Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Title: New thoughts on “Quick and Dirty”
Message:The real problem with
IPA is it is All things to All people.
Thus only a tiny subset is applicable to Irish, but because of its
structure, the tiny subset cannot stand on its own.
Thus its usage is Grossly INEFFICIENT.A Chara
Can you please clarify the above a little more? (1) I’m not sure what you mean
exactly. Is it that IPA is too universal and not particular and tailored
exactly to Irish pronunciation? I see what you mean in that IPA is scalable
and is meant to be universal and applicable to all the sounds of all the
languages. That is its basic purpose, to be an international standard.
How well or precisely the IPA sounds for Irish match the various Canúintí
must be left for native speakers to confirm. It seems they do.You need to be able to use nearly 40 characters to encode Irish,
and only a fraction of that 40 can be typed on a standard keyboard, such as
on a phone.
Q+D uses the Irish alphabet with only 5 additional characters to the 18,
giving just 23 discounting punctuation marks and standard abbreviations.
I have yet to meet anyone in the street who understands IPA.
Any attempt to write any text in this system looks like the meanderings of a
drunken ink soaked spider.
It is fine for a convocation of professors, but useless, nay, worse than
useless as a vehicle for written Irish.You make a good point that it is not convenient to type.
Can you provide a reference / link to this other phonetic system for Irish? (2)grma
Somehow the original message got lost, so I cut and paste the notification.
I will try to enlarge on my points:
(1) I do not try to devalue IPA as an accurate instrument, if used correctly, but it still needs a heavy shoe-horn to fit it to Irish.
It needs lots of little ticks and accents, upside-down and italic letters to cope with the simple facts of broad and slender, and six vowels where we are used to five.
(2) Shán Ó Cuív devised a system based heavily on a regularised system of Irish spelling, being based on phonetics, and the phonetics carefully explained in terms of physiology of the vocal organs.
It is my opinion that this is an excellent start point, but failed to go far enough in some ways, and went too far in others. I have tried to correct these very minor points, as his system, with such faults as I perceive, still work excellently.
My modifications are purely to make it less ambiguous to someone unfamiliar with the difference between a di-graph and a diphthong, or tri-graph, and triphthong.
You will find referenced to the book earlier in this thread, it is titled “The Sounds of Irish”, and the link is:
http://www.box.com/s/fmiogi2bge1a5lms3p0v
I hope, maybe, with considerable help from better Irish speakers than me, and they are not hard to find, for I know so little, that I
might re-code this book into Q+D.
The symbols are easy to convert, but the continuous texts are more difficult as I do not easily understand the ambiguities in Shán’s system. Once these ambiguities are removed we will have a compact, simple, and usable system.
That is my hope, and my prayer.The real problem with IPA is it is All things to All people.
Thus only a tiny subset is applicable to Irish, but because of its structure, the tiny subset cannot stand on its own.
Thus its usage is Grossly INEFFICIENT.
You need to be able to use nearly 40 characters to encode Irish, and only a fraction of that 40 can be typed on a standard keyboard, such as on a phone.
Q+D uses the Irish alphabet with only 5 additional characters to the 18, giving just 23 discounting punctuation marks and standard abbreviations.
I have yet to meet anyone in the street who understands IPA.
Any attempt to write any text in this system looks like the meanderings of a drunken ink soaked spider.
It is fine for a convocation of professors, but useless, nay, worse than useless as a vehicle for written Irish.Let me give you a couple of C. O. monstrocities:
Anseo, for Munster anso, is actually pronounced insju.
Ansin, for Munster ansan, is actually pronounced insin.
The Idea of Q+D is not to define a pronunciation standard, but to write it as it is spoken.
This mean of course that different dialects will spell some words differently.
Surely, if the word is pronounced insin, it should be so written, at least in the phonetic code.
There is merit in having a common spelling for the same word pronounced differently, for that make the spelling common across all the dialects, but then, why not use Chinese symbols, and be damned with it?
As for unpronounced consonants: are they really unpronounced, or do we just not quite notice them.
