Connacht Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Connacht. Gaeltacht regions in Connacht are found in Counties Mayo (notably on Achill Island) and Galway (notably in Connemara and on the Aran Islands). The Mayo and Galway varieties differ from each other in a variety of ways, as Mayo Irish has a number of features in common with Ulster Irish. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... Irish (Gaeilge), a Goidelic language spoken in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, is constitutionally recognized as the first official language of the Republic of Ireland. ... Connaught redirects here. ... Gaeltacht Gaeltacht is an Irish word for an Irish-speaking region. ... County Mayo (Irish: Contae Mhaigh Eo, the plain of the yews) is a county on the west coast of Ireland. ... Keem bay on Achill island is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Ireland. ... County Galway (Contae na Gaillimhe in Irish) is located on the west coast of Ireland. ... Connemara (Irish Conamara), which derives from Conmaicne Mara, (meaning: descendants of Conmhac, of the sea) is a district in the west of Ireland (County Galway). ... The Aran Islands (Irish: Na hOileáin Árann) are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. ... Ulster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Ulster. ...

Lexicon

Some differences between Mayo and Galway are seen in the lexicon:

Phonology

The phonology of Connacht Irish corresponds fairly closely to that of "school Irish" discussed at Irish phonology. Some processes that are unique to Connacht include: Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics closely associated with phonetics. ... The phonology of the Irish language varies from dialect to dialect. ...

• Vowel lengthening before word-internal clusters of voiced stop + liquid (e.g. /ɑːgləʃ/ eaglais "church"
• In some varieties, a three-way distinction among coronal nasals and laterals: /n̪ˠ ~ n ~ ṉʲ/, /l̪ˠ ~ l ~ ḻʲ/, often without lengthening of orthographic short vowels before them.
• In the variety spoken in Cois Fhairrge (the area along the north shore of Galway Bay), underlying short /a/ is realized as a long front [aː] while underlying long /aː/ is realized as a back [ɑː].
• /n/ is realized as [r] (or is replaced by /r/) after consonants other than [s]. This happens in Ulster as well.

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Liquid consonants, or liquids, are approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels (glides) because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels (in the way that, for example, the initial in English yes corresponds to ). The class of liquids can be divided into lateral liquids and rhotics. ... Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ... Galway Bay (Irish: Loch Lurgain or Cuan na Gaillimhe) is a large bay/sea loch on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the district of Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south. ... A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ...

Morphology

Nouns

In some dialects of Connacht the plural endings -anna and -acha are always replaced by -annaí and -achaí. It is also common in Connacht that all 2nd declension nouns end in palatalized consonants in the nominative singular. This is indicated in the spelling by the letter i before the final consonant. The nominals of Irish include the nouns, the definite article, and the adjectives. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun. ... Irish orthography has a reputation as being very difficult to learn and bearing only a tenuous relationship to the pronunciation. ...

Verbs

Irish verbs are characterized by having a mixture of analytic forms (where information about person is provided by a pronoun) and synthetic forms (where information about number is provided in an ending on the verb) in their conjugation. In Mayo, as in Ulster, the analytic forms are used in a variety of forms where the standard language has synthetic forms, e.g. molann muid "we praise" (standard molaimid) or mholfadh siad "they would praise" (standard mholfaidís). Irish verb forms are constructed either synthetically or analytically. ... Third person redirects here, but can also mean: Third Person, a New York City improvising trio A perspective (storytelling) Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ...

See also

• Rosmuck
• Munster Irish
• Ulster Irish

Rosmuck (Ros Muc in Irish) is a village in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area) of County Galway, Ireland. ... Ulster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Ulster. ...

External links

• Die araner mundart (a phonological description of the Irish dialect of the Aran Islands, from 1899) at Wikisource