Short Pronounciation question

Zachaban

Hi.

I'm German and don't know Gaelic at all, but I'm curious how speakers of Irish language would pronounce the following name:

Raidri Conchobair

(It's a fictional, pseudo-celtic character from a fantasy game)

I have already found out that Conchobair is sometimes anglicised as "Connor", but I wonder if the pronounciation is the same or if there is a slight difference? Surely the "b" must be of some importance?

kylith

Zachaban wrote: »

Hi.

I'm German and don't know Gaelic at all, but I'm curious how speakers of Irish language would pronounce the following name:

Raidri Conchobair

(It's a fictional, pseudo-celtic character from a fantasy game)

I have already found out that Conchobair is sometimes anglicised as "Connor", but I wonder if the pronounciation is the same or if there is a slight difference? Surely the "b" must be of some importance?

I'd pronounce it Raydree Kunchubar. The 'ch' shouldn't be too difficut for a German speaker; it'd be similar to the ch in 'auch'.

An gal gréine

Zachaban wrote: »

Hi.

I'm German and don't know Gaelic at all, but I'm curious how speakers of Irish language would pronounce the following name:

Raidri Conchobair

(It's a fictional, pseudo-celtic character from a fantasy game)

I have already found out that Conchobair is sometimes anglicised as "Connor", but I wonder if the pronounciation is the same or if there is a slight difference? Surely the "b" must be of some importance?

Well, Zachaban, they have altered the names slightly but the pronunciation is changed a lot, and maybe that's what they intended to do.
The origin, I think, is Ruaidhri (pronounced Rroo-rree) and Conchobhair/ Conchúir (pronounced cruhh-oor).
The 'b' gets swallowed up in the 'bh' sound.

Zachaban

Thanks for the feedback, but in the name we got here (in spite of its origins) there is neither an h behind the d in Raidri, nor one behind the b in Conchobair.

So wouldn't they stop being silent? Possibly Roh-dree instead of Roh-ree?

What also puzzles me is that you pronounce Conchúir "cruh-oor". Where does the first "r" in the pronounciation come from? Is Conch = Cruh? If it is, then we would possibly get something like "Cruh-u-bar".

This is wild guessing. Your opinion?

Micilin Muc

kylith wrote: »

I'd pronounce it Raydree Kunchubar. The 'ch' shouldn't be too difficut for a German speaker; it'd be similar to the ch in 'auch'.

Where is it pronounced like that?!!

I would pronounce it Radree Croh-hoor, as it would be in all the three Irish-speaking regions.

JniC

As has been mentioned, cruh-hoor is the pronunciation that is used across all three dialects. Not to confuse, but it can also be pronouced con-chore (the ch being pronounced like in 'auch'). I know a couple of people (Munster Irish, Cork specifically) who pronouce it like this. Cruh-hoor is far more common however.

Su Campu

Was? Ich auch verstehe nicht! Where does the r come from the Conch- part? I'm Irish and have never heard such a pronunciation. I would pronounce it Conchoowar (German "ch").

Could someone pronounce a syllable-by-syllable explanation of what it would sound like slowed down, as I'm sure the Cruh- sound must come about only through the speed at which it's pronounced.

JniC

Su Campu wrote: »

Was? Ich auch verstehe nicht! Where does the r come from the Conch- part? I'm Irish and have never heard such a pronunciation. I would pronounce it Conchoowar (German "ch").

Could someone pronounce a syllable-by-syllable explanation of what it would sound like slowed down, as I'm sure the Cruh- sound must come about only through the speed at which it's pronounced.

It's definitely pronounced cruh-hoor (it's my name). I have always thought it slightly unusual that the 'cruh' sound at the start made it's way into Munster Irish for this name. I have assumed that the 'cr' sound has come from the way words with an 'n' as the second consonant are pronounced in Connaught (and Ulster) Irish. For example;

Cnoc (Hill) - 'Cnuck' (Munster Irish), 'Cruck' (Connaught & Ulster Irish)
Gnáth (Usual) - 'G-naw' (Munster Irish), 'Graw' (Connaught & Ulster Irish)
Mná (Women) - 'Mnaw' (Munster Irish), 'Mraw' (Connaught & Ulster Irish)

Although usually this does not happen when a vowel seperates the n from the first consonant. 'Con' instead of 'Cn'. But it seems to be the same thing happening.

Zachaban

JniC wrote: »

It's definitely pronounced cruh-hoor (it's my name).

