Pronunciation of Éabha please

Teerah

Could I have a little help with the pronunciation of this pretty name. I know it has been covered before but I am not entirely clear on it.

Is it AY-va with ay as in say/day

Or is it AVE-ah with the ave as in gave/rave

Many thanks if you can help

Tara

byhookorbycrook

Ay va

Teerah

Thankyou!

PurpleFistMixer

Wait, what's the difference between those two? The "a" in gave/rave is the same "a" as in say/day... o.O

Teerah

It wasnt the "a" sound I was asking about, it was the whole of the first syllable I meant, ie, was it an "ay" sound or an "ave" sound as broken down in the first post

An gal gréine

AY-AH-VA

Aard

AY-va = AVE-ah


I mean, right? Also, IPA should be a requirement for all future pronunciation threads! (I'm only half-joking.)

Teerah

Not in my accent they arent

PS what is IPA?

Aard

IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It gets around the issue of different people having different accents, and the fact that often in English the same letter can have multiple realisations (as such, using English spelling as an approximation of pronunciation invariably leads to confusion).

P. Breathnach

Aard wrote: »

... using English spelling as an approximation of pronunciation invariably leads to confusion.

Whereas, for Irish, spelling and pronunciation actually work very well together. If you read a word that you have never heard, you should be able to pronounce it reasonably correctly in your particular dialect.

Not that it's much help to OP, but the perfect answer to the question of how Éabha should be pronounced is "as it's written (provided that you are speaking Irish)".

Teerah

Thanks for the explanation Aard and for everyones input.

Aard

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Whereas, for Irish, spelling and pronunciation actually work very well together. If you read a word that you have never heard, you should be able to pronounce it reasonably correctly in your particular dialect.

Yep! I've always found that to be true. It works the other way too; if somebody tells you a word, it shouldn't be difficult to spell it. Irish spelling is almost completely regular.

An gal gréine

If it's Irish pronunciation then Éabha is similar to Fionnuala...
Fionn-u-a-la
or in English
Finn-oo-la

Cailleachdubh

Ok, how is Éabha like Fionnuala exactly? They have nothing in common pronounciation wise!!

An gal gréine

In English, for some reason, people dont pronounce the underlined below.

Éabha
Fionnuala
Caitríona

In Irish it's there to be pronounced.

P. Breathnach

An gal gréine wrote: »

In English, for some reason, people dont pronounce the underlined below.

Éabha
Fionnuala
Caitríona

In Irish it's there to be pronounced.

Well, it's a bit yes-and-no. The letters you underline are not given full value as vowels, but they certainly affect how the following consonants are sounded.

Aard

The vowel sound in those underlined examples is "schwa". Basically, a short unstressed central vowel. In these cases it forms the second part of a diphthong.

DeeL34

Depends on where you're from but in Ulster the bh would be pronounced as a 'w' sound as it is preceded and followed by a broad vowel. Therefore it would be pronounced as A (say/day) a (apple) wah

An gal gréine

DeeL34 wrote: »

Depends on where you're from but in Ulster the bh would be pronounced as a 'w' sound as it is preceded and followed by a broad vowel. Therefore it would be pronounced as A (say/day) a (apple) wah

Yes, it's the same as Meadhbh/Meave:
May-a-wah.