Page:Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish - Christian Brothers.djvu/27

 several seconds. It will be noticed that the sound is not affected if we close the nostrils by pressing the sides of the nose with the fingers—provided the hand does not come in front of the mouth. This proves that air is not passing through the nose. Pronounce the again, and, whilst maintaining the sound, try to force the breath through the nose. When we succeed in producing a nasal 6, the sound is almost destroyed by closing the nostrils with the fingers. If we tap the side of the nostril with the finger whilst pronouncing a nasal vowel we get an intermittent sound similar to that produced by bringing the hand up to and away from the mouth whilst sounding an ordinary vowel.

14. Any vowel followed by becomes a nasal vowel. Listen carefully to an Irish speaker whilst he pronounces the words:  and and.

The nasality is very slight in some districts, for we find such variant spellings as and.

Dēsi (Waterford) Irish is the richest in nasal vowels, for besides those developed by, the diphthongs developed from and, by a “protected liquid” (except ) (§ 59), are always strongly nasal.

15. When the passage at the back of the mouth which leads to the nasal cavity is kept only slightly open, we hear the nasal twang so common in American speech (the Irish word for it is ). This twang affects all the vowels, but is, of course, more audible in the broad than in the slender vowels. In the