Dáil => Dawl or Doyle?

Iwasfrozen

So this is something that's been confusing me for a while and I'm wondering if you guys could shed some light. Common convention in and out of the media has Dáil pronounced as Dawl but I've heard a lot of people say it should be pronounced as Doyle.

From my (extremely basic) level of Irish and the help of google I've managed to work out the below.

Broad D (since D precedes á) => Duh
á => aw
i => short eh sound
Slender l => same as English l

So put it together you get Duh - aw - eh - l or "Dawl", so where does Doyle come from? Is this another dialect? A legitimate alternative or simply wrong?

Thanks.

jca

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So this is something that's been confusing me for a while and I'm wondering if you guys could shed some light. Common convention in and out of the media has Dáil pronounced as Dawl but I've heard a lot of people say it should be pronounced as Doyle.

From my (extremely basic) level of Irish and the help of google I've managed to work out the below.

Broad D (since D precedes á) => Duh
á => aw
i => short eh sound
Slender l => same as English l

So put it together you get Duh - aw - eh - l or "Dawl", so where does Doyle come from? Is this another dialect? A legitimate alternative or simply wrong?

Thanks.

Simply wrong, you've answered your own ceist.

Insect Overlord

It should be something closer to "daw-yil" really, but RTÉ presenters seem to be trained to call it the Doyle.

jca

An File wrote: »

It should be something closer to "daw-yil" really, but RTÉ presenters seem to be trained to call it the Doyle.

Trained? Who told you that?

Sam Kade

It's Dawl abything else is false accent nonsense

Iwasfrozen

An File wrote: »

It should be something closer to "daw-yil" really, but RTÉ presenters seem to be trained to call it the Doyle.

Why do you think this is? If Doyle is wrong then why are mispronounciations permitted?

If a news presenter pronounced Parliament as "Pah-rill-ment" they'd be corrected by the studio (or more likely they wouldn't have gotten the job in the first pkace)

Slightly off topic I think Irish needs an official spoken dialect.

screamer

Yep the a fada is AW.
RTE presenters just try to make things sound fancier than they are, note how none of them can say RTE it's ORTE...... it's a D4 I'm think I'm so posh thing......;)

Notoldorwise

RTE presenters seem to have started to mimic Pearse Doherty's Donegal accent......

Captain Chaos

It's just RTE presenters, they can't say the gardai either. They say the goordee.

Neon_Lights

Doyle comes from Anne Doyle, who is like a piece of the furniture in mcgrattans across from leinster house, theyre both in a similar location so I can see where the OP has a bit of confusion.

Some say Anne Doyle is a secret conspirator in a hidden irish government run by the D4 populous to supress the spud eating westerners and coddle shoveling northsiders into supression, in order to ring fence their fois gras lifestyle. But don't shoot the messenger, i heard this off a mad chap at the bus stop, but it made sense to me so it why i shared it with you all.

jca

Neon_Lights wrote: »

Doyle comes from Anne Doyle, who is like a piece of the furniture in mcgrattans across from leinster house, theyre both in a similar location so I can see where the OP has a bit of confusion.

Some say Anne Doyle is a secret conspirator in a hidden irish government run by the D4 populous to supress the spud eating westerners and coddle shoveling northsiders into supression, in order to ring fence their fois gras lifestyle. But don't shoot the messenger, i heard this off a mad chap at the bus stop, but it made sense to me so it why i shared it with you all.

Fair play to her being from Ferns n'all.

Comhairleoir

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So this is something that's been confusing me for a while and I'm wondering if you guys could shed some light. Common convention in and out of the media has Dáil pronounced as Dawl but I've heard a lot of people say it should be pronounced as Doyle.

From my (extremely basic) level of Irish and the help of google I've managed to work out the below.

Broad D (since D precedes á) => Duh
á => aw
i => short eh sound
Slender l => same as English l

So put it together you get Duh - aw - eh - l or "Dawl", so where does Doyle come from? Is this another dialect? A legitimate alternative or simply wrong?

Thanks.

