Re: Rubaga Phones

From: Stephen Mulraney [mailto:ataltanie@OCEANFREE.NET]

> > >There's nothing like a retroflex trill in IPA (and I can't
> see how to mark
> > >it). I replaced it here by the tap.
> >
> > Are you sure? Isn't the Irish /r/ usually a retroflex trill?
>
> Huh?
>
> Irish English, I'd say that for me it's usually an approximant.
> I was going to write 'alveolar approximant', but I just had a
> revelation while reading your sentence - it *is* a retroflex
> articulation, for me anyway. Oh, rhotic dialect so
> <hard> /ha`r\`/ :: <run>  /r\`Un/
> Wow! I never realised I had a real retroflex!
>
> Irish Gaelic - often just the speaker's English <r> (recall the
> discussion a month or so ago about the astonising mutual
> intelligibility of <r> sounds?) but often, again for me,
> an alveolar tap /4/ (I love that sound).
I came back after the long weekend to find my mailbox flooded with
postings from the list. Aarrgh!

Just for the record, my palatalised one is a trill. I think it
must vary across the country. I like how phonologically rich
Irish is. That and it's funny to watch foreigners who are confused
by the orthography :-)

I'll go away now.