Feb. 28th, 2011 12:17 pm
The reciprocity of the Irish
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muckefuckHere's another charming excerpt from O'Connor's My father's son:
I don't know if Norman French has anything to do with it, but Munster Irish is unusual in that the tonic accent is attracted to a long vowel in the second syllable (or third syllable, if the first two are short). The example he gives above is poitín "poteen", which in Munster Irish is [pɤəˈtʲi:n̪ʲ] and in Ulster Irish [ˈpɤɔtʲin̪ʲ]. (Note the vowel reductions: unstressed /ɔ/ reduced to a shwa in Munster and unstressed /i:/ shortened in Ulster. This probably contributed greatly to O'Connor's comprehension difficulties.)
Interestingly, the stress shift also happens when the second syllable is /ax/, e.g. salach "dirty" [ˈsˠlˠɑx] (with complete loss of the initial syllable), though not if the first syllable is long or has a diphthong, e.g. francach "rat; Frenchman" [ˈfˠɾˠɑʊn̪ˠkəx]. But exceptionally the shift doesn't take place in the words Connacht and Connachtach "native to Connacht". The explanation is that Connacht is right next door to Munster and so Munster speakers have adopted the Connacht pronunciation of these words.
And their neighbours in Connacht return the favour. The adjective for "Munster" is Muimhneach and in Munster there is a rule that slender mh and bh melt into the adjacent vowel. So cuimhne "memory" is [ˈkˠĩ:n̪ʲɪ] in Munster whereas in other dialects it would be trisyllabic, i.e. [ˈkˠɪvʲɪn̪ʲɪ], and likewise with Muimhneach [ˈmʷĩ:n̪ʲɪx]. (No stress shift since the first syllable ends up long.) And this is how they say it in Connacht as well, even though on the basis of other words in that dialect you'd expect to hear [ˈmʷɪvʲɪn̪ʲɪx].
Where you do hear that trisyllabic pronunciation is in Ulster, which I suppose is just a bit too far for the same neighbourly treatment to prevail. And again, this is reciprocal: The Munster pronunciation of Ultach "native to Ulster" is nothing like what they say in Ulster. (In Cork Irish--my dialect of choice--[ˈoʊlˠhəx], with diphthongisation and spiratisation of t. That is, as if spelled Obhalthach.)
MacIntyre attached himself to me all the time in London and insisted not only on staying in the same hotel, but on sleeping in the same bedroom. He also refused to speak anything but Irish, which was a sore trial to me as I spoke Munster Irish, which has been infected by the accentuation of Norman-French, and he spoke Ulster Irish, which has been affected by Scottish Gaelic. It was only a question of the tonic accent, of whether you said "P'cheen" or "Potin" but oh, dear God, what a trial that tonic accent could become when MacIntyre became glued with fright in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and would neither come on nor go back.
[He] had actually bought an anthology of contemporary French poetry. One night at bedtime he begged me to read to him from this. From listening to Wilson's French I knew how deplorable my own French accent was, but he was so much in earnest that I read him Jammes's "Prayer to Go to Heaven with the Donkeys" [Prière pour aller au Paradis avec les ânes]. It put MacIntyre into a state of ecstasy.
"Och, man dear," he said at last, "isn't it a terrible pity you can't speak Irish as well as you can speak French?"
Ulstermen are the nicest people in the world except in the matter of religion and dialect.
I don't know if Norman French has anything to do with it, but Munster Irish is unusual in that the tonic accent is attracted to a long vowel in the second syllable (or third syllable, if the first two are short). The example he gives above is poitín "poteen", which in Munster Irish is [pɤəˈtʲi:n̪ʲ] and in Ulster Irish [ˈpɤɔtʲin̪ʲ]. (Note the vowel reductions: unstressed /ɔ/ reduced to a shwa in Munster and unstressed /i:/ shortened in Ulster. This probably contributed greatly to O'Connor's comprehension difficulties.)
Interestingly, the stress shift also happens when the second syllable is /ax/, e.g. salach "dirty" [ˈsˠlˠɑx] (with complete loss of the initial syllable), though not if the first syllable is long or has a diphthong, e.g. francach "rat; Frenchman" [ˈfˠɾˠɑʊn̪ˠkəx]. But exceptionally the shift doesn't take place in the words Connacht and Connachtach "native to Connacht". The explanation is that Connacht is right next door to Munster and so Munster speakers have adopted the Connacht pronunciation of these words.
And their neighbours in Connacht return the favour. The adjective for "Munster" is Muimhneach and in Munster there is a rule that slender mh and bh melt into the adjacent vowel. So cuimhne "memory" is [ˈkˠĩ:n̪ʲɪ] in Munster whereas in other dialects it would be trisyllabic, i.e. [ˈkˠɪvʲɪn̪ʲɪ], and likewise with Muimhneach [ˈmʷĩ:n̪ʲɪx]. (No stress shift since the first syllable ends up long.) And this is how they say it in Connacht as well, even though on the basis of other words in that dialect you'd expect to hear [ˈmʷɪvʲɪn̪ʲɪx].
Where you do hear that trisyllabic pronunciation is in Ulster, which I suppose is just a bit too far for the same neighbourly treatment to prevail. And again, this is reciprocal: The Munster pronunciation of Ultach "native to Ulster" is nothing like what they say in Ulster. (In Cork Irish--my dialect of choice--[ˈoʊlˠhəx], with diphthongisation and spiratisation of t. That is, as if spelled Obhalthach.)
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'Tis a great sadness to me that copping a dacent Irish accent has proved beyond my abilities.