Sorry, do I get this right? Your name actually IS Conchobair?

Or Conchobhair? (I start to think there is a big difference)

If your surname is indeed spelled like Raidri's, I will go with your pronounciation and never mind the others

JniC

Zachaban wrote: »

Sorry, do I get this right? Your name actually IS Conchobair?

Or Conchobhair? (I start to think there is a big difference)

If your surname is indeed spelled like Raidri's, I will go with your pronounciation and never mind the others

Yes, Conchobhair, is how I spell my name. Others have said the same pronunciation too. But, yes, Cruh-hoor is how it is pronounced.

The 'h' after the 'b' is more of a gramatical feature. The name can be spelled with or without it but the pronunciation remains the same. The spelling of Irish words became standardised in the 1950's. Before this neither of the 'h' in the name were needed. We call the 'h' a 'séimhiú' (lenition) when it is a featured because of a grammar rule. Before the 1950's this would have been shown as a dot placed over the consonant.
Below are examples of the letters.

http://www.gaelchlo.com/seannod.html
http://www.nualeargais.ie/foghlaim/seanchlo.php

Sorry, you came for a quick pronunciation and got a grammar lesson!!

Basically as I said above, the 'h' after the 'b' doesn't matter. Some people spell it either way, but pronunciation remains the same. Hope this all makes sense!

ericsinjun

O Conchubhair is also my name and it's definately pronounced Cru-choor. I think where you're confused by the "seimhu" on the consonants (the "h" after them) is that in old script there would have been an dot above the c and b in Conchubhair or the d in Ruaidhri. My brother is Ruairi (without the dh) also so I've a bit of experience with this name!
So the sloinne (surname) is pronounced O Cro-choor, and the ainm (name), would be Rooaree.

Just saw JniC post after posting this, yep, too late agin!!

Micilin Muc

The only other way of pronouncing it is "Cunahoor". I've only heard this from a native speaker from Kerry.

Su Campu

Micilin Muc wrote: »

The only other way of pronouncing it is "Cunahoor". I've only heard this from a native speaker from Kerry.

Or "Ciúthoor" in Cavan!

Zachaban

This is quite amazing. I know that Gaelic is at times pronounced very differently from what it looks like, but I never would have guessed Cruhhoor from Conchobair.

Also I'm amazed that there are so many Conchobhairs around, thanks to both of you. Especially the one with a brother of a very similar name might be interested to know that Raidri Conchobair is a great armsman and hero within the most popular pen&paper roleplaying game in Germany, "Das Schwarze Auge". I have a number of friends who would probably kneel in front of someone called Ruairi Conchubhair.

Also thanks to everyone else who made an effort. And I certainly don't mind the grammar lesson - if I wasn't intersted in languages I wouldn't have pursued this.

Go raibh maith agaibh!

bearhugs

I think the confusion is coming from the old Irish pronunciation versus the modern Irish one. In old Irish every sound in the word would be pronounced, for example "Ru - de - ree O Con - chub - air", and in modern Irish the d and the chub have been kind of absorbed into the word, if you know what I mean. Another example is the Irish name Dearbhla, originally it was spelled Dearbharghiolla, and pronounced "Der - vor - ghille."

Rhedyn

JniC wrote: »

Cruh-hoor is far more common however.

That's how I say it too.


It's very common to keep the old spelling with the silent letters in names and surnames.

Mac Donnchadha
Ó Conghaile
Ó Flaithbeartaigh
etc, with poncannaí instead of Hs before the 1950s.

dubhthach

Zachaban wrote: »

This is quite amazing. I know that Gaelic is at times pronounced very differently from what it looks like, but I never would have guessed Cruhhoor from Conchobair.

Also I'm amazed that there are so many Conchobhairs around, thanks to both of you. Especially the one with a brother of a very similar name might be interested to know that Raidri Conchobair is a great armsman and hero within the most popular pen&paper roleplaying game in Germany, "Das Schwarze Auge". I have a number of friends who would probably kneel in front of someone called Ruairi Conchubhair.

Also thanks to everyone else who made an effort. And I certainly don't mind the grammar lesson - if I wasn't intersted in languages I wouldn't have pursued this.

Go raibh maith agaibh!

