LL-L "Phonology" 2003.05.09 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: "Chris Ferguson" <shoogly at ntlworld.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.05.09 (02) [E]

Tha sin ceart gu leòr / that's o.k
"dh'fhàgail" - has one of the most difficult sounds in Gaelic to
pronounce.
"fh" is silent in all words -except "fhathast"  ( yet  / still )-
"fhuair"
( found / got ) and "fhèin" ( self ) - where it is pronounced as an "h"
sound.
The "dh" -there is no equivalent sound in English. "dh" and "gh" are
pronounced the same. If you can pronounce the "ch" in Gaelic - you are
half
way there. What they usually say when trying to teach this sound -they
say
the try saying the "ch" in "church" and gradually change it to the "ch"
sound as in the Scottish word "loch" ( which is a Gaelic word ).  Then
make
a "g" sound as in "give" then change the sound gradually as you did
above.
Notice that their is an accent on the "à" - because it is a long vowel -
so
the pronunciation is something like /ghaakil/ where the "gh" is
pronounced
as above ( the "g" at the end is a hard g ). It is a versatile verb -
Gaelic
has a lot of poetic ways of expressing things. For instance "on dh'fhàg
thu
mi 's mulud orm" ( from a song ) - which is translated as "since you
left me
with sadness upon me" -but it is much more expressive than that -
something
like "since left you me and sadness upon me" ( "'s" is an affirmative
form
of "and" and is stronger than "agus" - these are the nuances in Gaelic
that
are just impossible to translate - so here in English to get near it you
would need to stress the "and" ).
The three most difficult sounds to pronounce in Gaelic are:
"dh / gh"
"ch"
"ao"
and label "l"
The most difficult word for English speakers to pronounce in Gaelic is
deceptively simple -it is the word for "calf" ( baby cow) -which is
"laogh" - which has three of these sounds in.
One of the most important things to learn in Gaelic pronunciation is how
consonants ( and there combinations ) are pronounced beside "e" and "i"
(
the slender vowels ) and "a", "o" and "u" ( the broad sounds )-as they
are
usually pronounced differently even if not written differently. A good
example is "t". In "tìr" ( land ) - it is pronounced like English "cheer"
-
but in "taigh" ( house  ) it is pronounced like English "tie"
The best way to learn the sounds is to hear a Gaelic speaker or get a
good
course with tapes /CD's -as there are a number of words that are just
not
found in English. Gaelic only has 17 letters - but has more sounds than
English (we use combinations of letters to give us other sounds ). Like
"New
York" is spelt "Nuadh Eabhraic" in Gaelic as there is no "Y" or "K"
letter
in Gaelic.   I think the Colloquial Gaelic course is quite easily
available - but the language tends to be quite Lewis Gaelic ( which is
the
largest dialect -but counted as a bit odd by other Gaelic speakers ).
Don't
let this difficulty with some sounds dishearten you - they can be
learnt -"ceum air cheum" - step by step!!! People sometimes say that
Gaelic
is difficult to learn - but I don't think it is -it is a different mind
set
you need to get in -seeing thing in a different way  - once you start
getting into it , it becomes second nature.
Mar sin leibh! ( normal Gaelic )
Tìoraidh an drasda! ( Lewis Gaelic )
= good bye in Gaelic.
I hope this helped a bit

Chris Ferguson / Crìsdean Mac Fhearghais

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