My screen-name here is Deghebh. You might think that Dave has a simple éi diphthong sound, but in the north country, where I come from, there is a ‘y’ sound in the middle of the é sound. So it would be Dejev.
Likewise, gh commonly has a simple ‘h’ sound, and an ‘h’ next to a vowel remembering that ‘h’ can be an unvoiced vowel, simply lengthens the vowel. It is not silent. It actually does something to the vowel.
If we could get rid of all these ‘h’s, then the ‘silent’ consonants would not be such a litter, and their role in the sound of a word could be better seen.I have already dismissed IPA as too complicated.
It is ok for phoneticists and other such specialists, but the knowledge base required for a full use of IPA Celtic is quite monstrous, and that in itself will turn away students.
Q+D deliberately seeks to define itself in terms of the Irish sounds. The Q+D vowels are Irish vowels, and as far as Irish uses the vowels in a regular and normal way, the Q+D vowel will be the same.
The additional consonants are mainly to avoid the use of the ‘h’ or sjévî.
H, then is just h.
But h is a queer consonant, it is either a glottal sibilant, or an unvoiced vowel, depending on how you use it.
Thus caol le caol is non-applicable, since it is a glide in its own right.
The Idea is, that once you have learned Q+D, you have learned the Irish sounds, as they would be, if the Irish was spelled phonetically.
So Q+D is not time wasted, and there is nothing to be unlearned afterwards. Indeed, Q+D can be interlaced with orthography to encode phonetic sounds as required for foreign words. Like with katakana though, the foreign words will be coloured with an Irish brogue.
Indeed, that is exactly what the Irish brogue is.An aside about katakana:
strangely, the way katakana encodes the consonants, ‘t’, ‘d’, and ‘s’ show a strong commonality with Irish in as much as these consonant components, when combined with the vowel component, display exactly the same broad and slender variance.
‘f’ is also homophonic with ‘h’.
Is Japanese also derived from a Celtic source?If, I may be so bold as a bloody Sassenac, may I refer you to Ó Cuív’s ‘Sounds of Irish’, and Christiand Brothers’ ‘Aids to Pronunciation’. but of which can be found in ‘My Munster Irish Library’: http://www.box.com/s/r4hboh9mgj212z1o5m2l
This defines my start-point.
Both leave glides and diphthongs undefined, except by a huge knowledge base requirement.
By using a deliberately different symbol for a glide, then using glides with vowels in place of unbalanced diphthongs, and glides with two vowels for balanced diphthongs, this problem is removed.
If then we introduce ‘x’ for the ‘ch’ or ‘c’ sjévî sound, and ‘y’ for the ‘gh’ or ‘g’ sjévî sound, then all the sjévî sounds have their own symbol, and all can be typed on a phone kbd which can handle French.
‘bh’ = v/w
‘ch’ = x
‘dh’ = y
‘fh = blank, or appostrophy.
‘gh’ = y
h = h
‘mh’ = v/wˆ The circumflex is placed over the following vowel if long, to indicate nazal. Circumflex replaces the fada.
‘ph’ = f
‘sh’ = h
‘th’ = hWe need the ‘y’ to represent the ‘gh’ sound.
This sometimes sounds like an English ‘y’, but when broad, it often sounds like a Greek Gamma, which looks similar to ‘y’.
It is only in English that ‘j’ has the ‘dzh’ sound, and we can unlearn that, like we can unlearn the English ‘x’ sound.Believe it, or not, I actually agree with you about this phonetic stuff.
IPA Celtic is far too abstruse for the man in the street.
Unfortunately, for a raw beginner, the Irish, or even the Scottish orthograpy is terribly confusing.
Yes, Speaking, and listening is by far the best, and Irish has, for most of its history done without any kind of known writing.
Unfortunately, this was the cause of the decay of the language into a multitude of mutually incomprehensible dialects.
It is useless to cry out against writing, it is necessary.
Likewise, even in English, some kind of pronunciation code is needed, because the English, whether the British dialect, or the American, or African, or Indian, or Australian, is not truly phonetic.
The situation with the Irish written language is worse, for it primarily encodes the grammar, and without a deep understanding of the grammar, the writing cannot even be pronounced, never mind, understood.
The intent of Q+D was purely to encode a recognisible representation of the sound.
Nothing more: nothing less.
If you cannot be taught the sound, you cannot learn the language.
Sound recordings linked to pictures would be ideal.
Failing that, an easy to learn code based on the rules of Irish Orthography, but encoded to strictly follow pronunciation rather than grammar, could serve. That is the intent of Q+D.
I am not trying to change the Irish language, only to help people, including myself to learn.
That is why Q+D is based on Irish orthography, and nothing needs to be unlearned when you learn real Irish writing, whether C. O. or the traditional Seanchló.Introduction to Studies in Modern Irish
Now up to page 20.
I have adjusted the margins to reduce the condensation required to fit the lines. I think it is about right now, and only very few lines are heavily condensed. Side margins are now 15mm, and top and bottom, 7. Theoretically, I could reduce the side margins to 5mm, but that would be pushing it. Please give me your comments on format. Do I need to adjust further, or is it now ok?
Someone has donated a better scan of Introduction than mine to Archive.org, and I have placed a copy in the Introduction folder. I’ll be using that file in future as the OCR is much better than mine.
Also, I found in Archive, Parts III and IV, so I have set up two more sub-folders in Studies in Modern Irish. This folder, you can find at:
http://www.box.com/s/7ekggt5v619y3icuu1rl
If this is getting too close to being a journal, my appologies.
I am trying, (very), to keep this to substantive information.Introduction to Studies in Modern Irish
Having completed Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish, subject to peer reveiw, I have moved on to this introduction, which is the first of a set of 4 books by Rev. Gerald O’ Nolan, and has the imprimatur of the Educational Company of Ireland in 1921.
Progress so far is up to the bottom of page 14, about 1/10th of the way.
As a result, I have reorganized the books on this subject into their own tree, which you can find here:
http://www.box.com/s/km5e0165l6urnzrk34g9
Comments and error reports will be welcomed.ps
The 5th font mentioned in my last posting does not match the purpose as well as Gael BX, so I will continue to use the latter until a better is found.To correct a minor problem:
Many, if not all of my workfiles use a nonstandard font. My preferred Gaelic font has been Gael BX UNICODE, normal and bold. I find that this font is now only available on an obscure Chinese site.
It is however, necessary to have these font on your computer to correctly view these files. Therefore I have placed a copy of all 4 Gael fonts on Box.net.
http://www.box.com/s/q58i97jzl7p9pxukh7l8
These Gael fonts are not completely kosher, and using a seimhe may deselect the font, so that the relevant word needs to be selected, and the font re-selected. Also, the font prints slightly small, so has to be selected typically 2pts oversize.The 5th font is a nua font, like Gael BX, but is completely kosher, and I will be inclined to use it in future.
Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish
Ok, the task is completed, short of proof-reading, and reveiw by qualified critics.
All the relevant files can be found in my Library:
http://www.box.com/s/r4hboh9mgj212z1o5m2l
Or more precisely in the AidsToThePronunciationOfIrish folder:
http://www.box.com/s/9p84oadd6bakfjd5rvvm
Now it is up to you, I’ve done my best, now Your help is needed before I post it on Archive.org.Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish . . .
Re-typesetting is drawing to a close with only 10 pages left to re-typeset.
Doing the index should be quick, as the OCR is very good, but I decided to check every entry line by line as I had found some mismatched links in the original. These I corrected where obvious, but some have defeated me. Assistance from someone who can understand Irish would be of GREAT assistance!!!
From my enforced study of this document, I am convinced that this is still a very useable document, and much of its teaching is still valid.
Would that the perpetrators of CO had read this first!Retypesetting Aids to Pronunciation.
I have started retypesetting Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish.
All the relevant files can be found in the relevant folder:
http://www.box.com/s/9p84oadd6bakfjd5rvvm
