced velar fricative” and it is indicated by the “gamma” sign, borrowed from the Greek alphabet. \u00a0And that’s a reminder that the symbol here is not a slightly skewed “y.”\u00a0 If anything, it looks to me, when hand-drawn, like a fish standing on its head.\u00a0 Not that fish really stand … ach sin sc\u00e9al eile<\/b>. \u00a0Additional examples of this sound include “dh\u00e1<\/b>” (except in Donegal, where the dialect changes), “An Ghaeilge<\/b>,” and “a Ghr\u00e1inne<\/b>.”\u00a0 It’s a bit like the uvular French “r” (think Inspector Clouseau, if you must), and is said to sound like gargling. \u00a0Very occasionally we hear this sound in the pronunciation of “gh” in “Afghanistan” (but not by most English speakers).\u00a0 See below for some more notes on the use of IPA for this symbol, and IPA in general.<\/p>\n

As for what these words mean, I’ve put that at the end, so you can see how well you remember them!<\/p>\n

1. tuiseal gairmeach<\/b> [TISH-ul GARzh-uh-mukh]<\/p>\n

2. Dia duit!<\/b> [DJEE-uh ditch]<\/p>\n

3. Dia dhuit!<\/b> [DJEE-uh \u03b3itch, and yes, that’s a hybrid system, with one IPA symbol and the rest “rough guide”]<\/p>\n

4. beannacht<\/b> [ByAN-ukht]<\/p>\n

5. bhuel<\/b> [wel, borrowed from English; and NOT like English “fuel” or “gruel”]<\/p>\n

6. c\u00e9n chaoi<\/b> [kayn khee, remember it’s guttural, like “Chanukah” or “Chutzpah”]<\/p>\n

7. cad \u00e9 mar<\/b> [kudj ay mahr, with the “d” as discussed above, as in Irish “Dia” — it’s pronounced “slender” because of the following “\u00e9” even though it’s written “broad”]<\/p>\n

8. ceoldr\u00e1ma<\/b> [KyOHL-DRAW-muh]<\/p>\n

9. smaoinimh<\/b> [SMWEEN-yiv]<\/p>\n

10. mhaith<\/b> (as in “\u00e1it mhaith le tos\u00fa<\/b>) [wah, the “mh” is like “w” and the “t” is silent]<\/p>\n

Ar chuidigh s\u00e9 sin leat<\/b> (Did that help?).\u00a0 T\u00e1 s\u00fail agam gur chuidigh<\/b> (I hope that helped).\u00a0 Or, i dT\u00e9acsais an Bh\u00e9arla<\/b>, “HTH,”\u00a0SGF, R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/b><\/p>\n

N\u00f3ta faoi \/\u03b3\/ agus IPA:<\/b> the \/\u03b3\/ symbol is in slanted brackets because it is the actual IPA symbol and IPA symbols are written in slanted, not square, brackets.\u00a0 Rusty on IPA?\u00a0 IPA?\u00a0 No, it’s not “leann gealbhu\u00ed na hIndia<\/strong>“!\u00a0 Think Henry Higgins, who if he had been real, would probably have been a founding member of the IPA (International Phonetics Association, established1886).\u00a0 “IPA” can also stand for “International Phonetic Alphabet” (as well as “India Pale Ale”). \u00a0And Professor Higgins, by the way, was partially based on two early phoneticians, Henry Sweet and Daniel Jones.\u00a0 Jones would have been relatively young when Shaw wrote Pygmalion (1912) so he may have been more the model for the movie version (My Fair Lady, 1956\/1964) than for the play itself.\u00a0 But parsing out the Higgins prototypes is beyond our scope here.\u00a0 If you’re interested, check out The Real Professor Higgins: The Life and Career of Daniel Jones, by Collins and Mees (1998: http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Real-Professor-Higgins-Career\/dp\/3110151243<\/a>, etc.).\u00a0 Or to Cockneyize it, ” The real \u2018enry \u2018iggins” (http:\/\/www.ucl.ac.uk\/news\/news-articles\/0609\/06090601<\/a>), which gives a one-page summary of the main points.<\/p>\n

Aistri\u00fach\u00e1in go B\u00e9arla<\/b>:<\/p>\n

1. tuiseal gairmeach<\/strong>, vocative case (used for nouns of direct address); 2. Dia duit<\/strong>!, Hello!, 3. Dia dhuit<\/strong>! Hello! (Conamara dialect); 4. beannacht<\/strong>, blessing, greeting; 5. bhuel<\/strong>, well (the pause word); 6. c\u00e9n chaoi<\/strong>?, how?; 7. cad \u00e9 mar<\/strong>? how?, 8. ceoldr\u00e1ma<\/strong>, musical drama, sometimes also “a musical” or “an opera” (!); 9. smaoinimh<\/strong>, of thinking, 10. mhaith<\/strong>, good (one of various forms of this word)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) A few weeks ago, I received a request for more pronunciation tips, so this blog will be dedicated to pronouncing some of the vocabulary in “Deir Tusa \u2018Sl\u00e1n,\u2019 Deirimse \u2018Hal\u00f3\u2019 (Saying \u2018Hello\u2019 and \u2018Goodbye\u2019 in Irish, Cuid a hAon: Hello), which was published several months ago (24 Bealtaine 2013).\u00a0 \u00a0Go raibh maith agat…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":4356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[292551,292552,5271,5322,12121,10693,289825,30166],"class_list":["post-4346","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-fumnu","tag-foo-im-nyoo","tag-fuaimniu","tag-gamma","tag-halo","tag-irish-pronunciation","tag-slan","tag-voiced-velar-fricative"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346","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=4346"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4358,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346\/revisions\/4358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}