Page:A contribution to the phonology of Desi-Irish to serve as an introduction to the metrical system of Munster Poetry (IA contributiontoph00henerich).pdf/15

 guttural chamber. It may be attempted by pronouncing gē with the g of Eng. go.

e = Eng. bed, Ger. bet.

ē = Eng. a in fate, late, Ger. lesen.

ə the irrational or colourless vowel = the short vowel after the accent in English words e. g. evident, wicked, pronounced naturally not affectedly as when one says evy-dent, wickeed.

Ī ɪ like the short and long vowels in Eng. quill, queen respectively, pronounced without the w and without lip-rounding thus k(w)ill k(w)īn. ɪ Ī and ᴇ are the broad sounds corresponding to i ī and ē slender. I = i amlaut of o; cuir ᴋɪr′, from cor. Ī when not = ɪ + y represents the i umlaut of an old diphthong now written aoi. ᴇ represents the sound of the digraph ao.

ᴜ = Eng. puss, Ger. muss.

Ū = oo in Eng. cool.

u stands for Ū after y. iú = ew in English words like few, new.

ḷ, ṃ, ṇ, ṛ, are liquid sonants like l n in Eng. buckle token, etc. i. e bakl′, tōkn.

au, eu, î, ai, ᴇi, are long slurred dipthongs or coalescences which can be apparently resolved into the simple sounds which constitute their several signs. î may be imitated by slurring öi. Those arise from short vowels under certain conditions of accent and consonant accompaniment. Vid. § 4, sqq.

au like Ger. haus, more open than the English pronunciation of ou in house. It is always strongly nasalized.

ou = the Irish pronunciation of ou in house or of o in bold i. e. bould.

ai like the English pronunciation of the pronoun I

i = öi like the Irish pronunciation of the pronoun I

ᴇi like the preceding sound but with an e instead of an i colour.