Dia Daoibh, Gach Duine!

I was wondering if anyone with a knowledge of Ulster Irish could enlighten me about a certain aspect of pronunciation.

I’ve been trying to pay special attention to properly pronouncing my broad and slender consonants…I’m even getting better at slender r’s!

But, as I listen to Ulster speakers, it seems as though (my ears could be tricking me, granted) there may be varying ways of pronouncing words ending in “-áin.”

Examples: tiomáin (to drive), ulchabháin (owls), gutháin (telephones)

1) I think I remember reading on an old post on this forum, sometime in the past, that “á” in Ulster is generally pronounced æ/eh on stressed syllables and “ah” on unstressed. As such, I have heard Ulster speakers say “ulchabháin” basically like ULL.huh.wine, which is generally how I prefer to say it, as it, in my opinion, really highlights the á —> slender n transition.

2) On the other hand, I’ve also heard other speakers pronounce such words like “ULL.huh.wenn” …either as if the “á” has no fada, or maybe as if it’s being pronounced as æ, even though it’s on an unstressed syllable.

3) Still others seem to pronounce -áin words as if it’s “ULL.huh.wahñ” … pronouncing the long “á” as “ah” (as expected) and ending on a very subtle slender n placement.

On the CD of the latest book I’m reading (“An Ghaeilge ó Lá go Lá,” narrated by Gaeltacht Ulster speakers), the speakers seem (to my ears) to mostly pronounce these words the 2nd way…but I’ve heard some as way 3 too.

So I guess I’m wondering: is one of those ways more common in the Ulster region/more “preferred” (By that, I mean is one way a more native Gaeltacht pronunciation, as opposed to a non-native “school Irish” pronunciation)…or are all three heard throughout the region?

Thank you for reading my post, and for any help provided…And sorry for the long question!

Assuming that by the doubled n in your transcription, "ULL.huh.wenn", you mean that the sound of the nasal is lengthened somewhat, then this and "ULL.huh.wahñ" are what I would expect from Ulster speakers, much more than your preferred "ULL.huh.wine". That's by no means to say that it's more common, just the impression I've gotten listening to Ulster speakers.

If my assumption above is correct, then I should say I'm finding it difficult to see much difference between "ULL.huh.wenn" and "ULL.huh.wahñ". I'm not familiar with the book you mention, but perhaps it has something to do with the sound which follows the word. I can imagine "ULL.huh.wahñ" might run into a following vowel more fluidly than a following consonant, for example. If this is the case, it might not even come down to individual speakers having slightly different pronunciations.

I know there are some members on here who are more knowledgeable about Ulster dialectal variations than I am, so I'd advise waiting for more input.

An dia céanna dhuit!

Just a friendly reminder that everybody used to address people is a pretty Englishy thing, in Irish traditionally you’d rather just say a dhaoine (though I guess gach daoine in vocative contexts is becoming more common nowadays).

Regarding the pronunciation – I’ve very little knowledge of Ulster Irish, so wait for Lughaidh’s input (or someone else’s), but from the pieces I know about Donegal, I believe that:
1. The unstressed á should be short [a ~ æ], but not reduced to [ə] – so the “ah” sound, but not long.
2. Ulster dialects AFAIK keep the distinction between fortis and lenis sonorants, ie. non-lenited/double and lenited/single L, N, R. The slender single n /n´/ is pretty similar to the broad one, /n/ – both are alveolar, like the English n, the slender one only slightly palatalized (the body of the tongue raised a bit towards the palate). On the other hand, the double nn (or when initial), has much clearer distinction – the broad /N/ being dental (the tip of the tongue behind the top row of teeth), and the slender /N´/ being clearly palatal or alveolo-palatal (the blade of the tongue touching the hard palate, or its front part at least). So the slender feature in the -áin ending might not be very clearly audible (since it has single n).
3. I don’t think there should be a diphthong there, or a very pronounced glide, so no .wine /wain/ syllable there. The consonant should be slender, and it might affect the vowel a bit, but shouldn’t insert a full /j/ consonant here.

But I’ve also read about speakers losing this distinction between /n´/ and /N´/ decades ago and using the stronger slender double /N´/ instead, so I’ve no idea what speakers do these days.

And as I’ve said, not any expert on Ulster dialects myself – so wait for others to comment, but I hope this helps at least a bit in the meantime.

Thank you both Silmeth and Ade for your very detailed and helpful answers! Sorry for the late reply. Got caught up in life and forgot to check back here.

I’ll definitely wait for input from Lughaidh, but you both helped and your answers made sense. (Btw, I should have spelled one of my pronunciations like ULL.huh.wen, instead of ULL.huh.wenn…the double nn wasn’t intended to indicate consonant quality, but rather it was my way of indicating an “ĕ“ sound).

To Silmeth, thank you! I’ll try to remember that about “a dhaoine” instead of “gach duine”…it even sounds better and I want to be as authentic as possible.