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Date: Fri, 5 Jun 92 15:50:40 -0400 From: dmilne@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA Subject: ELEM-IG Beginners 3-C "Lenition" Sender: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L@irlearn.ucd.ie> From: tom@fiveg.icl.co.uk (Tom Thomson) Subject: Re: Aspiration or Lenition? Q: Is there any sort of consensus today on which term is preferable?? I don't imagine there's any consensus. But personally I prefer "lenition" because "aspiration" means something else - - I don't lenite an "r" by adding a coarse breathing to it! Also, I think the use of "aspiration" in this context arose from the practise of indicating some instances of lenition by sticking "h" after the consonant, and isn't used to describe lenition of l,n,r because the spelling doesn't use "h" in those cases; but if we are going to talk about pronunciation we need to talk about the changes in l,n,r as well as the ones in other consonants. (Don't know about IG, but in SG these 3 consonants are the biggest pronunciation trap for learners.) Tom >> If anyone would like to add comments about how r, l, and n are >> lenited, I hope they will feel free to do so. I am out of my >> depth on this topic. Dorothy ===================================================================== Date: Sat, 6 Jun 92 18:35:28 BST From: Tom Thomson <tom@FIVEG.ICL.CO.uk> Subject: r, l, n pronunciation/lenition From: dmilne@KEAN.UCS.MUN.ca ... Subject: ELEM-IG Beginners 3-C "Lenition" >> If anyone would like to add comments about how r, l, and n are >> lenited, I hope they will feel free to do so. I am out of my >> depth on this topic. Dorothy ---------- I'll have a go: this description may be reasonably close for Ulster Gaelic, but is likely to be a bit less close for Southern dialects because it's a description of how these consonants work in (one dialect of) Scottish Gaelic. I hope someone else will have a go too, particularly to say where Irish pronunciation differs. The first question is how to recognize lenition for these letters in the written language, because there's no following "h". When the l, n, or r is the first letter of a word it's easy because lenition is a gramatical feature: for example the l in litir (a letter) is unlenited but the l in a litir (the letter) is lenited because the article causes initial lenition in feminine nouns. Similarly initial l,n,r are lenited in the vocative of nouns, past tense of verbs, and so on. When the l, n or r is the final letter of a word, the unlenited form is written as a double consonant, the lenited form as a single consonant - the r in fear is lenited, in fearr it's unlenited. In the middle of a word, a double consonant is certainly unlenited (and long). A single l, n, or r between two vowels is lenited. Proceded or folowed by a consonant l, n, r get complicated and I don't know what the rules are - for example the r is unlenited in beurla and in ballrachd, lenited in dort, in cairteal, in arsa, in cairteal, and in geamhradh, .... if anyone knows a rule for this I would certainly find it useful for pronouncing words I haven't come across before. The second question is how to pronounce the things. For each of the three consonants we have (at least) four pronunciations according to whether they're lenited and/or palatalised (I'll use "l'" etc to indicate the palatalised forms. l: unlenited - a "hollow" sort of l, a bit like a low back vowel - in fact if you start by pronouncing it like an English W and then gradually shift the pronunciation towards English L it will be right just as soon as it sounds unsufficiently like a W to be recognisably different (in some parts of Scotland, it sounds more like a W than that). l': unlenited - like the "gl" in Italian "seraglio", somewhere between "ll" in English "billiards" and in French "billard" (probably closer to "y" in "yes" than "ll" in "million"). l': lenited - pronounced with the front of the tongue flat on the top of the mouth right up against the teeth, a bit like the l in French "lune"; sometimes the tip of the tongue may slide down and forwards as the letter is pronounced, so that there's a suggestion of a very short i-glide after the consonant. l: lenited - like l' lenited but with the tonge a bit further back and not actually making contact with the top of the mouth. (Some Hebridean dialects have dropped this sound, using unlenited l or lenited l' in its place; I've no idea whether Irish has kept it.) n: unlenited - like english n, but hollower and more dental. n': unlenited - like "gn" in poignant or lasagne, pretty much as the first n in onion. n: lenited - like english n in "not" (less hollow, less dental than unlenited form). n': lenited doesn't have a distinct sound in Scots Gaelic; when it's initial or final, we use lenited n instead; when it's medial we substitute unlenited n' (some dialects use lenited n there too). So I've no idea what it would be like in Irish (assuming it still exists) other