Part of it is to do with sound-shifts in Irish, the spelling system in general is fairly regular overtime, even if certain values are realised differenting depending on dialect. As someone mentioned Cnoc is now pronunced as Cruc in Connacht/Ulster (probably since medieval period) but in munster it's still pronunced as Cnoc (likewise spelling didn't change)

It's sort of like the High German sound Shift, in case of Irish though the written language is unified (since very early stage) however depending on origin of speaker this reflects pronunciation.

ó Conchubhair = O'Connor/O'Conor in english.

The pronunciation likewise is different in Kerry (Munster) then say in Connacht. In general as the most important O'Connor family is the Connacht one I default to Connacht pronunciation. Likewise when pronuncing Conchubhair as a first name (Connor).

Ruaidhrí Ua Conchobair was the last High-King of Ireland at the time of the Cambro-Norman invasion.

word internal dh/gh is generally silent in modern Irish (probably since the 12-14th century onwards) and reformed spelling is Ruairí (anglisced as Rory)

Enkidu

The old Irish pronunciation of Ruaidhrí is quite difficult actually. Firstly the initial r would have been trilled and the dh would have sounded like the th is English "this". The second r would have almost sounded like z.

dubhthach

Enkidu wrote: »

The old Irish pronunciation of Ruaidhrí is quite difficult actually. Firstly the initial r would have been trilled and the dh would have sounded like the th is English "this". The second r would have almost sounded like z.

wouldn't it not be like the th in "that" (ð) as oppose to th in "this" (θ)? Though from what I recall reading the values of ð for dh and θ for th is reckoned to have been lost from about 1200 onwards.

In case of θ it reduced to h. Whereas ð merged with slender/broad Gh.

Enkidu

dubhthach wrote: »

wouldn't it not be like the th in "that" (ð) as oppose to th in "this" (θ)? Though from what I recall reading the values of ð for dh and θ for th is reckoned to have been lost from about 1200 onwards.

In case of θ it reduced to h. Whereas ð merged with slender/broad Gh.

Sorry, you're right of course, I mean ð. In particular slender ð, which is the th in that but like a version followed by a narrow vowel. The easiest example I can think of is a made up word like "thit".

Old Irish would have had four Rs.
Broad Lentis R - trill/tap, like Spanish perro/oro
Slender Lentis R - a slender trill/tap
Non-Lentis broad R - frictive, an r with a slight z quality
Non-Lentis slender R - frictive, an r with a strong z quality

Weirdly enough Modern Irish has Broad Lentis R for broad r and Non-lentis slender R for slender r. Although some dialects still have non-lentis broad R at the start of words, such as Cork Irish.

It's crazy that dh,th was lost only one hundred years (or less) after the Bards created their standard. The spelling system was then outdated for the next few hundred years.

BarryD

Apologies of sorts for resurrecting an old thread but I'm puzzled by the way written Irish is often represented. I can fully understand that there are different dialects of Gaeilge and different ways of saying a word that has a particular meaning, but why represent these various ways with the same spelling? It is odd that Conchúir or Conchobhair is pronouced as Croo-hur or Crehur, not the last part but that the sound 'cruh' should be represented as 'con'.

Likewise as noted above, the common word 'cnoc' for a hill is often said as 'cruck' or 'crick' in the west. So I can take that it's fine for people in Munster to say Cnoc (Knock) and write it as Cnoc but why should Connacht or Ulster people write it thus, why not 'cruc'? Would this not be a fairer written representation of how they speak? It seems to happen with some words, so 'cnag' for a small knoll or lump or knob is seen spelt 'creig' or 'creag' in the west.

hullaballoo

Standardisation.

What is difficult to grasp looking at Irish from an English-speaker's stand-point is that the languages were not written down for the vast majority of their existence. As well as that, despite all being dialects of Irish, they clearly sound totally different depending on where you are.

I don't know what prompted the standardisation of Irish but it was never going to be an exercise that would be successful because of the above.

Basically, the languages spoken around Ireland have a superficial resemblance when written but the truth is that the cost of that is the loss of the ability to record these very distinct variations on a linguistic family.

BarryD

hullaballoo wrote: »

Standardisation.

What is difficult to grasp looking at Irish from an English-speaker's stand-point is that the languages were not written down for the vast majority of their existence. As well as that, despite all being dialects of Irish, they clearly sound totally different depending on where you are.

I don't know what prompted the standardisation of Irish but it was never going to be an exercise that would be successful because of the above.

Basically, the languages spoken around Ireland have a superficial resemblance when written but the truth is that the cost of that is the loss of the ability to record these very distinct variations on a linguistic family.

I'm sure there must be more information on this problem, must look around. You'd think it reasonable to have variance in the written language to better reflect regional use. Why shoehorn all into one standardised form, Munster Irish from what I mostly gather from examples I can think of. Garbh and Talamh are two other words that come to mind, said more like Garru and Tallu in Connacht & Ulster. How can you write down what a Connacht man with Ulster influences is telling you - he says Garru for Garbh and something like 'tiune' for 'tóin'. What's the sense in writing this words as garbh and tóin when they don't sound like that at all?

dubhthach

BarryD wrote: »

Apologies of sorts for resurrecting an old thread but I'm puzzled by the way written Irish is often represented. I can fully understand that there are different dialects of Gaeilge and different ways of saying a word that has a particular meaning, but why represent these various ways with the same spelling? It is odd that Conchúir or Conchobhair is pronouced as Croo-hur or Crehur, not the last part but that the sound 'cruh' should be represented as 'con'.

Likewise as noted above, the common word 'cnoc' for a hill is often said as 'cruck' or 'crick' in the west. So I can take that it's fine for people in Munster to say Cnoc (Knock) and write it as Cnoc but why should Connacht or Ulster people write it thus, why not 'cruc'? Would this not be a fairer written representation of how they speak? It seems to happen with some words, so 'cnag' for a small knoll or lump or knob is seen spelt 'creig' or 'creag' in the west.

Because the written standard is continuation of the previous written standard which predates the sound changes?

So in Old Irish Conchobar was spelt exactly as it was written (word internal "b" always "bh" in Old Irish ). The prononuciation been reflected in the "Latin version" of the name:
Conchovarius or Conquovarus (latin -us added)

Likewise for Cnoc. The shift of /n/ -> /r/ in certain dialects belongs to late "Middle Irish" stage, however it wasn't reflected in the literally standard adapted around 1200 (eg. "Early Modern Irish" -- which despite it's name is as distinct from "Modern Irish" as "Middle English" is from "Modern English")

For example in Old Irish "th" would have been pronounced like in English, it's only really in 11th/12th century that it collapsed to /h/, however "Early Modern Irish" retained the "th" spelling (likewise for dh and gh merging, they had been distinct sounds before then)

One could argue thus that the preservation of spelling Conchobhar is an archaism, thence there exists spelling Conchúr which for example in Munster would be pronounced with a /n/

You see the same process in English, for example cockney's pronounce "thing" as "fing" (th -> f) however they still spell it as "thing" as that's standard english spelling. Likewise in North America where despite the "Northern Cities Vowel Shift" you still spell words the standard english way.

In case of Irish one could argue that German is an interesting parallel where standard German forms a shared literary koine but locally spoken German can be verging on nearly a separate language (Swiss German mar shampla)

BarryD

Hmm.. thanks for above examples. It's not an area that I know enough about at all. I suspect though that written languages should and do keep pace with spoken dialects. Common enough for new terms and spellings to be added to standard English dictionaries to reflect modern usage. So why not for Irish? Apropos, came across a CD by flute player Marcus Hernon from Connemara area a while back and he complained of same problem - he had his notes and tune titles in the Irish he'd grown up with but to publish it, he had to shoehorn it into a form of written Irish that looked foreign to him. Is there a case to be made for regional spelling? Or maybe it exists in practice in real life?

dubhthach

BarryD wrote: »

Hmm.. thanks for above examples. It's not an area that I know enough about at all. I suspect though that written languages should and do keep pace with spoken dialects. Common enough for new terms and spellings to be added to standard English dictionaries to reflect modern usage. So why not for Irish? Apropos, came across a CD by flute player Marcus Hernon from Connemara area a while back and he complained of same problem - he had his notes and tune titles in the Irish he'd grown up with but to publish it, he had to shoehorn it into a form of written Irish that looked foreign to him. Is there a case to be made for regional spelling? Or maybe it exists in practice in real life?

English is full of words which are spelt quite differently from how they are prononunced, part of reason of course is to do with stuff like "great vowel shift" (as a result "ee" in english is same as í in Irish, whereas "ee" in Dutch is prononunced like Irish é) or the other ways english has changed over last couple hundred years.

For example look at words such as:
Island, thought, cough, laugh, debt, doubt, book, foot etc.

