PREFACE.
A KNOWLEDGE of Phonetics is now regarded by educationalists as an indispensable foundation for the scientific study of all the Modern Languages. As very little has been yet done to elucidate the Laws of Irish Speech, an endeavour has been made in the following pages to explain in the simplest language the most salient features of Irish Phonetics.
As difference of pronunciation is one of the chief factors in developing dialects, it has been deemed essential to adopt the pronunciation current in one district as a basis for the work, and then to refer, as occasion required, to the general pronunciation current in other districts. We have chosen the pronunciation current in Desmond as our basis, and we have been induced to do so for the following reasons:—
(1) The Irish of Desmond has retained a very large number of the older grammatical inflections, and as regards its verbal system it has quite a literary aspect.
(2) The greatest poets of modern times have been natives of Desmond—e.g., Aodhagan O’Rathaille, Eoghan Ruadh O’Sullivan, Pierec
