How do you pronounce a slender dhr/ghr in words like mo dheirfiúr (mo dhriofúr) and an ghrian? I suppose the best way is to say the slender dh/gh as normal (like an English y) but that's a bit of a tongue-twister next to the r.

I think I've heard these pronounced as a broad dh/gh as well, and I've even heard a kind of French j sound thrown into the mix. So maybe it's not just me that has trouble with these consonants.

How do the rest of ye say mo dheirfiúr and an ghrian?

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

The words for "brother" and "sister" seem to vary in pronunciation more than just about any other word in Irish! I would say "muh YER-ih-foor."

The "gh" in "an ghrian" is pronounced more like a broad "gh" than a slender, in my experience.

Wait for more (I'm sure there will be a lot of input on this!)

Redwolf

I was taught to pronounce mo dhriofúr and mo ghrian with a broad "dh/gh" sound and I've never heard them pronounced any other way; but I'm only familiar with Munster Irish, so I don't really know about other dialects.

Wow, that's a new one for me! Which dialect is that?

As far as I know, in native speech there's a slender gh/dh in both words, actually it's a [ ʝ ] sound in the IPA, it's a kind of y-sound but "fricative" -- hard to explain and you have to hear it:

http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/consonants.html
(in the box "fricative palatal").

But Redwolf is right that in Ulster the word for my sister is mo dheirfiúr, pronounced mo yeh-r'ih-fuhr in Northern Donegal, so not as Connachta mo dhriofúr.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Hey man, it's hard to explain really without a soundfile, but if you imagine the sounds as the same but in different positions in the throat....


gh...is at the top of the back of the throat, as if you are choking a bit but with the air still able to come thru.
dh...is lower
ch is lower than that....they all tremble the throat...ch initial medial and terminal are different as are the others.....wait for the the fricative brothers and sisters!

Yeah, it's kind of like that, more or less.

Oh, I always wondered why deartháir and deirfiúr were spelled like that. It's nice to see that that spelling is phonetic in at least one dialect!

ya, interesting...a lot of the dialect writing in Munster has "driotháir" which is the way "deartháir" is pronounced hereabouts.....gob fliuch agaibh

In Connemara, it is definitely a slender dh/gh, i.e., a y sound, if somewhat more fricative than usual, as Lughaidh says.

I would describe it as kind of like saying "yih" as a first unaccented syllable, i.e., ghrian yi-RHEE-un /ɣ´r´i:əN/.

Here are two samples from the texts of Learning Irish:

..Is bhí an ghrian ag goil (= gabháil) faoi

..D'fhéadfadh_an_ghrian a bheith ...

(Source: アイルランド語文法コシュ・アーリゲ方言Learning Irish, Mícheál Ó Siadhail, KENKYUSHA, 2007)


Here's a Munster version from Teach Yourself Irish for comparison:

..Is gile an ghrian ...

(Source: Teach Yourself Irish, Myles Dillon and Donncha Ó Cróinín, Hodder and Stoughton, 1961, as compiled by Deghebh)

It does seem to be closer to "gih" than the Connemara sound but still somewhere between "yih" and "gih" to my ear.

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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).

Breandán, I don't know how to post this on here, but in Lesson 21, Exercise 48, numbers 13 and 26 of Teach Yourself Irish, there are very clear recordings of mo dheirféar and ó dheirfír. It would probably help out Mick if maybe you or somebody else who knows how to do this could post these for him.

broad dh and gh are identical, and slender dh and gh are identical, if they are in the same phonetic context. Listen to the people and read dialect studies and you'll see What makes you believe that there is a difference?

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne