Maybe I've been hearing it wrong, but I always thought that uaim was pronounced something like "OO-em´" in Cork, uait like "OO-et´", 7rl.

note: I'd have put an upside-down "e", but I don't know how to do that on my keyboard.

I was replying to Cian's comment that "In other dialects of Irish there is no initial "w" sound," by which he meant dialects outside Munster.

Now it appears that the only place there isn't a "w" sound may be in Munster (but not Cian's own dialect.)


I don't either.

One option would be to copy ə from my post above. (I have a text file of different symbols that I have "collected" over the years.)

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Ah well, this sort of thing tends to happen to me whenever I'm lazy and only read the last thing that's posted.

I thought you meant, literally, "all dialects".

I just assumed Cian knew what he was talking about (regarding Munster dialect at least).

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Yeah, that's right!

Uaim in Cork. Bhuaim in Kerry.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Just for reference, An Teanga Bheo: Corca Dhuibhne gives the set as:

bhuam
bhuait
bhuaig
bhuaithe
bhuainn
bhuaibh
bhuatha

TYI gives the pronunciations as:

uaim /uәm´/
uait /uәt´/
uaidh /uәg´/
uaithi /uәhi/
uainn /uәŋ´/
uaibh /uәv´/
uathu /uәhә/

Doesn't this indicate a short /u/ rather than the usual long /u:/ in ua? How does this differ from /w/ (bh)? Or are we really talking about two different ways to express the same thing?

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Whew, now it's official!
It's nice to know that I've been saying it right.

"Teach Yourself Irish" doesn't use the colon to show the "oo" sound – they just use the letter "u"; check out words like trua or uachtar and you'll see what I mean. By the way, I hadn't noticed that they had the pronunciations for each of the prepositional pronoun forms of ó – I need to take a better look at that book, which is my 'bible' for Munster Irish!

Ah, I see. I hadn't noticed that.

Have you got the pdf version? It is searchable.

Those who don't have it yet can download it by following the instructions here:

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2960

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Thanks for that Breandán!

Just so everybody knows An Teanga Bheo: Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne and its big brother Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne are accounts of one of the two dialects in Kerry. There is the dialect of Dún Chaoin, Ceann Trá up to An Buailtín, basically the south of the peninsula. That's what's covered in the books. However there is also a dialect of the Northern side, places like Paróiste Mórdhach and spoken in places like Lios Póil, which are outside the Fíor-Ghaeltacht, but still have several native speakers. Some of the things given in that book are only true for one of the dialects.


The /ua/ is used for the diphthong sound.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Sorry about the late reply, I meant that a native speaker will pronounce it whatever way he/ she usually does no matter if its spelled "uaim" or bhua(i)m", sorry about the confusion.

Just building on what Lon Dubh said about lámha becoming lá in speech. In Munster, in general, when you add an -a to nouns ending in mh, bh they drop the sound of consonants and the last a and its the previous vowel that is voiced i.e.

An lámh (An lávf) but na lámha (na lá). An chnámh (An Chnavf) but na cnámha (na cná- this one may just be in Waterford?). Dubh (duvf) but sméara dubha (dú/ dú-a).

Cian

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice