Re: Irish Gaelic is evil!

Stephen Mulraney wrote:

> [t] does indeed correspond to [tS] in some varieties (Donegal Irish, IIRC,
> and some (?all) Scottish varieties), but this is a trait heavily associated
> with the those varieties; elsewhere in Ireland, [t] corresponds to [c]
> or [tj]
> (or perhaps [t_j]). Indeed, as you go from north to south through
> Gaeldom :)
> you successively pass through regions where the slender counterpart to [t]
> is [tS], [c], and finally [tj] or something like it (in Cork, I think, but
> Keith would know better).
For me, I can barely detect any palatalisation down here. For instance,
I can remember having a discussion with with a friend of mine in first
year about the how "spideog" is pronounced. She, and she's a gaeilgeoir
BTW, pronounced it as, as it sounded to me, [spId'o:g], whereas I
pronounced it as [SpIdZj'og]. I couldn't hear any changes between her
slender and broad consonants.

Or maybe Irish is losing them under influence from English...

K.

Replies