than what I might get by trying to make a spirant form of the unlenited n'. ("cn","gn","chn","ghn" at beginning of word have a completely different n; it's a nasal r, lenited or not as the c or g is lenited or not, and nasalises the following vowel [and the preceding stop or spirant, if that makes sense]; medial cn is cr, medial gn is g followed by unlenited n or n', medial unpalatalized ghn is nasal schwa folowed by lenited n, and these things don't occur finally). r: unlenited - a rolled voiced r, not trilled or clicked, a bit hollow. r: lenited - like r in South English "road" (no trill, click, or roll; a very slack voiced fricative) r': unlenited - the description in Black is "the liquid reflex r"; it only occurs in the combinations "rn" and "rl" in the middle of a word (except in Lewis!) and then occurs even between broad vowels; where you would expect unlenited r' Scots use unlenited r instead (actually some of us use unlenited r' with or without a following i-glide in words like "oirre" too, but it's pretty unusual). This is another place I expect Irish to be different. r': lenited. A voiced fricative palatal spirant, the closest sounds in English are the "s" in "leisure" or the "th" in "then" or the z in "zoo" (and none of these is really close); a single click of the tip of the tongue against the back of the dental ridge without actually making a stop (ie a strongly spirant post-aspirated English "t"?) is a possible description. Then there's the "r" in "rd" and "rt" and "rs"; the palatalised form is an unvoiced version of lenited r' which sort of drifts into (unlenited) s'; the broad form is an unvoiced form of lenited r which drifts into an (unlenited) s. I hope people can make head or tail of all that lot! Tom ===================================================================== Date: Sat, 6 Jun 92 21:42:42 -0700 From: Gary Ingle <garyi@PHRED.UUCP> Subject: l,n,r Tom Thomson said: >I'll have a go: this description may be reasonably close for >Ulster Gaelic, but is likely to be a bit less close for Southern >dialects because it's a description of how these consonants work >in (one dialect of) Scottish Gaelic. I hope someone else will >have a go too, particularly to say where Irish pronunciation >differs. Which dialect of SG do you describe? Thus far the only native speaker I've had the opportunity to talk to is from Lewis. A more general question: what dialects of SG are in existence today? Also, are there dialects no longer spoken but well-described? Gary Ingle ===================================================================== Date: Sun, 7 Jun 92 12:07:56 EDT From: acarnie@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: r, l, n pronunciation/lenition Ok Since no braver souls have launched into this discussion, I will give a try at the question. Most of the stuff here is skimmed from De Bhaldraithe's "The Irish of Cois Fhairrge, Co. Galway" Published by D.A.I.S. So needless to say most of what I will be talking about refers to the Connacht Dialect. Firstly, let me make a comment about different types of lenition. In the posting about SG, the poster (Sorry I deleted the message so I can't remember your name :-) ), talked about the lenition that is usually represented by single letters (in contrast to unlenited consonant which are represented by double letters). Beginners should note that this type of "Lenition" is different from the lenition that occurs at the beginning of words. "Single letter lenition" is a historical holdover from the days when all consonants between two vowels were lenited. The other type of lenition: initial consonant lenition is slightly different. Historically it is the same process as the double letter lenition. It differs today in several important ways. Firstly, some dialects (especially those in most southerly Munster) lack initial consonant mutation of /l,r,n/, but have the single consonant lenition. Secondly, initial consonant mutation is a synchronic phenomenon, this means that it is still "triggered" in the modern language (nowadays by specific particles or words). Whereas single consonant lenition is a diachronic phenomenon, it is no longer triggered. It is fixed in the vocabularies of the speaker. Ok, now onto the actual pronunciation of these forms. I'll use the following symbols. Beginners should note that this is different from the symbol set used by Prof. O Baoill in "Foclóir Póca". /N/ velarized alveolar nasal. This is like the English /n/ but pronounced with a back vowel quality. The pronunciation is something that of the /n/ in the english word "now", but with the vowel pushed as far back as possible. /N'/ palatal nasal. This is like the french /gn/ in "agneau". /n'/ palatalized alveolar nasal. This is like the /n/ in "new". /L/ velarized alveolar lateral. like the English /l/ in the word "ball" /L'/ palatal lateral. Like the /l/ in the _French_ pronunciation of "million" /l'/ palatalized alveolar lateral. Like the /l/ in the _English_ pronunciation of "million". /r/ velarized post-alveolar flap. This sound is often thought of as a "trilled r". That is very close, but there is only one "trill" (the tongue touches the top of the mouth only once). For North American English speakers it is very close to the sound of the <tt> in "butter" when said quickly in normal speech. /r'/ palatalized post alveolar flap. Like /r/ but prounounced at the palate. (giving it a /y/ quality) I'm not even going to try to come up with a close English equivalent for this one. Ok, according to De Bhaldraithe, there is no alternation between lenited an unlenited forms for /N/, /L/, /r/, /r'/ (which in the spelling are represented as broad <n,l,r,nn,ll,rr> and slender <r, rr>.) For /L'/ and /l'/, and /N'/ and /n'/, however, there is a difference. /L'/ and /N'/ are the unlenited forms. /l'/ and /n'/ are the lenited forms. In the spelling, both the lenited and the unlenited forms are represented by slender <l> and <n> at the beginning of words. Word internally (the single letter type) lenited forms are written slender <l> and <n> and the unlenited forms are written slender <ll> and <nn>. Maybe a chart would make this clearer: Unlenited unlenited spellings Lenited lenited spelling /L/ broad <l> (initial) /L/ broad <l> broad <ll> (internal) /L'/ slender <l>, <ll> /l'/ slender <l> /N/ broad <n>, <nn> /N/ broad <n> /N'/ slender <n>, <nn> /n'/ slender <n> /r'/ slender <r>, <rr> /r'/ slender <r> /r/ broad <r> , <rr> /r/ broad <r> Whew! Complicated! One last thing. As I mentioned above, the more south you go, the less likely that there is to be a contrast between lenited forms and unlenited ones. Hope this helps. Andrew Carnie Dept of Linguistics and Philosophy Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Mass Ave Cambridge Mass. USA 02139 ===================================================================== Date: Sun, 7 Jun 92 20:42:12 -0400 From: dmilne@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA Subject: ELEM-IG Lesson #3-C Gender of nouns GUIDELINES TO THE GENDER OF NOUNS IN IRISH At the request of a member of the ELEM-IG group, I am posting a note about general patterns and principles that can help one to learn the gender of nouns in Irish. The gender of an Irish noun is not entirely determined by its form. However, there are patterns which correspond to masculine and feminine gender, and if you know these patterns, you can get them right most of the time. The following is only slightly adapted from O Siadhail's "Modern Irish", pages 143- 145. If the length of the endings discourages you, read on to "a possible shortcut" at the end of this message. .................................. 1. Biology and gender are closely linked in Irish. So, nouns which describe male humans and animals are generally masculine, and those which describe female humans and animals are usually feminine. e.g. fear (m) man tarbh (m) bull bean (f) woman cearc (f) hen Also, occupations historically associated with men are masculine. e.g. sagart (m) priest However, if such a noun has one of the word-endings listed in #2 below, the effect of this ending overrides the biological gender. e.g. cailín (m) girl stail (f) stallion 2. Word-endings If a word has one of these endings, the ending determines the gender, in spite of any association with biological sex which might apply. A. Masculine endings 1. -as e.g. doras door -án cupán cup -(e)an leagan version -(e)adh moladh praise -(e)amh caitheamh spending -ás sólás consolation -úr casúr hammer -ún naisiún nation -éad firéad ferret -éal buidéal bottle -éar suipéar supper -(e)ad droichead bridge -ar bóthar road -ste páiste child also, the ending ín when it is part of the root word: -ín cailín girl but NOT when the -ín is a diminute ending. In that case, the gender of the root noun is retained: fear (m) >> fearín (m) little man bean (f) >> beanín (f) little woman but note: paidir (f) prayer >> paidrín (m) rosary, because "rosary" has a new, separate meaning from prayer and is not, as such, a diminutive of the word for prayer. 2. endings which denote "agent": (like English -er, -or) -óir bádóir boatman -eoir feirmeoir farmer -(a)ire cabaire chatterer -(a)í scéalaí storyteller -éir búistéir butcher 3. endings which derive nouns from place names or surnames: -ach éireannach (Irishman) Cúlánach (one of the O Culains) B. Feminine endings 4. -óg, lasóg light -eog fuinneog window -(e)acht Gaeltacht Irish speaking area -seach cláirseach harp -éis móiréis haughtiness -áil(t) spáráil sparing -aíl feadaíl whistling -(a)irt bagairt threat -(a)ilt meilt grinding -(a)int caint talk(ing) -ís mailís malice -áid úsáid use -óid liathróid ball also, this ending when it occurs on a mass noun: -(e)ach báisteach rain praiseach mess 3. Broad/Slender final consonant If neither the biological principle (1) nor the word-ending list (2) applies, there is little predictability. However there is a general tendency for nouns in which the final consonant is broad to be