Irish phonology | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2018-12-17

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Irish phonology


00:02:11 1 History of the discipline
00:04:46 2 Consonants
00:05:08 2.1 On- and offglides
00:06:30 2.2 Allophones
00:09:19 2.3 Fortis and lenis sonorants
00:11:50 3 Vowels
00:12:21 3.1 Vowel backness
00:13:28 3.1.1 Close vowels
00:15:24 3.1.2 Mid vowels
00:17:35 3.1.3 Open vowels
00:20:07 3.1.4 Diphthongs
00:21:48 3.2 Nasalized vowels
00:23:09 4 Phonotactics
00:23:34 4.1 Word-initial consonant clusters
00:26:54 4.2 Post-vocalic consonant clusters and epenthesis
00:28:43 5 Phonological processes
00:28:53 5.1 Vowel-initial words
00:30:05 5.2 Lengthening before fortis sonorants
00:32:37 5.3 Devoicing
00:33:20 5.4 Sandhi
00:34:54 6 Stress
00:35:02 6.1 General facts of stress placement
00:36:36 6.2 The nature of unstressed vowels
00:37:30 7 Processes relating to /x/
00:38:03 7.1 Behavior of /ax/
00:38:55 7.2 Interaction of /x/ and /ç/ with /h/
00:39:59 8 Samples
00:40:24 9 Comparison with other languages
00:40:34 9.1 Scottish Gaelic and Manx
00:41:51 9.2 Hiberno-English
00:42:36 10 Notes



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SUMMARY
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The phonology of the Irish language varies from dialect to dialect; there is no standard pronunciation of Irish. Therefore, this article focuses on phenomena that pertain generally to most or all dialects, and on the major differences among the dialects. Detailed discussion of the dialects can be found in the specific articles: Ulster Irish, Connacht Irish, and Munster Irish.
Irish phonology has been studied as a discipline since the late 19th century, with numerous researchers publishing descriptive accounts of dialects from all regions where the language is spoken. More recently, Irish phonology has been the focus of theoretical linguists, who have produced a number of books, articles, and doctoral theses on the topic.
One of the most important aspects of Irish phonology is that almost all consonants come in pairs, with one having a "broad" pronunciation and the other a "slender" one. Broad consonants are either velarized (that is, the back of the tongue is pulled back and slightly up in the direction of the soft palate while the consonant is being articulated) or simply velar (e.g. /k, ɡ/). Slender consonants are palatalized, which means the tongue is pushed up toward the hard palate during the articulation. The contrast between broad and slender consonants is crucial in Irish, because the meaning of a word can change if a broad consonant is substituted for a slender consonant or vice versa. For example, the only difference in pronunciation between the words bó ('cow') and beo ('alive') is that bó is pronounced with a broad b sound, while beo is pronounced with a slender b sound. The contrast between broad and slender consonants plays a critical role not only in distinguishing the individual consonants themselves, but also in the pronunciation of the surrounding vowels, in the determination of which consonants can stand next to which other consonants, and in the behavior of words that begin with a vowel. This broad/slender distinction is similar to the hard/soft one of several Slavic languages, like Russian.
The Irish language shares a number of phonological characteristics with its nearest linguistic relatives, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, as well as with Hiberno-English, with which it is in the closest language contact.