Scottish Gaelic language

Pronunciation

Most letters are pronounced similarly to other European languages. The broad consonants t and d and often n have a dental articulation (as in Irish and the Romance and Slavic languages) in contrast to the alveolar articulation common in English and other Germanic languages). Non-palatal r is an alveolar trill (like Italian r or Spanish rr.)

Related Topics:
Dental - Romance - Slavic languages - Alveolar - English - Germanic languages - Alveolar trill - Italian - Spanish

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The "voiced" stops b, d, g are not voiced at all in Gaelic, but are rather voiceless unaspirated. The "voiceless" stops p, t, c are voiceless and strongly aspirated (postaspirated in initial position, preaspirated in medial/final position). Gaelic shares this property with Icelandic. In some Gaelic dialects, stops at the beginning of a stressed syllable become voiced when they follow a nasal consonant, for example: taigh 'a house' is {{IPA|/t??i/}} but an taigh 'the house' is {{IPA|/?n d??i/}}; cf. also tombaca 'tobacco' {{IPA|/t?om?baxk?/}}.

Related Topics:
Voiced - Stops - Unaspirated - Icelandic - Syllable - Nasal consonant

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The lenited consonants have special pronunciations: bh and mh are {{IPA|/v/}}; ch is {{IPA|/x/}} or {{IPA|/ç/}}; dh, gh is {{IPA|/?/}} or {{IPA|/?/}}; th is {{IPA|/h/}}, {{IPA|/?/}}, or silent; ph is {{IPA|/f/}}. Lenition of l n r is not shown in writing.

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fh is almost always silent, with only the following three exceptions: fhèin, fhathast, and fhuair, where it is pronounced as {{IPA|/h/}}.

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There are a few general features worth noting.

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• Stress is usually on the first syllable: for example drochaid 'a bridge' ({{IPA|/?troxat?/}}).

(Knowledge of this fact alone would help avoid many a mispronunciation of Highland placenames, for example Mallaig is {{IPA|/?ma??k?/}}. Note, though, that when a placename consists of more than one word in Gaelic, that the Anglicised form can have stress elsewhere: Tyndrum ({{IPA|/t?in?dr?m/}}) < Taigh an Droma ({{IPA|/t??in ?drom?/}}).

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• A distinctive characteristic of Gaelic pronunciation (which has influenced the Scottish accent – cf. girl {{IPA|/g?r?l/}} and film {{IPA|/f?l?m/}}) is the insertion of epenthetic vowels between certain adjacent consonants, specifically, between sonorants (l or r) and certain following consonants:

:tarbh (bull) ? {{IPA|/t?arav/}}

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:Alba (Scotland) ? {{IPA|/alapa/}}.

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• Schwa ({{IPA|/?/}}) at the end of a word is dropped when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. For example:

:duine (a man) ? {{IPA|/?t?n??/}}

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:an duine agad (your man) ? {{IPA|/?n ?d?n? ak?t/}}

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