masculine, and those with a slender final consonant to be feminine. Broad consonants are those preceded by a, o, or u. Slender " " " " " e, i. e.g. dúch (m) ink gúna (m) dress éide (f) uniform culaith (f) suit ...................................................................... POSSIBLE SHORTCUT For those of us whose memories don't extend to long lists, there is a shortcut which gets you most of the way there, though not all the way. Noting the tendency in Irish for words with broad final consonants to be masculine, and words with slender final consonants to be feminine, we can take this as our main working principle, and then note the exceptions. The masculine endings in List A above end in a broad consonant except for: (a) -iste (b) the agent endings (see A-2) (c) -ín The feminine endings in List B above end in a slender consonsant except for: (a) -óg and eog (b) -(e)acht (c) -seach (d) -(e)ach when it's a mass noun This cuts down the amount of memory work to be done, and will identify the gender of a great many nouns correctly. Dorothy ===================================================================== Date: Mon, 8 Jun 92 08:45:53 -0400 From: dmilne@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA Subject: ELEM-IG Lesson #3-C n, r, l COMMENT ON LESSON #3 This reply was kindly sent in by Andrew Carnie -- go raibh míle maith agat! .................................................................. LENITION OF L, R, N I will give a try at the question. Most of the stuff here is skimmed from De Bhaldraithe's "The Irish of Cois Fhairrge, Co. Galway" Published by D.A.I.S. So needless to say most of what I will be talking about refers to the Connacht Dialect. Firstly, let me make a comment about different types of lenition. In the posting about SG, the poster (Sorry I deleted the message so I can't remember your name :-) ), talked about the lenition that is usually represented by single letters (in contrast to unlenited consonant which are represented by double letters). Beginners should note that this type of "Lenition" is different from the lenition that occurs at the beginning of words. "Single letter lenition" is a historical holdover from the days when all consonants between two vowels were lenited. The other type of lenition: initial consonant lenition is slightly different. Historically it is the same process as the double letter lenition. It differs today in several important ways. Firstly, some dialects (especially those in most southerly Munster) lack initial consonant mutation of /l,r,n/, but have the single consonant lenition. Secondly, initial consonant mutation is a synchronic phenomenon, this means that it is still "triggered" in the modern language (nowadays by specific particles or words). Whereas single consonant lenition is a diachronic phenomenon, it is no longer triggered. It is fixed in the vocabularies of the speaker. Ok, now onto the actual pronunciation of these forms. I'll use the following symbols. Beginners should note that this is different from the symbol set used by Prof. O Baoill in "Foclóir Póca". /N/ velarized alveolar nasal. This is like the English /n/ but pronounced with a back vowel quality. The pronunciation is something that of the /n/ in the english word "now", but with the vowel pushed as far back as possible. /N'/ palatal nasal. This is like the french /gn/ in "agneau". /n'/ palatalized alveolar nasal. This is like the /n/ in "new". /L/ velarized alveolar lateral. like the English /l/ in the word "ball" /L'/ palatal lateral. Like the /l/ in the _French_ pronunciation of "million" /l'/ palatalized alveolar lateral. Like the /l/ in the _English_ pronunciation of "million". /r/ velarized post-alveolar flap. This sound is often thought of as a "trilled r". That is very close, but there is only one "trill" (the tongue touches the top of the mouth only once). For North American English speakers it is very close to the sound of the <tt> in "butter" when said quickly in normal speech. /r'/ palatalized post alveolar flap. Like /r/ but prounounced at the palate. (giving it a /y/ quality) I'm not even going to try to come up with a close English equivalent for this one. Ok, according to De Bhaldraithe, there is no alternation between lenited an unlenited forms for /N/, /L/, /r/, /r'/ (which in the spelling are represented as broad <n,l,r,nn,ll,rr> and slender <r, rr>.) For /L'/ and /l'/, and /N'/ and /n'/, however, there is a difference. /L'/ and /N'/ are the unlenited forms. /l'/ and /n'/ are the lenited forms. In the spelling, both the lenited and the unlenited forms are represented by slender <l> and <n> at the beginning of words. Word internally (the single letter type) lenited forms are written slender <l> and <n> and the unlenited forms are written slender <ll> and <nn>. Maybe a chart would make this clearer: Unlenited unlenited spellings Lenited lenited spelling /L/ broad <l> (initial) /L/ broad <l> broad <ll> (internal) /L'/ slender <l>, <ll> /l'/ slender <l> /N/ broad <n>, <nn> /N/ broad <n> /N'/ slender <n>, <nn> /n'/ slender <n> /r'/ slender <r>, <rr> /r'/ slender <r> /r/ broad <r> , <rr> /r/ broad <r> Whew! Complicated! One last thing. As I mentioned above, the more south you go, the less likely that there is to be a contrast between lenited forms and unlenited ones. Hope this helps. Andrew Carnie Dept of Linguistics and Philosophy Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Mass Ave Cambridge Mass. USA 02139 ===================================================================== Date: Mon, 8 Jun 92 08:42:06 -0400 From: dmilne@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA Subject: ELEM-IG Lesson #3-C r,l,n From: TOM COMMENT ON LESSON #3 ** LENITION OF L, N, R ** I'll have a go: this description may be reasonably close for Ulster Gaelic, but is likely to be a bit less close for Southern dialects because it's a description of how these consonants work in (one dialect of) Scottish Gaelic. I hope someone else will have a go too, particularly to say where Irish pronunciation differs. The first question is how to recognize lenition for these letters in the written language, because there's no following "h". When the l, n, or r is the first letter of a word it's easy because lenition is a gramatical feature: for example the l in litir (a letter) is unlenited but the l in a litir (the letter) is lenited because the article causes initial lenition in feminine nouns. Similarly initial l,n,r are lenited in the vocative of nouns, past tense of verbs, and so on. When the l, n or r is the final letter of a word, the unlenited form is written as a double consonant, the lenited form as a single consonant - the r in fear is lenited, in fearr it's unlenited. In the middle of a word, a double consonant is certainly unlenited (and long). A single l, n, or r between two vowels is lenited. Proceded or folowed by a consonant l, n, r get complicated and I don't know what the rules are - for example the r is unlenited in beurla and in ballrachd, lenited in dort, in cairteal, in arsa, in cairteal, and in geamhradh, .... if anyone knows a rule for this I would certainly find it useful for pronouncing words I haven't come across before. The second question is how to pronounce the things. For each of the three consonants we have (at least) four pronunciations according to whether they're lenited and/or palatalised (I'll use "l'" etc to indicate the palatalised forms. l: unlenited - a "hollow" sort of l, a bit like a low back vowel - in fact if you start by pronouncing it like an English W and then gradually shift the pronunciation towards English L it will be right just as soon as it sounds unsufficiently like a W to be recognisably different (in some parts of Scotland, it sounds more like a W than that). l': unlenited - like the "gl" in Italian "seraglio", somewhere between "ll" in English "billiards" and in French "billard" (probably closer to "y" in "yes" than "ll" in "million"). l': lenited - pronounced with the front of the tongue flat on the top of the mouth right up against the teeth, a bit like the l in French "lune"; sometimes the tip of the tongue may slide down and forwards as the letter is pronounced, so that there's a suggestion of a very short i-glide after the consonant. l: lenited - like l' lenited but with the tonge a bit further back and not actually making contact with the top of the mouth. (Some Hebridean dialects have dropped this sound, using unlenited l or lenited l' in its place; I've no idea whether Irish has kept it.) n: unlenited - like english n, but hollower and more dental. n': unlenited - like "gn" in poignant or lasagne, pretty much as the first n in onion. n: lenited - like english n in "not" (less hollow, less dental than unlenited form). n': lenited doesn't have a distinct sound in Scots Gaelic; when it's initial or final, we use lenited n instead; when it's medial we substitute unlenited n' (some dialects use lenited n there too). So I've no idea what it would be like in Irish (assuming it still exists) other than what I might get by trying to make a spirant form of the unlenited n'. ("cn","gn","chn","ghn" at beginning of word have a completely different n; it's a nasal r, lenited or not as the c or g is lenited or not, and nasalises the following vowel [and the preceding stop or spirant, if that makes sense]; medial cn is cr, medial gn is g followed by unlenited n or n', medial unpalatalized ghn is nasal schwa folowed by lenited n, and these things don't occur finally). r: unlenited - a rolled voiced r, not trilled or clicked, a bit hollow. r: lenited - like r in South English "road" (no trill, click, or roll; a very slack voiced fricative) r': unlenited - the description in Black is "the liquid reflex r"; it only occurs in the combinations "rn" and "rl" in the middle of a word (except in Lewis!) and then occurs even between broad vowels; where you would expect unlenited r' Scots use unlenited r instead (actually some of us use unlenited