How the hell has this happened?

stephen090

I've been trying to work out what's going on with regards to the pronunciation of the letter A(a)...

Now, I don't know why my mind has made me believe that there's a different pronunciation of the capital form i.e -A in comparison to the non-capital- a... ( I would pronounce the non-capital like the 'word' "a" (for example: a cat)

I've noticed that I'm not the only Irish person who says this...although an English man stopped me and asked what I was on about when I said it. We Irish also have a tendency for saying -and spelling the word "bet" when we mean 'beat'... perhaps it's something that has derived from the reading of Tara and Ben books..?

How do you pronounce these?

Nabber

Go to bed

Derpington95

Nabber wrote: »

Go to bed

Go to bread.

Redhairedguy

'Bread to Go' delivery service.

donvito99

When I was in an Irish school, if we ever spelt, say, cáca, it would be see ah fada see ah.

That changed at an English speaking school to see ay fada see ay.

Weird, innit.

fasttalkerchat

Which one is the English one?
I try to use ehh on the phone but they understand aah fine.

The King of Moo

stephen090 wrote: »

I've been trying to work out what's going on with regards to the pronunciation of the letter A(a)...

Now, I don't know why my mind has made me believe that there's a different pronunciation of the capital form i.e -A in comparison to the non-capital- a... ( I would pronounce the non-capital like the 'word' "a" (for example: a cat)

I've noticed that I'm not the only Irish person who says this...although an English man stopped me and asked what I was on about when I said it. We Irish also have a tendency for saying -and spelling the word "bet" when we mean 'beat'... perhaps it's something that has derived from the reading of Tara and Ben books..?

How do you pronounce these?

Capitals have nothing to do with it. In some words, the letter "a" has the sound we'd normally consider to be the common sound of "a" (usually on a stressed syllable), and in others it has the shorter, more basic sound of the schwa (usually in unstressed syllables).

For example: the two different sounds of the letters "a" in the word "capital." Note the emphasis on the first syllable, which gives it the more traditional "a" sound.

And yes, we pronounce some words differently from English speakers in other countries. Don't let it worry you unless people have difficulty understanding you.

Now go to bed.

Czarcasm

When did AH turn into the Spelling and Grammar forum?

The King of Moo

donvito99 wrote: »

When I was in an Irish school, if we ever spelt, say, cáca, it would be see ah fada see ah.

That changed at an English speaking school to see ay fada see ay.

Weird, innit.

The letter "a" is pronounced as "ah" as Gaeilge and in Italian, hence why speakers of both languages often pronounce it as such. Many older Irish people, even if they don't speak much Irish, continue to pronounce it that way.

stephen090

Czarcasm wrote: »

When did AH turn into the Spelling and Grammar forum?

I tried but I couldn't find the "spelling and grammar" forum :mad:

stefan idiot jones

Aadvark. Is this what you meant ?

Sunnyisland

In some parts of the country A is pronounced like hay... :-)

Big Nasty

realies wrote: »

In some parts of the country A is pronounced like hay... :-)

In other parts they put 'hay' at the end of each sentence. E.g. 'Grand bit o' weather there now hay!'

fishy fishy

you must be speaking about the AA people who pronounce the word "roundabout" as "raandabaat".

Agree, don't know where this accent came from - its a cross between trying to be English/American and failing miserably - usually to be found on TV3

Celly Smunt

Ayyyyyy

Capt'n Midnight

Probably a hangover from the The Great Vowel Shift

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

Or it could be because we use more phonemes than the English


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno%E2%80%90English

long monophthongs are often diphthongised, and while some diphthongs are tripthongised.

Big Nasty

pmcmahon wrote: »

Ayyyyyy

Exactamondo!

chopperbyrne

Forget about A, everyone needs to realise that R is pronounced ar and not or.

Antar Bolaeisk

I'd use 'ay' if I was trying to emphasise something, kinda like the and thee, otherwise I use 'ah'.

What about H ?

Aych or Haych?

Paramite Pie

The alphabet we use was designed for Latin, not any other European language. SO all across Europe you will get different pronunciations for the same letters.

English has more sounds than letters to represent them as do many languages (hence the wacky inconsistent spellings in English).

The Irish language had (and still has) different pronunciations of vowels/consonants than English. So when the Irish first started speaking English their accents weren't able to replicate the sounds of English directly so they were pronounced based of what they heard.

Have you ever tried to pronounce a foreign word only to be corrected on pronunciation even though you can't hear the difference? I imagine it was like this for our ancestors 150 years ago. This is where the modern Irish accent comes from, even though few of us speak Irish, it still affects our English pronunciation and alot of the 'bad' grammar you hear in rural areas.

Similarly, French people still sound French even when they speak English.

hatrickpatrick

Czarcasm wrote: »

When did AH turn into the Spelling and Grammar forum?

There's a Spelling and Grammar forum???
Oh Jesus Christ.

Celly Smunt

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

What about H ?

Aych or Haych?

Interesting story,

Back during the troubles Catholic schools thought "haych" as the proper pronunciation,whilst protestant schools thought "aych".At the entrance to both communities,guards would get civilians to recite the alphabet to find out whether they were welcome in the area.If somebody failed this test they wouldn't be able to walk back out with their kneecaps in tact.

gurramok

Its only at the dentist that I pronounce A as Ahhhhhhhh!

kylith

I do it by pronunciation: Alan would be 'ah el ah en', but cake would be 'see ay kay ee'.

Something like Michaela would be 'em eye see haitch ay ee el ah', which would probably confuse the hell out of non-Irish peopl

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Roger_007

draiochtanois wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

As in 'Grand day for saving the hay hey' ?