Lots of sounds in Irish that have no English equivalent so people try and pronounce something close to it.

In Irish, try and pronounce every vowel where possible.
So 'Scoil' shouldn't be pronounced like 'skull'. If it were, it would have to be spelled 'Scol'. Instead it should be "sku-ill" - to listen, click on either "C" "M" or "U" beside Scoil on http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/school.

Same logic for Dáil - find it under 'allocate' and click to listen : http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/allocate?advSearch=1&q=d%C3%A1il&inlanguage=ga#allocate__2

Try gloine too - http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/glass?advSearch=1&q=gloine&inlanguage=ga#glass__2

Iwasfrozen

Comhairleoir wrote: »

Lots of sounds in Irish that have no English equivalent so people try and pronounce something close to it.

In Irish, try and pronounce every vowel where possible.
So 'Scoil' shouldn't be pronounced like 'skull'. If it were, it would have to be spelled 'Scol'. Instead it should be "sku-ill" - to listen, click on either "C" "M" or "U" beside Scoil on http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/school.

Same logic for Dáil - find it under 'allocate' and click to listen : http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/allocate?advSearch=1&q=d%C3%A1il&inlanguage=ga#allocate__2

Try gloine too - http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/glass?advSearch=1&q=gloine&inlanguage=ga#glass__2

That still sounds more like Dawyl with a very short y than Doyle.

Caoimhgh1n

It is dialectal, I believe. "ái" can either be pronounced "aw" or "eye" depending on where you're from.

So, I would say Milseáin - Mil- Shine
Ar fáil - Air File
Dáil - Doyle

They are not exact pronunciations of course, but close enough.

luketitz

It sounds a little bit like Chipotle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ADu3tHanP8

Iwasfrozen

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

It is dialectal, I believe. "ái" can either be pronounced "aw" or "eye" depending on where you're from.

So, I would say Milseáin - Mil- Shine
Ar fáil - Air File
Dáil - Doyle

They are not exact pronunciations of course, but close enough.

Yeah I guess it goes back to what I was saying earlier about needing an "official dialect", not to take anything away from the other dialects but Irish missed out on the standardization that other European languages went through.

I find it amazing that Irish varies more between Donegal and Galway than English and Spanish vary between continents. It's nice to preserve the distinctiveness of dialects but we also need a standard.

Neon_Lights

jca wrote: »

Fair play to her being from Ferns n'all.

It's a long way from d4 to pick up an accent

An gal gréine

Sam Kade wrote: »

It's Dawl abything else is false accent nonsense

The "i" is there to be pronounced.

An gal gréine

An File wrote: »

It should be something closer to "daw-yil" really, but RTÉ presenters seem to be trained to call it the Doyle.

Yes but I would run it together. The 'i' has to be pronounced, so "dawl" is not right.
I also have a problem with them using the English alphabet 'd'.
I suppose if they were never told that there is a difference then they just don't know about it.

eezipc

That was a letter in the Indo yesterday I think.
To me, Doyle is just Dail with a northern accent.

Iwasfrozen

An gal gréine wrote: »

Yes but I would run it together. The 'i' has to be pronounced, so "dawl" is not right.
I also have a problem with them using the English alphabet 'd'.
I suppose if they were never told that there is a difference then they just don't know about it.

What's the difference? How would you say it and what dialect do you speak?

An gal gréine

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

What's the difference? How would you say it and what dialect do you speak?

I have the Ulster dialect.
The 'd' in dáil is exactly the same in all the dialects.
In Ulster the 'á' is different but that's a different story.
In the Irish language you hit the back of your teeth with your tongue when saying the 'd' in 'dáil'. This is not done in English.

Iwasfrozen

An gal gréine wrote: »

I have the Ulster dialect.
The 'd' in dáil is exactly the same in all the dialects.
In Ulster the 'á' is different but that's a different story.
In the Irish language you hit the back of your teeth with your tongue when saying the 'd' in 'dáil'. This is not done in English.

I believe you also hit your teeth for the Irish t as well?

