User:Wolfdog/sandbox

The defining pure vowels of Irish English:

The following pure vowel sounds are defining characteristics of Irish English:

• The vowel /ʌ/, as in cut or run, is typically centralised in the mouth and often somewhat more rounded than other standard English varieties, such as Received Pronunciation in England or General American in the United States.
• Most Irish English varieties make some distinction between the "broad" a and "flat" a of Received Pronunciation, whereas General American, for example, makes no distinction.
• There is inconsistency regarding the lot–cloth split and the cot–caught merger; certain Irish English dialects have these phenomena while others do not.
• Any and many are pronounced to rhyme with nanny, Danny, etc. by very many speakers, i.e. with each of these words pronounced with [æ].^[25]

All pure vowels of various Hiberno-English dialects:

Footnotes:

^1 In southside Dublin's once-briefly fashionable "D4" (or "Dartspeak") accent, the "/ɑː/ and broad /æ/" set becomes rounded as [ɒː].^[26]

^2 In South-West Ireland, /ɛ/ before /n/ or /m/ is raised to [ɪ].^[27]

^3 Due to the local Dublin accent's phenomenon of "vowel breaking", /iː/ may be realised in this accent as [iʲə] in a closed syllable, and, in the same environment, /uː/ may be realised as [ʊuʷə].

^4 In the more recently emerging non-local Dublin (or "new Dublin") accent, the conservative variant of the vowel /ɒ/ may be as raised as [ɔ], and the vowel /ɔː/ may be as raised as [ɔː~oː].

^5 Unstressed syllable-final /iː/ or /ɪ/ is realised in Ulster accents uniquely as [e~ɪ].^[28]

Other notes:

• In some highly conservative Irish English varieties, words spelled with ea and pronounced with [iː] in RP are pronounced with [eː], for example meat, beat, and leaf.
• In words like took where the spelling "oo" usually represents /ʊ/, conservative speakers may use /uː/. This is most common in local Dublin and the speech of north-east Leinster.

The defining diphthongs of Hiberno-English:

The following gliding vowel (diphthong) sounds are defining characteristics of Irish English:

• The first element of the diphthong /aʊ/, as in ow or doubt, may move forward in the mouth in the east (namely, Dublin) and supraregionally; however, it may actually move backward throughout the entire rest of the country. In the north alone, the second element is particularly moved forward, as in Scotland.
• The first element of the diphthong /ɔɪ/, as in boy or choice, is slightly or significantly lowered in all geographic regions except the north.
• The diphthong /eɪ/, as in rain or bay, is most commonly monophthongised to [eː]. Furthermore, this often lowers to /ɛ/ in words such as gave and came (sounding like "gev" and "kem").^{[citation needed]}

All diphthongs of various Hiberno-English dialects:

Footnotes:' ^1 Due to the local Dublin accent's phenomenon of "vowel breaking", aɪ may be realised in that accent as [əjə] in a closed syllable, and, in the same environment, aʊ may be realised as [ɛwə]. [əʊ] ² In the more recently emerging non-local Dublin (or "new Dublin") accent, the diphthong /aɪ/ may be realised with a back starting point as [ɑɪ], and the diphthong /ɔɪ/ may be realised with a raised starting point as [ɔɪ~oɪ].

The defining r-coloured vowels of Hiberno-English:

The following r-coloured vowel features are defining characteristics of Hiberno-English:

• Rhoticity: Every major accent of Hiberno-English pronounces the letter "r" whenever it follows a vowel sound, though this is weaker in the local Dublin accent due to its earlier history of non-rhoticity. Rhoticity is a feature that Hiberno-English shares with Canadian English and General American but not with Received Pronunciation.
• The distinction between /ɔr/ and /ɔər/ is almost always preserved, so that, for example, horse and hoarse are not merged in most Irish accents.

All r-coloured vowels of various Hiberno-English dialects:

Footnotes:

^1 In older varieties of the conservative accents, like local Dublin, the "r" sound before a vowel may be pronounced as a tapped [ɾ], rather than as the typical approximant [ɹ̠].

^2 Every major accent of Irish English is rhotic (pronounces "r" after a vowel sound). The local Dublin accent is the only one that during an earlier time was non-rhotic, though it usually very lightly rhotic today,^[29] with a few minor exceptions. The rhotic consonant in this and most other Irish accents is an approximant [ɹ̠].

^3 The "r" sound of the mainstream non-local Dublin accent is more precisely a velarised approximant [ɹˠ], while the "r" sound of the more recently emerging non-local Dublin (or "new Dublin") accent is more precisely a retroflex approximant [ɻ].

