Help talk:IPA/Scottish Gaelic

Representation of preaspiration
I understand the desire to represent preaspiration consistently, but I'm not sure it will really work. After vowels, preaspiration of coronal and velar stops is [h], so bata is, which I suppose could also be rendered , but after sonorants it's realized by the devoicing of the sonorant, so corp is , and rendering that as would look very odd. And in the Hebridean dialects (which by now are the numerically strongest ones) at least, I think (Akerbeltz will correct me if I'm wrong), preaspiration of the velar stops after vowels is not [h] but a full-fledged homorganic fricative, so mac is and mic is. Notably, [xk] is also how chd is pronounced, so there's no difference between boc "billy-goat" and bochd "poor". (At least, there's no difference in the consonants; it may be the case that one of them has [o] and the other has .) So it would look very strange to transcribe boc as and bochd as  when they're homophones. +Angr 22:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll do a mapping of preaspiration tomorrow, Lewis actually had very weak preaspiration. I think the best way would be to use [ʰ] to mark preaspiration before stressed p t c and explain that there are various allophones depending on dialect. It will cover all eventualities because the rules of PA are complex (there's a hierarchy of strength between p t c, near loss of PA after a long vowel etc. I would also suggest (with or without the devoicing symbol) because in those dialects with strong PA, there is a full fledged intrusive phoneme appearing e.g. . As for boc and bochd, these are homophones in those dialects with strong PA  (in both cases) but Lewis would have bochd  and boc  (they both have [ɔ], you only get [o] before b g mV. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * From what I've read, the phonetic realization aspiration (intensity and POA) varies enough that we can't definitively say that it's always before .  I think using the same character for aspiration would also clearly show that the same phenomenon is being indicated.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  23:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Gothru
Bungling or no, I decided to start going through articles that link here to bring them more into line with what is presented here. I think I'm doing an okay job, but if editors want to look at my edit history to check on me, it'd be appreciated. I'm particularly concerned about Firth, Stranraer, Staffa, Dornoch, Eriskay, Gourock, Taransay, Muck, Gàidhealtachd, Vatersay, Mingulay, Pabbay. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 05:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Variants
Aeosus, the new layout is fine by me, thanks for that. We can merge Bauer/Klevenhaus, they use exactly the same system. But I'm not entirely sure I get the wiki formatting for this table, could you perhaps merge them rather than me breaking it? Akerbeltz (talk) 15:39, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, belay that. I think there's another couple of sources such as Black that could get added so I'll replace one colum and shift the ref. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:41, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I wasn't sure if we wanted to also fill in the blank cells. We could do that but use coloring to keep it clear where the differences lie.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  15:54, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm worried about the blank cells because they don't distinguish between "Blank because the author doesn't describe this sound" and "Blank because the author uses the same symbol as Wikipedia does". For example, Borgstrøm (1940) uses "ʎ" for [ɯ], but his cell for [ʎ] is blank. Is the reader to assume he uses "ʎ" for both? (I doubt it!) But in Ó Murchú's column, the cell for [ʎ] is blank because the dialect he describes only has [l] and [ɫ] (his "ɬ"). He doesn't use the symbol "ʎ" at all. Angr (talk) 15:59, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We could add background colour and list all the symbols in each system and mark diverging ones in red or something (like Mozilla localizations). Akerbeltz (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * But whatever we do, I think we need the font size up a touch. Unless I redo my browser zoom, it's just dots at this size and I dont think most people are good at zooming. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * At WP:IPA for Irish I filled in the cells completely but I didn't color-code them. Does that make it hard to see deviations? I say let's try it without coloring first and see how it goes. Angr (talk) 16:06, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Technically, no color-coding deviations makes it harder to see when there aren't deviations, but there are only two columns for that one. The format works best for people who want to convert from one of the systems given to our own (i.e. top down) and less for people wanting to see how a given sound is transcribed in other systems (left to right).  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Happy to try without colour first though I suspect the Irish one is easier to read because there are (currently) fewer systems shown. I suspect if you added Ó Siadháil, Wager, the Cleticist system and whatnot, then it would get equally hard to figure. we'll see. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:19, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok there's all there now but I think we need to color code them, however subtle. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds and Symbols
I'm just a Wikipedia user, not particularly versed in linguistics, and I came to this page to try to understand the pronunciation of a Scottish name rendered in IPA characters. While trained linguists may understand terms like "aspirated" and "fricative" easily, unfortunately I (and I suspect many users are like me) do not. As such, I suggest that, along with text descriptions of the sounds for various IPA symbols, it would be extremely helpful if someone were able to add sound files (.WAVs or the like) for each of the sounds. I understand, of course, this might well be more work than any editor is willing to put in, and I don't know whether Wikipedia has the memory available for such files. Still, it would be extremely helpful for the lay person who wants to know what vocal sounds actually correspond to each particular IPA symbol. Thanks for entertaining this suggestion. 96.50.0.245 (talk) 04:53, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll see what I can do Akerbeltz (talk) 21:39, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

sràcan and spelling reform
I've noticed that this page uses reformed spelling such that, for instance, bò and còig aren't distinguished from bròn, mòine, ceòl. I propose we switch to the system using acute accents (bó, cóig) and indicate the reformed spellings as alternatives, which would make the orthography more easily understood. (The reformed spellings appear to be about three times as common on the Internet, but they're ambiguous.)

Alázhlis (talk) 21:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)


 * No, they're not ambiguous, they're just poorly understood. Both orthographies, actually. Technically speaking, a single accent does not leave the system ambiguous because in both cases (i.e. ɛː vs eː and oː vs ɔː) one is the default sound whereas the other is very rare. All but about a dozen or so words contain eː and ɔː, which means that once you know those two dozen words with oː and ɛː, the system is no longer ambiguous.
 * I can add a note as to that effect but the battle over pre and post reformed spelling is something I do not wish to engage in, it would take years and even if we reach agreement, it would come back before too long. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:52, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:18, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Removing velarization of R
Suggest we no longer recommend writing /r/ as if it were velarized. My understanding is that phonetic studies have shown that most native speakers do not actually pronounce it with velarization. Catrìona (talk) 21:30, 18 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what studies you're referring to and I fundamentally disagree. Sure, there are dialects that have dropped one or t'other but 3 Rs is still a pretty standard paradigm. Akerbeltz (talk) 07:54, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Removal of the dental diacritic
Unlike Help:IPA/Irish, this page does not graphically distinguish minimal pairs such as and  from  and  solely by a dental diacritic below, so I was wondering if it were possible to remove it in all the cases in which it is listed here. イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話） 06:22, 11 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I'd stringky advise against that. For starters, this would suggest to non-speakers that nˠ and lˠ are alveolar, which they aren't. Also, there is a lˠ l̪ˠ distinction in Harris Gaelic and if we use examples from that, it'll get very messy quick, same if we do contrasting examples of ScG vs Irish or historical info about Old/Middle Irish. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:00, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * oh well, I was just proposing this for practical purposes (see for example dental and  in helps for Romance or Slavic languages), at most replacing it with a footnote; after all, the link to Scottish Gaelic phonology is thought for explanations that would otherwise take too much space and result pedantic. In any case, thank you for your polite reply. [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 12:38, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome - it was a good question and I can see how that works for Slavonic but AFAIK, most only have a two way distinction with the main distinguishing feature being presence/absence of palatalisation. But Goidelic with its historic 4 way distinction of alveolar, alveolar velarised, dental velarised and palatal, it would just not work. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:06, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * you’re right, as I said I was specifically proposing this just for Scottish Gaelic, which lost most of it. 🙃 [[File:Italy.png]] イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 16:18, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Nasal vowels and
I was checking a bit whether the transcriptions pointing to this help page actually corresponded to it, and I noticed nasalization of vowels and $⟨⟩$ were not listed: I added the former, but not the latter because I don’t know when it occurs exactly instead of or, as it is not explained at Scottish Gaelic phonology. Can you please help me? イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話） 08:17, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll add [ɪ] though you could argue it's an allophone of [ə] that occurs before palatal consonants in unstressed syllables. Nasalisation probably wasn't listed as it's fairly marginal, it varies from dialect to dialect and is rarely phonemic. Mostly it occurs next to nasals, especially nasals that have lenited to zero e.g. cumha [kʰũ.ə] (though you also get [kʰu.ə]) or cunnradh [kʰũːɾəɣ] (though you also still get [kʰũːn̪ˠɾəɣ]. But having the example you added is useful though I fixed the spelling. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:29, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * oh, yes please, otherwise we have to change everything to $⟨⟩$. [[File:Italy.png]] イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 12:29, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Done. Yeah that wouldn't have been fun to do ;) Akerbeltz (talk) 13:01, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * thank you; one thing that came to my mind: does its representation change among sources, or can we leave the section below as it is? [[File:Italy.png]] イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 15:58, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The representation of what? Akerbeltz (talk) 20:42, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * of, at Help:IPA/Scottish Gaelic. [[File:Italy.png]] イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 21:03, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Some use [i] and assume the reader knows that in an unstressed syllable this is [ɪ] but that's mostly when addressing a single interest audience i.e. a publication just regarding Gaelic. For a general audience, it's best not to assume prior knowledge of what Gaelic does to unstressed syllables. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:05, 13 October 2018 (UTC)