OK so would Doyle be more of a Donegal thing while those in Connacht and Munster would say Dawyl with a very short y sound?

Caoimhgh1n

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I believe you also hit your teeth for the Irish t as well?

OK so would Doyle be more of a Donegal thing while those in Connacht and Munster would say Dawyl with a very short y sound?

Not always, I know speakers from Connacht and Munster who would say Doyle.

An gal gréine

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I believe you also hit your teeth for the Irish t as well?

OK so would Doyle be more of a Donegal thing while those in Connacht and Munster would say Dawyl with a very short y sound?

Yes, the 't' as well. You can tell a native Irish speaker in the majority of cases by how they pronounce a simple word like 'tá'.

In Donegal we would say it something like Dehil, rather than Doyle, as the 'á' is not said as 'aw' like in the other provinces.
In Belfast they leave out the 'á' and say something like 'dyle'.

Paz-CCFC

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It's just RTE presenters, they can't say the gardai either. They say the goordee.

Their pronunciation of "gardaí" is spot on. According to Munster and standardised Irish, anyway. The A sounds like an O in English - eg, "ard" (high) sounds like the first syllable of "ordinance". They also correctly use a broad D, which comes across a bit like a th in English. So, it kind of sounds like they're saying "gore-thee".

I think that the more northern dialects might give a bit of a harsher "ah" sound when using A, but I don't think it's fully the same as what it's like in English. Most people who say Gardaí like "gahr-dee" in English are, imo, using an anglicised pronunciation rather than any Irish dialect, which is simply incorrect.

Iwasfrozen

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

They're pronunciation of "gardaí" is spot on. According to Munster and standardised Irish, anyway. The A sounds like an O in English - eg, "ard" (high) sounds like the first syllable of "ordinance". They also correctly use a broad D, which comes across a bit like a th in English. So, it kind of sounds like they're saying "gore-thee".

I think that the more northern dialects might give a bit of a harsher "ah" sound when using A, but I don't think it's fully the same as what it's like in English. Most people who say Gardaí like "gahr-dee" in English are, imo, using an anglicised pronunciation rather than any Irish dialect, which is simply incorrect.

You see this is why we need a standardized dialect. These rules need to be codified. It's crazy that we can't even agree on how words like "Dáil" and "gardaí" are pronounced.

Yes you get varience in English but not to this extent. Irish changes more between counties than English and Spanish changes across continents.

The purpose of a standard dialect is not to replace dialects but yo standaruze speech while still allowing for variance in cxeby.

Insect Overlord

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that in full. There's great differences across England alone, if you compare different parts of London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Yorkshire. Irish accents change a lot, e.g. from different neighbourhoods north and south of the Liffey. You'd struggle to make speakers give up their own natural accents to any meaningful level.

Paz-CCFC

We have standardised Irish - an Ghaeilge Chaighdeánach. This is the Irish taught across the country, although certain teachers tend to put their own dialectal twist on things. Few native speakers will speak like that, though, because it's not what they grew up with. They would've learnt the standard to a degree in school, but if you're speaking a certain dialect all day at home, then that will stick. The same way I, being from Cork, don't speak like a Dub. I don't drop my Ts like they would with certain words - eg, alright/alri' or roll my Ts into Rs -eg, get up/gerrup. I don't see that as a problem, really. We can still communicate with one another. Just as I can communicate with someone of another Irish dialect.

I'd agree with an File about the wide variances of English. The distance between Baile Mhúirne and an Daingean is about half that of Manchester and Liverpool. Yet, I would say that the Irish spoken in the former areas is more similar than the English spoken in the latter.

Caoimhgh1n

It's just like vase, advertisement and either, people pronounce words differently, but they can still be understood. For example, I pronounce aghaidh as "eye-g", whereas I know others who would also pronounce it as "eye", without the g sound. I can still fully understand them, so standardisation isn't really necessary.

Iwasfrozen

An File wrote: »

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that in full. There's great differences across England alone, if you compare different parts of London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Yorkshire. Irish accents change a lot, e.g. from different neighbourhoods north and south of the Liffey. You'd struggle to make speakers give up their own natural accents to any meaningful level.

I don't want to make native speakers give up their pronunciation but I do believe there should be a standard Irish for learners, state media and state exams.

Similar to High German or Standard Italian, even Madrid style Spanish. They don't replace regional dialects but they act as a unifying lynchpin.

At the moment Connacht Irish kind of fulfils that role though it lacks the status necessary. A standardized pronunciation would likely be based mostly on Connacht Irish.

Iwasfrozen

An gal gréine wrote: »

Yes but I would run it together. The 'i' has to be pronounced, so "dawl" is not right.
I also have a problem with them using the English alphabet 'd'.
I suppose if they were never told that there is a difference then they just don't know about it.

Just to go back on this if I may, I was reading about Irish orthography to get a better understanding and I came across the below on wikipedia.

Vowels on either side of a fada vowel are silent. They are present only to satisfy the "caol le caol agus leathan le leathan" ("slender with slender and broad with broad") rule. This rule states that e or i (slender) and a or o or u (broad) vowels must be of the same type on both sides of any consonant, to unambiguously determine the consonant's own broad vs slender pronunciation. (An apparent exception is the combination ae, which is followed by a broad consonant despite the e.)
Between a consona

Would this not indicate that the i in Dáil after a broad fada vowel á should be silent in standard Irish and only there to indicate the l is slender?

An gal gréine

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Just to go back on this if I may, I was reading about Irish orthography to get a better understanding and I came across the below on wikipedia.



Would this not indicate that the i in Dáil after a broad fada vowel á should be silent in standard Irish and only there to indicate the l is slender?

Teachta Dála. Dawla would be an approximate pronunciation.
Having an 'i' in the word as in 'Dáil', has to be different in pronunciation.

Niemoj

Dá = Daww, because Á is a lengthened A sound.
il = ill with the i being a shortened sound.

So add them together and you get dawl, brawl with a D basically.

At least that's my understanding and pronounciation of it.

Iwasfrozen

An gal gréine wrote: »

Teachta Dála. Dawla would be an approximate pronunciation.
Having an 'i' in the word as in 'Dáil', has to be different in pronunciation.

So do we pronounce the i as a seperate vowel? Because from my reading of that wiki quote it sounds like the i should be silent next to a fada vowel and only exists to indicate the l is slender?

sryanbruen

I pronounce "Dáil" as Dawl. The 'i' there is like a silent 'p' in English.

Caoimhgh1n

sryanbruen wrote: »

I pronounce "Dáil" as Dawl. The 'i' there is like a silent 'p' in English.

The "i" has to be pronounced.

sryanbruen

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

The "i" has to be pronounced.

Then would it not be pronounced like "Daw-il"?

Insect Overlord

sryanbruen wrote: »

Then would it not be pronounced like "Daw-il"?

It should be something closer to that, yes. It's hard to explain it though, because there aren't many equivalent sounds in English to slender consonants in Irish.

Iwasfrozen

An File wrote: »

It should be something closer to that, yes. It's hard to explain it though, because there aren't many equivalent sounds in English to slender consonants in Irish.

So is wikipedia wrong? Or maybe they're counting the slender sounds as silent?

Vowels on either side of a fada vowel are silent. They are present only to satisfy the "caol le caol agus leathan le leathan" ("slender with slender and broad with broad") rule. This rule states that e or i (slender) and a or o or u (broad) vowels must be of the same type on both sides of any consonant, to unambiguously determine the consonant's own broad vs slender pronunciation. (An apparent exception is the combination ae, which is followed by a broad consonant despite the e.)

hullaballoo

Yes, it's wrong. They are not just there to satisfy a rule; the rule is there to attempt to describe pronunciation of the words.

I haven't read the wikipedia page but it shows a lack of any real linguistic knowledge to discuss the "ae" combination in that way when even someone with a passing interest in languages would know it's "æ", which is undoubtedly a broad vowel. (That isn't a sound that would have appeared in Irish at all before the influence of Latin.)

David Webb

hullaballoo wrote: »

Yes, it's wrong. They are not just there to satisfy a rule; the rule is there to attempt to describe pronunciation of the words.

I haven't read the wikipedia page but it shows a lack of any real linguistic knowledge to discuss the "ae" combination in that way when even someone with a passing interest in languages would know it's "æ", which is undoubtedly a broad vowel. (That isn't a sound that would have appeared in Irish at all before the influence of Latin.)

But the rule that "ae" as a whole is broad and so can stand before a broad succeeding consonant is a recent thing. At one time, the correct spelling required contortions to adhere to caol le caol.

Take "aerach" -- there is now seen to be no problem with the e before a broad r, and as you pointed out it is a vowel that is actually broad in pronunciation.

But in Dinneen's dictionary this word is: aedhearach!

Similar problem with "do bhíos" -- at one stage people wrote this "do bhídheas".

But I thinjk there was an element of cod-archaisation in some of these spellings, as not all of them had dh in them in older forms of Irish.

ezra_pound

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So is wikipedia wrong? Or maybe they're counting the slender sounds as silent?

The issue isn't the pronunciation of the slender vowel-it's the pronunciation of the slender consonant.

Day Lewin

The very nearest possible pronunciation for a speaker of English would be something like a shorter, cruder way of saying "the oil":

As in "did you spill th'oil?"

ezra_pound

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So is wikipedia wrong? Or maybe they're counting the slender sounds as silent?

Wikipedia shows two different phonetic symbols for l: one for broad l and one for slender l. So wiki supports the fact that the slender i vowel affects the sound of the l.

See this page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_phonology

Under heading consonants see table of consonant phonemes.

Day Lewin

As a matter of fact, when hearing this name constantly mispronounced on the morning news, it isn't the elusive slender L that sets my teeth on edge as much as the missing broad D.
Especially when a news-reader says, loud and clear, in honest Dublin bourgeois tones:
"The Dawl"

Fact is, if you can say "the" (without the British aspiration, or "buzz" of breath) then you can say Dáil: same initial sound.

Anyway, even without it, "Awl" and "Oil" are still not at all alike.

Even Doyle is still much better than Dawl.

PS I am a native speaker, this was my first language and my pronunciation is near perfect - líofa, and plenty of blas.

David Webb

It's not exactly "dah+il" -- it it dah followed by a slender l, although there may be a slight glide vowel before the l.

In any case, the word dáil can be heard as pronounced by native speakers from Ulster, Connacht and Munster respectively the Teanglann Dot ie site maintained by Foras na G (go to foghraíocht and enter dáil and the three sound files are there). That site is a mine of thousands of sound files pronounced in all 3 dialects. The Ulster pronunciation is considerably different - as they don't seem to have long vowels up there, and so dáil is pronounced in the same way as dail.

David Webb

Try

teanglann Dot ie/ga/fuaim/dáil

David Webb

Tá suíomh eile ar ar féidir leat a lán fuaimeanna le cainnteóirí dúchais a dh'fháil, 'sé sin Fuaimeanna na Gaeilge, suíomh déanta le cúnamh Royal Irish Academy. Éistidh leis na fuaimeanna so - fuaimeanna dot ie/en/Recordings.aspx?Ortho=áil - níl 'dáil' le feiscint ansan, gan dabht, ach tá 'sáil' ansan. Is maith liomsa guth agus blas Dhara Uí Chinnéide, a léann na taifid ón Múmhain...

An gal gréine

David Webb wrote: »

The Ulster pronunciation is considerably different - as they don't seem to have long vowels up there, and so dáil is pronounced in the same way as dail.

This is not the case. Dail would be said the same way in Donegal as in the other dialects with a short 'a'. Dáil, however, comes out with the 'á' as ehhh instead of aaw.

David Webb

An gal gréine wrote: »

This is not the case. Dail would be said the same way in Donegal as in the other dialects with a short 'a'. Dáil, however, comes out with the 'á' as ehhh instead of aaw.

OK, so there's a difference in vowel quality between and a and á up there - I didn't know that.