Munster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in Counties Kerry (notably Dingle) and Cork. 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. ... Munster (Irish: An Mhumhain, IPA: ) is the southernmost province of Ireland, comprising the counties of Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. ... Gaeltacht Gaeltacht is an Irish word for an Irish-speaking region. ... County Kerry (Irish: Contae Chiarraí) is a county in the southwest of Ireland, in the Munster province of the Republic of Ireland, informally referred to as The Kingdom. ... John Street, Dingle Dingle (in Irish, An Daingean or Daingean Uí Chúis) is a growing town in County Kerry in the Republic of Ireland, on the Atlantic coast some 50 km west-south-west of Tralee and 80 km west-north-west of Killarney. ... County Cork (Contae Chorcaí in Irish) is the most southwesterly and the largest of the modern counties of Ireland. ...

Lexicon

Munster Irish differs from the Ulster and Connacht dialects in a number of respects. Some words and phrases used in Munster Irish are not used in the other dialects, such as: Ulster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Ulster. ... Connacht Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Connacht. ...

• in aon chur "at any rate" (other dialects ar chor ar bith)
• fé "under" (standard faoi)
• Gaelainn "Irish language" (standard Gaeilge)
• ná "that...not; do not" (standard nach)

Phonology

The phonemic inventory of Munster Irish (based on the accent of West Muskerry in western Cork) is as shown in the following chart (based on Ó Cuív 1944; see International Phonetic Alphabet for an explanation of the symbols). Symbols appearing in the upper half of each row are velarized (traditionally called "broad" consonants) while those in the bottom half are palatalized ("slender"). The consonant /h/ is neither broad or slender. In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ... County Cork (Contae Chorcaí in Irish) is the most southwesterly and the largest of the modern counties of Ireland. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. ... 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 vowels of Munster Irish are as shown on the following chart. These positions are only approximate, as vowels are strongly influenced by the palatalization and velarization of surrounding consonants. In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... Dorsal consonants are articulated with the back of the tongue against either the hard palate, or the flexible velum just behind it, or even against the uvula. ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... 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. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another. ... 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. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-18, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

In addition, Munster has the diphthongs /iə, ia, uə, əi, ai, au, ou/. In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Some characteristics of Munster that distinguish it from the other dialects are:

• The fricative [βˠ] is found in syllable-onset position. (Connacht and Ulster have [w] here.) For example, bhog "moved" is pronounced [βˠɔg] as opposed to [wɔg] elsewhere.
• The diphthongs /əi/, /ou/, and /ia/ occur in Munster, but not in the other dialects.
• Word-internal clusters of obstruent + sonorant, [m] + [n/r], and stop + fricative are broken up by an epenthetic [ə], except that stop + liquid remains in the onset of a stressed syllable. For example, eaglais "church" is pronounced [ˈɑgəl̪ˠəʃ], but Aibreán "April" is [aˈbʲrʲɑːn̪ˠ].
• Orthographic short a is diphthongized (rather than lengthened) before word-final m and the Old Irish tense sonorants spelled nn, ll (e.g. ceann [kʲaun̪ˠ] "head").
• Word-final /j/ is realized as [gʲ], e.g. marcaigh "horsemen" [ˈmˠɑɾˠkəgʲ].
• Stress is attracted to noninitial heavy syllables: [kəɾˠˈkɑːn̪ˠ] "pot", [mʲal̪ˠəˈβˠoːg] "satchel". Stress is also attracted to [ax, ɑx] in the second syllable: [kəˈlʲax] "rooster", [bʲəˈn̪ˠɑxt̪ˠ] "blessing", [bˠəˈkɑxə] "lame" (pl.).
• In some varieties, long /ɑː/ is rounded to [ɒː].

Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. ... In phonetics, an obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing the airway. ... In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a member of a class of speech sounds that are continuants produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ... 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. ... In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis given to certain syllables in a word. ... This article discusses the unit of speech. ... Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Irish language which can be, more or less, fully reconstructed from extant sources. ... Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. ... In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. ...

Morphology

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 Munster synthetic forms are more often used than in the standard language, where analytic forms (those with a general ending + personal pronoun) are more common. 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 phrase. ...

Some irregular verbs have different forms in Munster than in the standard:

• deinim "I do/make" (standard déanaim) and dheineas "I did/made" (standard rinne mé)
• chím "I see" (standard feicim)
• bheirim "I give/bring" (standard tugaim) and bhéarfad "I will give/bring" (standard tabharfaidh mé)

Past tense verbs can take the particle do in Munster Irish, even when they begin with consonants. In the standard language, the particle is used only before vowels. For example, Munster do bhris sé or bhris sé "he broke" (standard only bhris sé).

Syntax

One significant syntactic difference between Munster and other dialects is that in Munster, go ("that") is used instead of a as the indirect relative particle: Syntax, originating from the Greek words συν (syn, meaning co- or together) and τάξις (táxis, meaning sequence, order, arrangement), can in linguistics be described as the study of the rules, or patterned relations that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ... Irish syntax is rather different from that of most Indo-European languages, notably because of its VSO word order. ...

• an fear go bhfuil a dheirfiúr san ospidéal "the man whose sister is in the hospital" (standard an fear a bhfuil...)
• an seomra go gchodlaím ann "the room that I sleep in" (standard an seomra a gcodlaím ann)

References

• Ó Cuív, Brian (1944). The Irish of West Muskerry, Co. Cork. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. ISBN 0901282529.