You might think "Ah, well, Ireland is next to Britain ... so even if the words are different the pronounciation should be much the same." Once your first attempt at pronouncing something Irish ends in laughter, confused stares or a riot you'll have another think coming. Irish is different. Despite using much the same alphabet as English - but only because a specially developed style of Irish writing failed to become standard.
Vowels in the Irish Language
Irish uses the same five vowels as English, but the pronounciation is different at times - if there is an accent over the vowel it is a "long" vowel:
- a is pronounced as in "cat", but á is pronounced as in "saw".
- e is pronounced as in "wet", but é is pronounced as in "way".
- i is pronounced as in "fit", but í is pronounced as in "fee".
- o is pronounced as in "son", but ó is pronounced as in "slow".
- u is pronounced as in "put", but ú is pronounced as in "school".
Vowels are also divided into "slender" (e, é, i and í) und "broad" (the rest), influencing the pronounciation of the consonants before them ...
Consonants in the Irish Language
As a general rule, all single consonants are as in English, but there are exceptions. And clusters of consonants may have very interesting tongue-teasers hidden in them.
- bh
- pronounced as in "village", it is similar to our v. - bhf
- pronounced as in "wall", it is similar to our w. - c
- always pronounced as in "cut", like a k. - ch
- pronounced as in "loch". - d
- pronounced as in "do" when followed by a "broad" vowel.
- pronounced like the j in "joy" when followed by a "slender" vowel. - mh
- pronounced like the w in "will" (again). - s
- pronounced as a normal s when followed by a "broad" vowel.
- pronounced like sh in "shop" when followed by a "slender" vowel.
- pronounced like sh at the end of a word. - t
- pronounced like a normal t when followed by a "broad" vowel.
- pronounced like the ch in "child" when followed by a "slender" vowel. - th
- pronounced just like the h in "home".
- pronounced like the t in "bet".
- pronounced not at all at the end of a word.
Other Oddities of Spoken Irish
Apart from the fact that even people from neighboring villages in the gaeltacht (the Irish-speaking areas, the non-Irish-speaking areas being helpfully called galltacht) can’t agree on the proper pronounciation?
Well, you’ll notice that the Irish tend to roll their r more than other people, even when speaking English. At the same time the horror of clustered consonants is obvious, the English "film" becoming "fillim" regularly. Oh, and a very good party trick is to have an Irishman read out "33 1/3" which may end up as "dirty tree and a turd".
Pulling It All Together
There also is a tendency to pull together several vowels and consonants into one sound - either through convention or lazyness. Thus Dun Laoghaire is best pronounced "dunleary". Which leads to the conclusion that ...
Proper Irish Pronounciation Can Only be Learned by Interacting with Native Speakers
Trying to learn Irish from books is like trying to scale Mount Everest on a Wii - not impossible but far from the real thing. Even with the help of tapes and CDs you simply will not come up the conversation standard.
