Aspiration at the end of ‘poblacht’, ‘seacht’ or ‘ocht’

[Fabiola]

Hi !

Do you pronounce Irish words ‘poblacht’, ‘seacht’ and ‘ocht’ with a strong aspiration after final ‘t’ ?

Thank you for your answer

[Lughaidh]

I think it depends if the word is alone or before a pause, or if there’s a word just after it in the sentence.
I think you aspirate more if the word is before a pause.

[Onuvanja]

Unless I’m mistaken, “k” (“c”), “p” and “t” are generally not aspirated in Irish, unlike in English in word-initial position. I would also say that it doesn’t matter that much whether the “c”/”p”/”t” appears at the beginning of the word, at the end or between vowels (again, as opposed to English). But maybe I misunderstood your question.

[Fabiola]

This what you’re writing, Onuvanja, is wrong.
I think consonants p, t, k ARE aspirated In Irish.

[Onuvanja]

Looks like you’re right, Fabiola. According to an article on Wikipedia:

“As in English, voiceless stops are aspirated (articulated with a puff of air immediately upon release) at the start of a word, while voiced stops may be incompletely voiced but are never aspirated. Voiceless stops are unaspirated after /sË / and /ʃ/ (e.g. scanradh [sË kauÉ¾Ë É™][1] “terror”); however, stops remain aspirated after the clitic is /sË / (e.g. is cam [sË kÊ°aum] “it’s crooked”) (Breatnach 1947:33, 76). Several researchers (e.g. Ó Cuív 1944, Wagner 1959, de Bhaldraithe 1966, Mhac an Fhailigh 1968, Ó Sé 2000) use transcriptions like /sb sd sÉ¡ xd/, etc., indicating they consider the stops that occur after voiceless fricatives to be devoiced allophones of the voiced stops rather than unaspirated allophones of the voiceless stops, but this is a minority view.”

However, I would still say that aspiration is considerably stronger in English. Check for instance the pronunciation of “tasc” on the http://www.focloir.ie web site. It doesn’t sound like “task” in English…

Perhaps Lughaidh and others can expand on that.

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