("gh" in english use to be prononunced until 16/17th century like broad "ch" in Irish, thence loch -> lough, and why Daragh is actually Darach and not Dara)

It's easy enough for new words to reflect current pronunciation, but if you are to change all pre-existing words you run into issues, look at for example situation with american vs. "english" spelling.

Shan Ó Cuív back nearly 100 years ago proposed a revised spelling system for Irish called "Litriú Shimplí" (in his spelling "sh" would be prononunced like in english eg. "slender s"), it was based on Munster Irish, but the idea went down like a lead balloon.

What was basically standardised on was an updated version of orthography from "Early Modern Irish" (eg. Classical texts such as used in 17th century) with updated grammar etc. Some mention publishing of Trí Biorghaoithe an Bháis in 1890 (edited by Atkinson) as if anything reviving an updated form of the"Classic spelling system"). The original text of course is by Geoffrey Keating and dates to early 17th century.

Obviously this still retained spelling combinations that were obsolete in spoken language, or was realised differently in the spoken dialects, which had undergone divergence particularly with the extinction of the intermediate dialects -- consider also that 100+ years ago you had dialect chain from Donegal to Kerry, as a result you had intermediate dialects (Clare had one closer to Connacht/South Galway, another closer to Déise Irish, think it might have had a third closer to Kerry Irish etc.)

Anyways when eventually they came about coming up with a simplified spelling (which was driven by needs of civil service), not only did they fix some issues (non-prononunced characters) but they also introduced "bugs" into the system. eg spellings that didn't conform to all of the dialects (or in some cases to none of them).

A good example of first is the word Gaeilge, which reflects Conamara usage, it's simplified version of Gaedhilge which was genitive case of Gaedhealg (you also see it spelt Gaoidhealg with genitive Gaoidhilge). a good comparison is with name of language in Scotland with is Gàidhlig ‎(genitive Gàidhlige)

In Conamara the nominative ceased to be used and default usage was the genitive while in donegal they still used in nominative reflect in spelt form as:

Gaedhlaing
Gaeilg
Gaeilic
Gaedhlag

Whereas in Munster you have:

Gaolainn
Gaoluinn
Gaelainn

The "standard" (caighdeán oifigiúil) was introduced in 1957, so it wouldn't surprise me if Marcus Hernon learnt to spell in Irish with "pre-standard" style. some good pieces to read on various problems with Irish spelling:

(in context of constitution)
http://web.archive.org/web/20110721123220/http://www.constitution.ie/publications/irish-text.pdf#page=34

(article on standardisation of spelling)
https://web.archive.org/web/20131005010455/http://www.englishspellingsociety.org/journals/j22/irish.php

(Irish Times article from 1998)
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/writing-the-wrongs-1.197671

BarryD

Thanks Dubthach, that throws some light on the area for me and some interesting links there. I approach this with a reason, I've been collecting local placenames over in Mayo. There are two notable features: most ( but not all) placenames have an Irish origin and these have largely been learnt aurally in the local community. So they tend to be in the local dialect, even if the people are 'English' speaking nowadays and don't use Irish per se. My use for these is on maps and one of my core thoughts on this is that the written form should reflect or at least approach the local pronunciation. This can be difficult using 'standard' or 'official' Irish - e.g. a farmer tells me such a river is called the Abhainn Garru or Garrú even i.e. the 'rough' river. In official Irish, this would be Abhainn Garbh but putting that on a map is misleading to any reader - they will most likely (if educated through school Irish anyway) interpret this as Abhainn 'Garve'. Representing the name as Abhainn Garru runs the risk of 'offending' Irish scholars, is a move towards Anglicising the word, but is truer to local usage.

I came to this thread when checking a rocky hillock written as Creigín Conchúir but which my local informant of course said was Creigín Cre-hur Same issue arises in a good many other cases - so a dilemma of sorts that I'm thinking a way through.

dubhthach

Well you would run into same issue with placenames in English, for example Tuam and Tallaght aren't really spelt how they are pronounced. As a Galwegian it's often quite funny hearing radio presenters in Dublin rhyme Tuam with "Toome/Tomb", let alone Shantalla and Lough Atalia!

