NYT--slightly OT--Gaelic

[Geoff Nathan]

Wilson Gray wrote:
> <pre wrap>"Anonn" is pronounced ['an at n]. As for whether a unilingual
> speaker of
> Irish would confuse this or replace this with ['^nj at n], further
> deponent sayeth not, though I do wonder why such a speaker would say
> "(Big) Anonn" instead of "Anonn (Mór), if he was speaking in Irish.
Slightly off-topic, does anyone know of a reliable Gaelic dictionary
that gives IPA transcriptions for Gaelic words?  I have on occasion sung
in a choir that sang Gaelic songs, and wasn't happy with the
pseudo-phonetic transcription they gave (and, being a linguist, was
asked for help too) but came a-cropper trying to find something useful
on how to pronounce the stuff.  Some of the rules I could get, but other
pieces of the (laughingly called) spelling-sound correspondances were
hopeless.

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Computing and Information Technology and Department of English
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202
geoffnathan at wayne.edu
C&IT Phone (313) 577-1259
English Phone (313) 577-8621

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