^4 In southside Dublin's once-briefly fashionable "Dublin 4" (or "Dortspeak") accent, /ɑr/ is realised as [ɒːɹ].

^5 In the more recently emerging non-local Dublin (or "new Dublin") accent, /ɛər/ and /ɜr/ may both be realised as [øːɻ].

^6 In local Dublin, West/South-West, and other very conservative and traditional Irish English varieties ranging from the south to the north, the phoneme /ɜr/ is split into two distinct phonemes depending on spelling and preceding consonants, which have sometimes been represented as /ɛr/ versus /ʊr/, and often more precisely pronounced as [ɛːɹ] versus [ʊːɹ]. As an example, the words earn and urn are not pronounced the same, as they are in most dialects of English around the world. In the local Dublin and West/South-West accents, /ɜr/ when after a labial consonant (e.g. fern), when spelled as "ur" or "or" (e.g. word), or when spelled as "ir" after an alveolar stop (e.g. dirt) are pronounced as [ʊːɹ]; in all other situations, /ɜr/ is pronounced as [ɛːɹ].^[30] Example words include:

In non-local Dublin, younger, and supraregional Irish accents, this split is seldom preserved, with both of the /ɜr/ phonemes typically merged as [ɚː].

^7 In rare few local Dublin varieties that are non-rhotic, /ər/ is either lowered to [ɐ] or backed and raised to [ɤ].

^8 The distinction between /ɔr/ and /ɔər/ is widely preserved in Ireland, so that, for example, horse and hoarse are not merged in most Irish English dialects; however, they are usually merged in Belfast and new Dublin.

^9 In local Dublin, due to the phenomenon of "vowel breaking" [(j)uːɹ] may in fact be realised as [(j)uʷə(ɹ)].

The defining consonants of Hiberno-English:

The consonants of Hiberno-English mostly align to the typical English consonant sounds. However, a few Irish English consonants have distinctive, varying qualities. The following consonant features are defining characteristics of Hiberno-English:

• H-fulness: Unlike most English varieties of England and Wales, which drop the word-initial /h/ sound in words like house or happy, Hiberno-English always retains word-initial /h/.
• The phonemes /ð/ (as in the) and /θ/ (as in thin) are pronounced uniquely in most Hiberno-English. /ð/ is pronounced as [d] or [d̪], depending on specific dialect; and /θ/ is pronounced as [t] or [t̪].
• The phoneme /t/, when appearing at the end of word or between vowel sounds, is pronounced uniquely in most Hiberno-English; the most common pronunciation is as a "slit fricative".
• The phoneme /l/ is almost always of a "light" or "clear" quality (i.e. not velarised), unlike Received Pronunciation, which uses both a clear and a dark "L" sound, or General American, which pronounces all "L" sounds as somewhat dark.
• Rhoticity: The pronunciation of historical /r/ is nearly universal in Irish accents of English. Like with General American (but not Received Pronunciation), this means that the letter "r", if appearing after a vowel sound, is always pronounced (in words such as here, cart, or surf).

Unique consonants in various Hiberno-English dialects:

Footnotes:

^1 In traditional, conservative Ulster English, /k/ and /g/ is palatalised before a low front vowel.^[31]

^2 Local Dublin also undergoes cluster simplification, so that stop consonant sounds occurring after fricatives or sonorants may be left unpronounced, resulting, for example, in "poun(d)" and "las(t)".^[27]

^3 Rhoticity: Every major accent of Irish English is strongly rhotic (pronounces "r" after a vowel sound), though to a weaker degree with the local Dublin accent.^[32] The accents of local Dublin and some smaller eastern towns like Drogheda were historically non-rhotic and now only very lightly rhotic or variably rhotic, with the rhotic consonant being an alveolar approximant, [ɹ]. In extremely traditional and conservative accents (exemplified, for instance, in the speech of older speakers throughout the coumtry, even in South-West Ireland, such as Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh and Jackie Healy-Rae), the rhotic consonant, before a vowel sound, can also be an alveolar tap, [ɾ]. The rhotic consonant for the northern Ireland and new Dublin accents is a retroflex approximant, [ɻ]. Dublin's retroflex approximant has no precedent outside of northern Ireland and is a genuine innovation of the past two decades. A guttural/uvular [ʁ] is found in north-east Leinster.^[33] Otherwise, the rhotic consonant of virtually all other Irish accents is the postalveolar approximant, [ɹ].

^4 The symbol [θ̠] is used here to represent the voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative, sometimes known as a "slit fricative",^[32] whose articulation is described as being apico-alveolar.^[34]

^5 Overall, /hw/ and /w/ are being increasingly merged in supraregional Irish English, for example, making wine and whine homophones, as in most varieties of English around the world.^[34]