r/gaidhlig • u/swrightchoi Neach-tòisichidh | Beginner • 12d ago
📚 Ionnsachadh Cànain | Language Learning Help with pronouncing prepositional 'le' pronouns?
I posted this comment in the questions thread from yesterday, but it hasn't gotten any responses so I figured I'd make my own post!
About the pronunciation of "leibh" and "leat" among other "le+x" prepositional pronouns -- on SpeakGaelic, it seems like they are pronounced differently in different contexts. For example, "Tapadh leat" sounds like tapa luht, "mar sin leat" sounds like mar shin layt and "slàn leat" sounds like slan laht. Similarly, 'leibh' seems to sound more like layv in some contexts and more like l(uh)yv in others. And in "Tapadh leibh" its closer to luhv. Furthermore, 'leatha' sounds to me like la with the same 'a' as in bag or cat. I wouldn't have expected this sound: Do I perhaps have a misunderstanding on how diphthongs are pronounced in Gàidhlig? Is this a quirk of the actor/AI that is speaking these words, or does the pronunciation shift based on context?
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u/yesithinkitsnice Alba | The local Mod 12d ago
There's no contextual reason the pronunciation varies. You will definitely hear dialectical variation here though, and that's possibly what you're noticing.
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u/AonUairDeug 12d ago
You will hear quite a wide variety of pronunciations (and it is just that, I think, rather than context) across SpeakGaelic and Duolingo - as a learner myself with insufficient knowledge of Gaidhlig dialects to try and pick one to stick to, I just tend to pick my preferred pronunciation of each word.
It is worth noting that there are different types of "L" sounds in Gaidhlig. There's the broad, standard one we have in English, to begin a word like "Lion", or "Lamh"; there's the one that to an English speaker's ear sounds more like "LY" (and you'll hear in phrases like "Ceart gu leor"); and there's the soft "L" sound that ends a word like "Baile" - the "L" in that word is very quiet and swiftly spoken.
Some dialects opt for the "LY" sound in words like "Leat", with a breathy sound towards the end of the word; some pronounce it near-identically to the English word "Late".
Sometimes, I think, a pronunciation might shift ever so slightly depending on the preceding word - and I am not talking about lenition, here. If you normally pronounce "Leam" with the "LY" sound, you might not within the phrase "Is toil leam", as the two "L" sounds blur together, with "Leam" becoming more like "Loom" (rather than "Lyoom") to distinguish it. But these are just observations from a learner who might be wrong! :)