Aragon can you explain the use of the Cork word 'la' ? Is it like 'look'? "Where's my car parked?" "It's over there la".

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Would 'langer' (foolish person) be an example of what you're talking about? Used to be all the rage when I were a ***** in Cork: 'Go 'way ya langer!' But I don't think I've heard it all in recent years.

Oh no, Aragon revealed h** gender.

Aragon wrote:

riadach wrote:

Liúdair, and Liúdramáin.

The only pronunciation difference in each is that the final consonants are palatised. That is to say the consonants are slender. Now, I'm sure many on this site will be unaware of the existence of broad and slender consonants, as they will only have heard of broad and slender vowels. Each consonant in Irish, however, has at least two distinct sounds, one velarised one palatised. L and N, in fact, have three.

Would be able to give us an approximate spelling of the sounds for L and N?

Sweet jesus no lol. I don't think any English-based orthography could ever effectively demonstrate the difference. The problem of course, is that Irish has much more phonemes than English, and many other western European languages with the exception of the Celtic Languages. The sounds don't exist in English and cannot be reproduced by English orthography. Basically, in Irish, where the tongue is in the mouth when producing vowel sounds, effects where the subsequent consonant sounds are pronounced. Broad sounds, according to the vowel quadrilateral, are pronounced with the rear of the tongue forming an arch in the rear of the mouth.



If the tongue is arched in the rear of the mouth, near the velum or soft palate, then the sound is considered to be velar. Therefore the subsequent consonant sound, which will be made with the tongue in the rear of the mouth, will be velarised. In order for a consonant to be pronounced, the tongue needs to connect with another organ of speech such as the teeth, the alveolas or the vellum/palate. Because the tongue is arched in the rear, the front of the tongue is straighter, thus allowing it to reach/connect with speech organs in the front of the mouth when making the subsequent (dental- pronounced on the teeth/alveolus/front palate) consonant sound. Therefore, a velarised dental consonant is pronounced further forward in the mouth than a palatised one.

Similarly palatised vowels (i,e for instance) are pronounced with the front of the tongue arched around the palate. This means the tip of the tongue is arched, and therefore contracted and curved, so when making dental sounds, it cannot reach as far forward as it can when velarised. Therefore palatised dental sounds are pronounced on or to the rear of the alveolar ridge.

This is slightly different with velar consonants. (Do not confused with velarised which refers to area the tongue is arched, not the contact point of the tongue with the vellum). Since velarised consonants are produced when the tongue is arched in the velum, the velarised velar consonant is produced further back at the velum when the arch actually makes contact with it. Palatised velar consonants are thus further forward. Of course, without diagrams this is very difficult to explain.

Simply though the difference between áin and án is that the tongue touches on the alveolus for the first consonant sound, whereas it touches on the back of the front teeth for the second. This is true for all dental consonants, d,n,t,l,s. (By coincidence, all the dental consonants are employed in the word dentals). The English dntls would be pronunced somewhere in between, and this is hard for many native English speakers to overcome when learning Irish.

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What are velarised and palatised? What a fascinating thread - I've never heard of any of the words being talked about here. Would 'langer' (foolish person) be an example of what you're talking about? Used to be all the rage when I were a ***** in Cork: 'Go 'way ya langer!' But I don't think I've heard it all in recent years.

When referring to palatised and velarised consonants I was merely referring to the plural forms of liúdar and liúdramán, which become palatised.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Aragon can you explain the use of the Cork word 'la' ? Is it like 'look'? "Where's my car parked?" "It's over there la".

I never asked but I always assumed 'la' was a version of 'look' too. Have you noticed that 'la' has working class and middle class pronounciations? I think its pronouced more like 'laah' when the former and 'luh' the latter.

Aragon wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Aragon can you explain the use of the Cork word 'la' ? Is it like 'look'? "Where's my car parked?" "It's over there la".

I never asked but I always assumed 'la' was a version of 'look' too. Have you noticed that 'la' has working class and middle class pronounciations? I think its pronouced more like 'laah' when the former and 'luh' the latter.

I'm afraid I'm not that familiar with Corkonians who originated in Montenotti and are inta 'recreational slumming'. Is Bishopstown the knob area too now? At least down there the middle classes have respect for the working classes by trying to imitate them.

Feen ...