Phonemic transcription and Irish

[Obroin, Brian]

Maith an fear, a Bhriain!

B

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Brian Ó Broin, Ph.D. 
Dept. of English, William Paterson University, New Jersey, USA 

Linguistics - Medieval Studies - Irish Studies 
Teangeolaíocht-Léann na Meánaoise-Léann na hÉireann 

Contact/Teagmháil: http://www.geocities.com/brianeanna/



-----Original Message-----
From: The Celtic Linguistics List on behalf of Brian Doyle
Sent: Wed 1/2/2008 10:59 AM
To: CELTLING at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Phonemic transcription and Irish
 
I am drafting my master's thesis, the subject of which is the  
sociolinguistics of Irish orthographic reform. Every scientific text  
on Modern Irish uses a phonemic transcription convention that many of  
us know from dictionaries such as Foclóir Póca, which is to use an  
apostrophe to mark palatalization and leave velarization unmarked.  
For example:

bean /b'an/ 'woman'
bán /ba:n/ 'white'

However, I.P.A. designates a superscript "j" and superscript lower- 
case "gamma" symbol to mark palatalization and velarization,  
respectively. Of course, I can't display this easily in email but the  
following link displays what I mean in the box labeled "diacritics,"  
under "secondary articulation":

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm

The word processor that I am using to write my thesis can render  
I.P.A. So, my question is this:

Which transcription method should I use for a scientific paper on  
Celtic linguistics? And why is it that no scholarly articles on Irish  
linguistics (at least not the ones I have found) use the I.P.A.  
convention?

Le gach dea-ghuí,
Brian Doyle
M.A. Candidate, Linguistics
Northeastern Illinois University