Hi everyone, so from going through a few books I thought I had gotten a hang of the medial mh sound in Munster Irish, but having come across some new material I'm having some doubts!

As an example, the word lámha is given in The Irish of West Muskerry, The Irish of Ring and Teach Yourself Irish as [lɑ:] (ignoring the nasalisation stuff).
So in hearing Kerry speakers talk I was expecting the same thing, however, in Gaschaint (on this page) I came across some conflicting examples, namely:

• Ná dearúd do lámha a ní - pronounced [lɑ:]
• Nigh do lámha! - pronounced [lɑ:və]
• Nigh do lámha i ndiaidh an leithris - pronounced [lɑ:və]

So the core of my question is why a Munster speaker would use [lɑ:] in one instance but then [lɑ:və] in others, and which (if any) pronunciation is best.

I’ve browsed through it, searched for lámha and seems to me the woman generally says /lɑː/, the man tends to say /lɑːvə/ (but some /lɑː/ too).

Also, in the plural imperative ending (written the standard way, -igí) the woman mostly say /iːɡ´/ (as one would expect in Munster, eg. cuirídh / cuiríg), but sometimes also uses -igí. The man says -igí (eg. bígí /b´iːɡ´iː/). So I’d say they sometimes slip in spelling pronunciation instead of what they’d actually say in the dialect, and to me the female voice sounds much more trustworthy overall.

For good Kerry pronunciations, listen to recordings by user Conchur on Forvo: https://forvo.com/user/Conchur/

And to answer your question directly: AFAIK native Munster speakers would just say /lɑ̃ː/ or /lɑː/ in their dialect. Saying /lɑ̃ːvə/ (with or without the nasalization) would either be archaization (trying to sound very old-fashion) or influence from the standard or spelling.

It does seem odd that the same word is pronounced differently in two different contexts. Maybe one of the fluent Irish speakers on here can offer an explanation.

I went through Dara Ó Cinnéide's (from Kerry) pronunciation of medial mh on http://fuaimeanna.ie/. Broad medial mhs are silent for 12 words. Broad medial mhs are 'v' in three words: camhraigh /​ˈ​k​a​.​vˠ​ɾˠ​ɪ​ɟ/ ‘decay’, Síomha /​ˈ​ʃ​iː​.​vˠ​ə/ ‘Síomha (a girl's name)’ and tamhain /​ˈ​t̪ˠ​a​.​vˠ​ɪ​nʲ/ ‘trunks’. They are silent for the two slender medial mhs.

Thanks Silmeth! And thanks for the Forvo link, very handy.



Yeah this struck me as odd too, especially from the female Kerry speaker. I agree with Silmeth that she seems very authentic vs the male speaker - more on this later.


Some of this is expected as the mh doesn't disappear in all instances and can also give rise to long vowels, diphthongs or be retained as a v sound.
There are entire sections on how it works in The Irish of West Muskerry, The Irish of Ring that go into ferocious detail.

I took a look at my audio book of Séadna read by Maighréad Uí Lionáird (speaker from Cork) and it seems to me that she doesn't pronounce the sound either:

• Chapter 11 around 5:30 in the audio: Feuch!” ar sise, ag osgailt lámha léi - pronounced [lɑ:]
• Chapter 18 around 10:30 in the audio: agus é a thabhairt chun lámha anso gabhtha - pronounced [lɑ:]
• Chapter 18 around 12:30 in the audio: é h-é féin nó pé ball ’na bhfuil sé, agus é thabhairt chun lámha - pronounced [lɑ:]

What's super interesting is that the male speaker in Gaschaint (Tadhg Ó Lionaird) seems to be related to Maighréad Uí Lionáird (possibly son?) who's reading Séadna! So interesting that they'd have a different pronunciation of that word.
But it's tricky to say specifically whether Maighréad would or wouldn't say it in the same way as Tadhg in her day to day Irish vs how she reads it in Séadna.
Séadna is written in the traditional Irish of it's day which includes extensive usages of dative forms which would not be used in the same way today, and she's reading the book verbatim.
But maybe someone is able to weigh in here.

@djwebb2021 - Going off your website and recordings of Mo Scéal féin it seems like you know Maighréad, or at least have met her. Maybe you have some info on this topic?

The pronunciation of lámha is lá. The current crop of native speakers do not have all the traditional stuff.