In case of Garbh, the word is derived from Old Irish Garb, which in turn comes from Proto-Celtic (reconstructed) *garwos -- welsh cognate is garw. I'm not sure how it's misleading, a native speaker would pronounce Garbh as per their dialect. The same issue of course arises with the word Tarbh in placenames. (no doubt the people of Portlaoise will start complaining about how people pronounce their town name -- in contrast to local pronunciation)

In some ways one could argue that the orthography by been able to accommodate different dialect speakers in some ways reflects flexibity of systems such as Han characters (where pronunciation/word can be quite different but "character" means same thing -- contrast Mandarin and Cantonese as extreme example).

I'd be more inclined to keep the placenames as their original spelling but add notation on dialectical variation of pronunciation.

The issue of course is more to do with fact that learners of Irish aren't exposed enough to dialectical variations, after all we hear plenty of American-English on tv that by and large the average Hiberno-English speaker has no issues following an American, (if ye had never heard american pronunciation of "Mobile" before it would seem strange!) whereas often in average school class there's panic when speaker from say Donegal comes on the "aural tape", of course if ye tune in to watch a certain Donegal presenter on TG4 doing weather enough ye wouldn't have any problems!

dubhthach

A quick google turned up these two quotes (from a post on daltai.com)

"Final non-palatal bh after an epenthetic vowel is vocalised to u: or less commonly retained as w, e.g. marbh ma:ru:, ma:rэw, banbh ba:Nu:, ba:Nэw."

— Tomás de Bhaldraithe, "The Irish of Cois Fhairrge, Co. Galway"
__________________________________________________

"Epenthetic vowels occurred at the intermediate stage of the development of tarbh and such words — e.g. balbh balu:, garbh garu:, banbh banu:, searbh ∫aru: — thus tarbh → *tarabh → tarú. So too an epenthetic vowel developed between r and gh at an intermediate stage of the evolution of dorgha, thus dorgha → doragha → *dorú → drú."

— Éamonn Mhac an Fhailigh, "The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo"

BarryD

dubhthach wrote: »

Well you would run into same issue with placenames in English, for example Tuam and Tallaght aren't really spelt how they are pronounced. As a Galwegian it's often quite funny hearing radio presenters in Dublin rhyme Tuam with "Toome/Tomb", let alone Shantalla and Lough Atalia!

In case of Garbh, the word is derived from Old Irish Garb, which in turn comes from Proto-Celtic (reconstructed) *garwos -- welsh cognate is garw. I'm not sure how it's misleading, a native speaker would pronounce Garbh as per their dialect. The same issue of course arises with the word Tarbh in placenames. (no doubt the people of Portlaoise will start complaining about how people pronounce their town name -- in contrast to local pronunciation)

In some ways one could argue that the orthography by been able to accommodate different dialect speakers in some ways reflects flexibity of systems such as Han characters (where pronunciation/word can be quite different but "character" means same thing -- contrast Mandarin and Cantonese as extreme example).

I'd be more inclined to keep the placenames as their original spelling but add notation on dialectical variation of pronunciation.

The issue of course is more to do with fact that learners of Irish aren't exposed enough to dialectical variations, after all we hear plenty of American-English on tv that by and large the average Hiberno-English speaker has no issues following an American, (if ye had never heard american pronunciation of "Mobile" before it would seem strange!) whereas often in average school class there's panic when speaker from say Donegal comes on the "aural tape", of course if ye tune in to watch a certain Donegal presenter on TG4 doing weather enough ye wouldn't have any problems!

Thanks again - I agree with you about Anglicised forms of many placenames, it is common enough to find that local pronunciation varies considerably. But this is largely a problem to do with the Anglicising conventions that were applied - often an attempt to shoehorn words that are pronounced differently into one form. Well known example is Drom or Drum for Irish Droim, which is said as Drum in Leinster but in northern areas as Drim. However 'house policy' in the Ordnance Survey in the 1830s was to represent all forms as 'drum' etc. A suppression of local culture, you might say. Other factors as well often at play but normally just reflects the same problem of trying to represent different dialects with standard written forms.

I guess my 'difficulty' is that my maps (and maps in general) are not by and large read by local native speakers who know to interpret 'garbh' as 'garru' etc. They are read by a wider audience, mostly non Irish speaking or at best have a 'standardised' school Irish. And this is where the written conventions fall down where differences in dialect are concerned, as they don't always convey the local pronunciation. Yes, a sort of written coda would help, a pronunciation guide - but that is a stilted solution.

Have you any experience of native Connacht or Ulster Irish speakers who have written or write in Irish? Just curious how they represent their language, do they stick to convention or use their own local forms? I mean ordinary folk now, not scholars.