Re: Gaelic broad/slender vowels

On Mon, 21 Aug 2000, callanish wrote:

> Annyong haseyo! Chal chinessoyo?
>
> (That's all the Korean I know, sadly! Sorry.)
Hey, my Gaelic is pretty lousy.  But go raibh maith agat (that's Irish,
right?  I'm probably missing some accent marks, it's been so long).

Annyong.  Chal chineyeo.  Kamsahamnida.

I've sometimes contemplated doing my own transliteration for Korean
because I can't figure out some of the choices whoever-it-was made, and
Korean's *ugly* in transliteration.  <sigh>

> > I'd love to learn any Celtic language, but it's not something
> > I'm going to attempt without guidance.
>
> What sort of guidance? There are some prettty good beginner's courses out
> there, several come with tapes as well. "Teach Yourself" has Irish Gaelic
> (called "TY Irish"), Scottish Gaelic ("TY Gaelic") and Welsh; Hugo's "... in
> Three Months" series has Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. Routledge's "Colloquial"
> series does Welsh too. Materials for Manx Gaelic, Cornish and Breton are
> unfortunately harder to come by, but I know places you could get some if
> you're interested.
I haven't yet found any stores that have a Teach Yourself book *and*
tape.  :-/  I've also got Italian, Latin, Russian and Japanese sitting
around, so it'll probably be a while...but reading too much fantasy gave
me an interest in the Gaelic tongues.

> > I borrowed an Irish Gaelic grammar from a friend for a week
> > once, and I couldn't figure out what was meant by "broad" and
> > "narrow" vowels (?), among other things, so I just gave up.
>
> As a Celtic language enthusiast and fairly fluent speaker of Scottish Gaelic,
> I jump on this post with glee :-)
Oh, good.  :-)

> The vowels A, O, U are called "broad" (Gaelic: "leathann"), and the vowel E,
> I are called "slender" (Gaelic: "caol"). This is just the conventional Gaelic
> terminology. What happens is that certain consonants have one sound when
> preceded or followed by A/O/U, and another sound when preceded or followed by
> E/I. For example, the letter "s": in contact with a broad vowel (A/O/U) it is
> pronounced as in English "so". In contact with a slender vowel, it is
> pronounced like "sh" in English "show". Another example: the letter T in
> contact with a broad vowel is an aspirated "T" like in English "top". In
> contact with a slender vowel it is pronounced like English "ch" in "church".
Well, *that* makes sense.  Why couldn't the book explain it so nicely?
:-p  Thank you!

> The same things happen in other languages too, even Korean. The Korean letter
> "s" (is it "siut"? I'm sorry, I forget the Hangul letter names) turns into a
> "sh" sound before the vowel "i". In Japanese, if you're familiar with it, the
> consonant "t" turns into "ch" before the vowel "i": "ta", "te", but "chi"
> instead of "ti".
Yes, siut.  And I'm familiar with the Japanese sound changes.

> In Gaelic this system is much more widespread and regularized, of course, but
> that's really all there is to it. You just have to remember that certain
> letters have two pronunciations: one next to A/O/U and one next to E/I.
>
> Now tell me the what the "other things" were and I'll explain them too :-)
Good grief, I can't even remember.  It's just that I'm not experienced
enough to attempt pronunciation from description alone.  I did pick up
some of Enya's music in hopes of guidance (plus it's good music), but I
can't match what she's singing to the *English* half the time, let alone
the Gaelic.  (Probably part of it is an instrumentalist's background.
Unless a phrase is repeated often or very well enunciated, I ignore
lyrics in favor of melody.)  I think I will try to hunt down a tape and a
book, though.  The more languages the better!

> Guma fada beò thu agus ceò às do thaigh.
> (A Gaelic traditional Gaelic toast translating literally as "May you live
> long and smoke out of your house [i.e. if your fire's always burning,  you're
> warm, comfortable, etc]" -- in other words, the Gaelic equivalent of "Live
> long and prosper"!)
I *love* Gaelic toasts and blessings.  :-)

> Chal kaeyo,
Achu komaweoyo!

(Thank you very much!)

YHL