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Explanation of linguistic terms and sounds

  • 05-01-2015 3:14am
    #1
    gaiscioch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭


    Would anybody have a recommendation for a book or website which will explain basic linguistic terms, as well as help me understand the phonetic alphabet?

    Essentially, I want to be able to understand this book by Mícheál Ó Siadhail. My ignorance of medial clusters, epenthetic vowels, pretonic elision, "phonetic shape of a verbal form" and so, so many other terms are impeding my ability to understand this. Similarly, would anybody have a recommendation for *hearing* the phonetic alphabet sounds which Ó Siadhail uses throughout the book? Is there a variant of the International Phonetic Alphabet which is specific to Irish that I could listen to that would be more useful for me? I do not find this helpful, unfortunately.
    Thanks.


Comments

  • #2
    AnLonDubh
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 216 ✭✭AnLonDubh


    Just send me a pm, I've read Ó Siadhail's book and know the terms. Irish does use an altered IPA, but the only difference really is marking palatalisation with an apostrophe rather than a j superscript.


  • #3
    Aard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    I would recommend any beginner's phonetic book. It is so long ago since I studied that I'm afraid I can't recommend one off-hand. The wikipedia page might be a good first port of call. Generally my experience was that you simply have to do a LOT of practice before your brain begins to distinguish, recognise and then produce sounds. It is important to learn the difference between phones and phonemes, if you are going down that route.

    You may not need to study phonetics though. The vowels in Irish are similar to those of Spanish (standard 5-vowel system with no front rounded vowels) so quite easy for an English speaker. The difficulties are with consonants. Basically, every consonant is either velarised (leathan/broad) or palatised (caol/slender). Velarised means the tongue moves towards the soft palate / velum, while palatised means the toungue arches towards the hard palate.

    If you have specific questions, simply ask here. Learning how to produce sounds is all about breaking the habits of your mother tongue. There are also many terms that you do not necessarily need to know the meaning of, unless you are going into deep linguistic study. If it's just to learn the language, there are better ways to spend your time.


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