r' with or without a following i-glide in words like "oirre" too, but it's pretty unusual). This is another place I expect Irish to be different. r': lenited. A voiced fricative palatal spirant, the closest sounds in English are the "s" in "leisure" or the "th" in "then" or the z in "zoo" (and none of these is really close); a single click of the tip of the tongue against the back of the dental ridge without actually making a stop (ie a strongly spirant post-aspirated English "t"?) is a possible description. Then there's the "r" in "rd" and "rt" and "rs"; the palatalised form is an unvoiced version of lenited r' which sort of drifts into (unlenited) s'; the broad form is an unvoiced form of lenited r which drifts into an (unlenited) s. I hope people can make head or tail of all that lot! Tom ===================================================================== Date: Mon, 8 Jun 92 08:53:50 -0400 From: dmilne@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA Subject: ELEM-IG Lesson #3-C Síoda mín. COMMENT ON LESSON #3 The following very helpful comments have been sent in by Ciaráa. Go raibh míle maith agat! .................................................... Dorothy, Your question has made me do some thinking! I am fairly clear about what the best way to say it is, but I have difficulty saying what's wrong with the other suggestions. I would suggest: Tá an síoda mín. First, about the article. I know you mean "all silk" as opposed to "that piece of silk" but the article is required in either case. You could distinguish the particular one by saying "Tá an tsíoda sin mín." Why use the article in the general case? Irish just does in this kind of case where you mean "x in general". I think French and German would do so too. I recall hearing a somewhat similar sentence in mid-Donegal: "Tá an cat righin" meaning "Cats are tough, hardy". As for the verb, "Is mín síoda" or "Is mín an síoda" is not possible. I can't give you a reason why not, without analysing the use of "is" with adjectives. I have a sneaking feeling such a construction might have been acceptable at an earlier stage in the language, but it sounds all wrong today. "Bíonn an síoda mín" is possible, but it would not be correct to argue that "bíonn" is required because the statement covers all time whereas "tá" refers to the present point in time. Rather I feel that "Tá an síoda mín" is a categorical statement about all silk for all time! While "bíonn an síoda mín" seems to me to say "silk does be smooth at times" with the implication that it does not be at others. Ciarán. ===================================================================== Date: Mon, 8 Jun 92 08:35:31 -0400 From: dmilne@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA Subject: ELEM-IG #3C l,n,r From: Ciarán COMMENT ON LESSON #3 ** LENITION OF L, N ** Lenition of l, n, r is a fairly obscure topic and I wouldn't advise losing sleep over it! I'm not sure that there is lenition of "r" in Ulster Irish, so I'll confine my remarks to "l" and "n". For these, lenition means the same as for any other consonant - a weakening or softening of the obstruction to the breath. There are two kinds of "l", unlenited and lenited, and the same is true of "n". I prefer to say "strong" and "weak", rather than "unlenited" and "lenited". The strong forms are pronounced with the same tongue position as "t" or "d" or "s" - heavy contact between the front upper surface of the tongue and the back of the front teeth. The weak forms are a light tap of the tongue tip higher up above the teeth, like in English. When they occur AWAY from the start of the word, strong "l" and "n" are written double, while weak "l" and "n" are written single. So the following are strong: ceann, ceannas, caill, caillim and the following are weak: cion, ceana, cáil, cáilín Compared with other consonants, "l"/"n" are written doubled to indicate strength (this is true in non-initial position) whereas other consonants have "h" suffixed to indicate weakness. But, when "l" and "n" occur at the START of a word, they are always written single. Now, the initial consonant of an isolated word is strong (with a few exceptions like "chun" and "thar"). And so it is with "l"/"n" - they will have the strong pronunciation when the word is used in isolation, and in many other circumstances. Examples: lá, Nollaig But when the syntax causes lenition, initial "l" and "n" switch to their weak pronunciation, though - unlike other consonants - they are still written the same, e.g. ar lá, oíche Nollag I think it would be true to say (comments?) that some common little words, like "le" and its derivatives, or the "na" form of the article, are permanently lenited. Also, an "n" or "l" adjacent to a "d", "t" or "s" assimilates to it and is strong, e.g. slat, dlaoi, sláinte (two examples there!) But when the "d", "s" or "t" is lenited, so is the "l" or "n", e.g. do shláinte. Ciarán. =====================================================================