Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
Caol le Caol ⁊ Leaṫan le Leaṫan.
41. We now come to the much abused, but little understood, law of Irish Phonetics, commonly called caol le caol, We have already learned that in Irish there exist two sets of consonants—the broad and the slender, formed in very different, and easily distinguishable, positions. We shall show in this chapter that it is in most cases impossible to pass from a broad consonant to a slender vowel, or from a slender consonant to a broad vowel, or vice versa without the aid of a “glide.” These glides are organic necessities, and exist, to a greater or less extent, in all languages that possess front and back vowels and consonants. The law for Irish pronunciation and spelling may be stated as follows:—
42. Whenever a single consonant (except h) or two consonants that easily blend (i.e., formed in the same position) come between two vowels, in the same word, both the vowels must be slender or both must be broad. 43. Caol le caol is not a spelling rule. It is absurd to treat it as such. It is a law of speech.
Take for example the word “bád.” If we wish to get a diminutive from this word we add the termination in. If we write bádín we get a combination of letters which it is impossible to pronounce, as they stand, in one word. We could pronounce bád ín, by making a pause after the “d,” but then we get two words. If caol le caol were a mere spelling rule, then the word would be appropriately written báduín, bádaín, or bádoín. Any of these spellings satisfies the so-called rule, and has, moreover, the advantage of preserving the original spelling of the stem. The three spellings just given are easily pronounced, because the broad vowel after the “d” acts as a glide from the broad “d” to the slender “í.” As a matter of fact the diminutive of the word bád is not written like the above, simply because it is not so pronounced by Irish speakers. All Irish speakers make the “d” slender, on account of the influence of the slender í. Now, before this slender “d” there is a broad “a”; but we cannot pass from a broad vowel to a slender consonant without the aid of a slender glide, therefore the word is written báidín.
44. We shall now enter more fully into this very important subject of “glides,” and endeavour to show how they are formed. We shall first take a few English words—e.g., “awkward,” “oak,” “cool,” and show that glides really exist in English, although most persons are unaware of the fact. Take the first syllable of the word “awkward”—i.e., awk. To pronounce the “aw” the tongue is slightly arched up at the back (§ 11 (a)), and a current of voiced air is driven from the lungs (of course it is not voiced whilst actually in the lungs, it is voiced by the vocal chords (§ 1)). The tongue is then raised so as to make contact with the soft palate in order to produce the consonant “k,” but in doing so it passes through the positions for the English vowels “o” and “u.” This latter vowel is quite audible, so that we really hear the two sounds “aw—uk.” The “u” is a broad glide. It must be formed, therefore there is no necessity for indicating it in writing. With regard to the second word—viz., “oak” the first remark we have to make is that the “a” has no function whatever in this word, and if English was spelled phonetically, this “a” would not be written. In pronouncing the word the tongue is first put into position for the mid back vowel—i.e., “o” (§ 11 (d)), and is then raised to make contact for the “k,” and thus produces a short “u,” consequently we actually pronounce “o—uk.” In pronouncing “cool,” no glide is formed between the k and the u, because in lowering the tongue from the position for “k” to that for “oo” we do not pass through the position for any other vowel, therefore a glide is not formed. But immediately after the sounding of the "oo" the tongue has to move bodily forward in the mouth in order to make contact for the “l,” and whilst the tongue is making this movement voiced air is passing through the mouth, and consequently an undefinable (as regards position) vowel must be produced, and the sound of the word is like “coo—el.” The “e” which we have written must not be confounded with the sound of “e” in the word “cruel” In this latter word both the “u” and the “e” are distinct vowels—viz., the long, high, back vowel, and the short mid front vowel; whilst the “e” in “coo—el” is a mere glide.
45. Thus we see that glides do, and must, exist in English as well as in Irish, but the important point which we wish to emphasise is, that it is not necessary to write the glides in English (nor is it done), but it is absolutely necessary to write them in Irish. This arises from the fact that in Irish we have two distinct sets of consonants—the broad and the slender. In English there are not two sets of consonants. There are only three consonants which have both broad and slender sounds—viz., “k,” “g,” and “ng”—e.g., “king,” “call,” “give,” “go,” “longing,” “gong.” Observe that the English broad consonants are always beside a back or broad vowel, whilst the three slender ones are used with the slender or front vowels. In Irish a broad consonant may be used with a slender vowel, or a slender consonant with a broad vowel. In this case we must write a glide, not to help pronunciation, for the glide must exist, but to show that the consonant is broad or slender as the case may be.
46. The real function of glides, then, in Irish writing is to indicate the broadness or slenderness of the adjacent consonant.
Take for example the word “glún.” There is, and must be, a glide between the “g” (a back consonant) and “l” (a front consonant). We shall pass over this glide. In pronouncing the ú the point of the tongue is drawn back as far as possible, and the back of the tongue is arched up (§ 11 (f)). Whilst bringing the tongue forward to the upper teeth in order to produce the “n” (§ 14), a broad glide is formed and is distinctly heard—viz., “glú-un.”—As the n is broad and the u broad, it is unnecessary to write this glide. Take, however, the dative case of this word—viz., “glúin.” Again the tongue in moving forward from the position for “ú” to that of “n” must produce a glide, as in the former case, but in this case the glide is written, not because it is actually formed, but to show us that we are to pronounce a slender n (§ 24 (a))—i.e., the tongue must touch the “hard rim” (§ 2). The tongue in passing up to the “hard rim” actually produces a slender glide. If we possessed distinct characters for the broad and slender sounds of the same letter, the writing of glides could be dispensed with; but we have not separate characters, therefore the glides are written to show whether the broad or the slender sound of the consonant is to be produced.
47. Sometimes the slender glide introduced affects the vowels already in the word. This matter is fully treated under the heading “Digraphs”—Chapter X.
48. It is quite evident from what has been already said that the spoken vowels (one or both may be only glides) surrounding a single consonant must be either both slender or both broad. This also happens with consonants that easily blend. In the word “buailtear” the “i” before the “l” shows that the “l” is slender, therefore the tongue makes contact for the consonant just above the hard gums; but this is exactly the position of a slender “t” (for they are both alveolar), therefore the t is also slender, and the e is written after it to show that it is so; although in this case it is not really necessary. If we tried to pronounce “buailtar,” (i.e., broad t), it would be necessary to slide the tongue down from the position for “l” (slender) to that for “t” (broad) without producing any sound; the result would be the formation of two distinct words—viz., buail tar. In such a word as buailfar, the l is again slender, whilst the a after the f shows that the f is broad; but since the l is formed with the tongue, and f with the lips, this word can easily be pronounced, because the lips move into position for a broad f even before the tongue is removed from the “hard rim.” As a matter of fact the f is pronounced broad in Munster, although the l is slender. The word boiċt is a good example of what we are explaining. The ċ is broad, and the i is written before it to indicate that the t is slender; it is a defect in Irish orthography that it has no other way of indicating a slender t after a broad ċ.
49. We mentioned above that h is an exception, and the reason for this is very plain. The hard sound of h is always formed by the vocal chords themselves, and therefore can be quite independent of the vowels which precede or follow. For instance, the spelling díṫal is quite pronounceable, and fully represents the Munster sound of the word that is usually written díṫċeall or díṫeall; but in Connaught the slender ċ in this, and other like words, is not a mere h sound, but the real sound of initial slender ċ (§ 37).