Page:Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish - Christian Brothers.djvu/47

 (c) For slender contact is made with the centre of the tongue and the palate just behind the boundary between the hard and the soft palate. For slender the tongue is brought very close to the palate, but does not touch it, and whilst the tongue is in this position we pronounce an, and a very soft sound is the result. The sound may be described as “a voiceless English y.”

From the rules which follow, the formation of the remaining aspirated sounds can be easily learned. In a later chapter we shall treat of the effects of the aspirated consonants on the vowels.

36.     v or  (slender) voiced. In Munster they are usually silent when they occur medially (i.e., in the body of a word), unless when followed by a long vowel sound, in which ease they retain their consonantal sound “v”—e.g.,.

v; except in Ulster, where they are pronounced like —e.g., in Ulster=.

“w”; except in Munster, where they are like “vw” before a broad vowel.

except in the termination. The consonantal sound is retained when they are followed by a long vowel sound:.

—