Re: CONLANG Digest - 7 Oct 2001 to 8 Oct 2001 (#2001-282)

En réponse à Lukasz Korczewski <lucasso@...>:

>
> It seems I didn't managed to explain it clearly, so I'll try again.
>
> From what you wrote above (and what I read in my book) its not clear if
> such
> a hypotetic word: 'neas' (I hope it's nothing vulgar ^_^) should be
> read
> /neS/ or /naS/ and how should be another hypotetic word (is it vulgar
> now?
> ^_^) /noS/ written 'neos', 'nios' or maybe even 'nias'.
>
> I understood from Christophe's post that /a/ between slender consonant
> (or
> consonant cluster) and broad consonant (or consonant cluster) is in
> modern
> Gaelic always (or at least in most cases) written as 'ea', while when
> /a/
> follows a broad consonant (or cluster) and is followed by a slender
> consonant (or cluster) is written as 'ai'. (and that Christophe's not
> sure
> how to write it between two slender consonants ^_^). And it's goes
> similarily with the other vowels. So I would like to know all the
> relations
> between vowel sounds and the *letter clusters* beacause it would be
> very
> helpful if I tried to learn Gaelic again.
>
> Is it clear what I mean?
>
Indeed. Well, there are two cases:
- when the vowel is long, the pronounced vowel in the di- or trigraph is
accented, so you always know which vowel is to be pronounced (unless you have a
diphtongue. Unfortunately, I don't know how Irish differentiate diphtongues
from simple digraphs).
- when the vowel is short, here comes the trouble. Di- and trigraphs are mostly
regular, so you can put them in a chart. What you're looking for is such a
chart. Unfortunately, it seems that no such one exists in the web. You can try:
http://home.worldonline.dk/~kmariboe/fgspmcneil.html which has a long list of
the possible vowel clusters and their pronunciation, but it's a pain to read.
The two following links:
http://www.fiosfeasa.com/bearla/language/intro.htm
http://www.gaeilge.f2s.com/ceachtanna/
may be of some help too. The main rule that I found about it is that slender
consonnants are indicated by a silent <i> in front of them, and/or by a silent
<e> or a silent <i> after them. So if you find for instance a <ae> between two
consonnants, you can be sure that it marks a /e/ between a broad consonnant and
a slender one, since <e> is never silent just before a consonnant. Of course,
there are the diphtongues that may make trouble, but IIRC they are always
written with an accent. I guess you have to make your chart by yourself. As an
example, you can look at the page about Breathanach:
http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/breath.html.
It shows a chart which seems to fit partly the Irish orthography too (but only
partly).

I still find it strange that no page about Irish (even Irish lessons) has such
a chart. It would be such a help...

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr