The Thaoiseach (1 Viewer)

Moods For Mallards

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Almost all news readers insert a 'h' into Taoiseach, pronouncing it 'Thee-shock'. Why do they do this? It seems completely incorrect to me but I'm afraid to scoff in case there is some RTE directive to pronounce the word like this at the behest of Gaelgoirs who know better than me, a B2 Leaving Cert achiever.
 
well as an indo-european language irish developed as one where sounds are more lyrical and contain less hard consonants. an example would be the word for necktie 'carabhat', where on the european mainland 'cravate' with a hard V and T is more common.

i'd imagine the reason this annoys because we learn to spell in english and irish, but in the english alphabet.
 
I could be wrong but I've always thought it's Dublin Irish versus outside-the-pale Irish, where you'd use soft 'd's and 't's for most words. Or maybe it's just a west of Ireland thing.

Like the name Mairead - a dub would pronounce it to rhyme with 'lemonade' - Marade. Whereas I, a culchie, pronounce it to rhyme with 'lathe' - Maraythe.

I think it's that a word with 'T' proceeded by a wide vowel, like taoiseach, tain, ta, Tomas, feels like it should have a soft 't'.
 
Actually, Im starting to think it's nearly all Ts, not just ones before wide vowels. How would you pronounce the Ts in this sentence?

Cén t-ainm atá ort?

Seems to me that hard Ts sound weird.

There's also Ts that I would pronounce as 'ch' as in 'chatanooga': e.g., teach and duit. How do you pronounce those Ts?
 
I could be wrong but I've always thought it's Dublin Irish versus outside-the-pale Irish, where you'd use soft 'd's and 't's for most words. Or maybe it's just a west of Ireland thing.

Like the name Mairead - a dub would pronounce it to rhyme with 'lemonade' - Marade. Whereas I, a culchie, pronounce it to rhyme with 'lathe' - Maraythe.

I think it's that a word with 'T' proceeded by a wide vowel, like taoiseach, tain, ta, Tomas, feels like it should have a soft 't'.


yes, kinda. dublin irish (not as blanket definition, but definitley RTE irish) is what the fluent natives would call school irish, or civil service irish. supposedly school irish was defined shortly after the 1916 rising, and apparently it focused on clare/kerry lingo as guide, with a dublin university influence, as all the new powers that be were from down that way. south west irish is more defined in its consonants, as it takes influence from celtic europe more so then north of the shannon would. i heard a 95 year old ex schoolmaster who insisted that the only real irish was spoken north of the shannon, but then he was from here so he would say that, but it could be just as easily argued that as an indo european language the crossing points along the southern coast might be closer to 'real' irish. in most perceptions i hear in the gealteacht, theres irish, and theres civil service irish.
 
that 95 year old guy, one of his main points was that there just shouldnt be any hard consonants at all. you'd think ciseap was a shit translation till you start considering some of the anglicisations that we use day to day.

dubh 'dooflinn' being called dublin.

galliamh. 'gallive' - galway.

no gold stars for those guys.

edit:

people in the gealteacht just say ketchup or anlann rua.
 
it's more of a "ty" sound, an tyaoiseach rather than a h if you get me. and its the proper old irish way of pronouncing t words.
 
it's more of a "ty" sound, an tyaoiseach rather than a h if you get me. and its the proper old irish way of pronouncing t words.

yes and no?

where i am its H, in other parts its TY, or CH. there isn't a definitive of it, theres just local dialect. in any event, its not just T.
 
No, newsreaders do not pronounce it as a 'soft t'. They specifically pronounce it as a 'th' with a very defined sharpness of delivery. I tihnk I know what you're getting at with the 'soft t'... it's like a mixture of t, th and d sounds. It could almost be 'dh'. But this newsreader 'thee-shock' might be a misinterpretation of that or something.
 
north of it? meaning norn iron?

well really this guy was referring from clare to donegal along the coast, basically the post famine irish speakers all converged there, and theres less of a viking sway on things. if you go into norn iron your more into scotch gallic type sounds, or *shuddder* ulster scots influence.
 
well really this guy was referring from clare to donegal along the coast, basically the post famine irish speakers all converged there, and theres less of a viking sway on things. if you go into norn iron your more into scotch gallic type sounds, or *shuddder* ulster scots influence.

oh right. i was thinking that it's a bit hard to be 'north' of the shannon, seeing as it goes pretty much down the middle of the left-hand-side of ireland. but i think i get you now.
 

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