I can hear that there is no buzz in words like aithreacha in the recording. There would definitely be a buzz like [ʒ] in Connemara. I also notice that there is a definite flap instead, not the English r.

Corresponding to the four l and four n sounds described above we expect to find four parallel r sounds (R, r, R′, r), but it would seem that almost everywhere r has been generalised for R and there are no remains whatsoever of R′. If any traces of R′ had survived we might expect to find them in such sandhi combinations as N′i:r′ r′ïgər se, ‘he did not answer’; f′αrəg ə N′ir′ r′iʃN′æʃi: (f′r′iʃN′æʃαχ), ‘the temper of the irritable man’. I have tried all imaginable combinations but have never heard anything but r′. It is easy to form a palatal r with the articulation of L′, N′, i.e. with the front rim of the tongue pressing against the lower teeth, but I cannot conceive why the sound was given up. Of R on the other hand there are distinct traces, but not in the initial position where it has become r. Fortunately Donegal has not lengthened the vowel in every case before R as Munster and Connaught have done and it is at the end of monosyllables after a short vowel that we must look for the sound.

Maybe I'm mixing up buzz and thrill, how would you describe the pronunciation of the "r" in the Doegen recording?

/R'/, as it says there, disappeared a while ago, merging with /r'/.

As for /R/ and /r/, they began to merge in a few dialects and I think they distinction between them is only left in Ulster.

/R/ is a proper thrill, where as /r/ is a tap. In Munster for example a speaker will either use a tap or a thrill or both in their speech, but they're no longer used to distinguish words.

The tap and thrill are now just two different allophones of /r/, in Munster and I believe in Connacht.

I know all this -what I want to know is what it sounded like

I know all this -what I want to know is what it sounded like

Actually where did you learn it? I only pieced it together from listening to people and a short comment in the Irish of WestMuskerry. I used to think /r/ was simply a tap, until I met a few people who always thrill it or only sometimes do. Brian Ó Cuív mentions that the thrill is an allophone for /r/ and I only know from personal conversation that this comes from /R/ historically. If you have a reference that explains it that's be great, because the R's really confuse me!


A palatalised thrill I guess, a thrill with the body of the tongue raised toward the soft palate.

Brendan or Lughaidh,
could ye make a recording of what ye think the sound would be like, say by having a weak slender and a broad slender r in comparison.

Is this by chance what you guys are talking about? There is a sound file on the page Voiced alveolar raised non-sonorant trill

There are examples in one of my posts above of the "buzzy" slender r.

A Lon Dubh, are the examples I gave above the "buzzy" slender r _you_ mean?

I seem to recall one of the older members of our forum (or the old forum) - I think he was a Munster speaker - making a comment that when he was a young boy only women ever used the "buzzy r", never men. He seemed to be lamenting that it had become "the fashion" nowadays for men to use it as well.


Getting closer. Is there a flapped/tapped version, rather than trilled? (I can see symbols for what should be it on wiki but unfortunately no sound files to confirm it. )

A palatalised thrill I guess, a thrill with the body of the tongue raised toward the soft palate.