Occurrences of on glides

[Jkspiezio]

I am having trouble figuring out exactly when an on glide occurs, both with broad sounds and slender ones. I know the sounds, well, sound and have a rough idea of when they occur, but I’d love it of someone could give some concrete rules. I’m studying the Connacht dialect, by the way, if it makes any difference. Thanks

[An Lon Dubh]

Well roughly speaking, when the vowel and consonant don’t match in quality.
For example the tongue position when making broad t is quite different from the position when making í. The off-glide is produced when making the transition between the two positions, in tuí for example. Basically E and I have tongue positions close enough to those of the slender consonants that on/off glides don’t occur. A,O,U are close enough to the broad consonants that a glide doesn’t occur.
It’s only when you make E,I near broad consonants or A,O,U near slender ones that you need glides.
However the main advice I’d give is to practice the consonants themselves. If you pronounce them correctly, the glides occur automatically, I don’t think you need to learn them. (For learning the language, obviously you can learn more about them for linguistic interest.)

[Jkspiezio]

I’ve heard that said, but I still don’t hear the glide in words like bean and fear. And I never hear it after l or r. Is there more of a rule for when the sound occurs? Also, can you think of any instances where a broad consent followed by a soft vowel wouldn’t cause a glide? GRMA

[An Lon Dubh]

In bean and fear the glide would probably be fairly inaudible. The “rule”, in so far as there is one, is simply that there will be a glide whenever the tongue has to move significantly in the process of Consonant->Vowel or Vowel->Consonant. For some cases like Luí the tongue is easily moved from Broad L to Í, so you wouldn’t really hear a glide. Hence you could say you hear a glide when saying A,O,U before/after a slender consonant, but only when significant effort occurs, same with E,I before/after broad consonants.
An audible glide occurs in the word Liom.
Depending on the effort involved, there can be no audible glide all the way up to a near diphthong. Although, as I said, this is something you will replicate automatically if you can pronounce the consonants and vowels correctly. However emphaising the glides leads to things like Liom being pronounced as if it had a diphthong.

[Jkspiezio]

I think I’ll just take your advise then and focus on proper pronunciation of the consonants. Do you know of any helpful websites or such for learning the proper pronunciation of consonants? I seem to be pronouncing them very incorrectly.

[An Lon Dubh]

I think I’ll just take your advise then and focus on proper pronunciation of the consonants. Do you know of any helpful websites or such for learning the proper pronunciation of consonants? I seem to be pronouncing them very incorrectly.

I would recommend the following:

1. The website Fuaimeanna na Gaeilge:
http://www.fuaimeanna.ie/ga/Sounds.aspx

Select the phoneme you want to hear, it has the dialect of An Cheathrú Rua, a Conamara dialect.

2. The website Forvo, in particular the user Bríd Eilís, a speaker of the dialect of An Cheathrú Rua:
http://www.forvo.com/user/BridEilis/

Braoin, a user on the same site, speaks the Cois Fharraige dialect, another Conamara dialect, the one dealt with in Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail, which you might be using as a text. Here is his profile:
http://www.forvo.com/user/Braoin/

Note that Cois Fharraige often deletes consonants, so Oíche is simply Oí, just so you don’t get confused.

3. Bear in mind that two written vowels in Irish can convey one of two things:
(a) A diphthong, for example ua.
(b) To indicate which of the consonants next to it is broad or slender. For example ao is actually é, but the indication that the surrounding consonants are broad.

This is even the case with words like Oíche (night). The O is not pronounced, but simply there to indicate that the consonant next to it is broad. Naturally you might wonder what consonant. In this case the last consonant of the definite article. An Oíche (the night), the O tells you the n is broad.

[An Lon Dubh]

I seem to be pronouncing them very incorrectly.

Probably not, just slightly off, it’s a subtle thing.

[Jkspiezio]

Thanks for that very thorough answer; I will use all of those resources. Hearing the actual pronunciation is very important, but I wonder if you know also of any written descriptions of how to shape the mouth, place the tongue, etc. during broad and slender consonants. I ask because the sounds I make SOUND correct, but the glides do not come on their own. Thanks again

[An Lon Dubh]

The Irish of Cois Fhairrge by Tomás de Bhaldraithe contains good descriptions of the consonants for Conamara Irish:
http://books.dias.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=8_20&products_id=69

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