Blas na Gàidhlig - Na mearachdan beaga

[Thrissel]

pp 278-279 - not exactly a mistake, but confusing to a learner: after the sentence "There are some [function words] which can be both stressed or unstressed depending upon the sentence" all the examples show them stressed (or all unstressed in the case of "na(s) - than").

p 282 - question mark instead of full stop ending "if we're talking about him or her?"

p 283 - the g in ag drops off in front of a consonant "except r, for example in ag ràdh"- my TYG says ag ràdh is "the sole exception". (Or does that only apply in writing and are thus eg a' ruith, a' reic pronounced [? gr?j], [? greçg?]? The book discloses so many things I've never noticed before I'm currently willing to believe almost anything... )

p 288 - [??? k?auN], [??? g??ran] - should the superscript be there at ???

p 294 - prounons -> pronouns

Exercise 109, sentence 1: p 299 "a' dol ann a-nochd", key p 471 "a' dol a fhaicinn a-nochd".

Exercise 112: it would be good if the key in addition to the spellings also said which animals make the particular sounds - I know I can find it here, but presumably not everybody does...

p 310 - "it has the advantage of keeping in separate" -> it
"all form of the denifite article" -> forms
"n and m are very soft, voiced sounds (see 2.3)" -> see 2.4

p 324 - "If you left it out and wrote is as tealach" -> wrote it as

p 326 - "They realised that while Old Irish had about 40 consonants which fell broadly into two categories"

p 330 - "Slovak [...] its palatal sound ?, ?, l?, ?, š, ?, ž" -> palatal sounds, ?
footnote 71: "squiggle behind ? and ? is a reduced form"-> squiggle behind ?, ? and ?. Actually ? is the only one which has the squiggle (which, by the way, shouldn't be mistaken for the acute accent in Slovak "long l" - ? / ?) even in upper case (as opposed to ? and ?) - frankly speaking I wouldn't know how to put the 'bona fide' caron above l myself...

p 337 - fairrge -> fairge (I only found it with a double r here)

pp 335 vs 337: "the consonants must be in a stressed syllable [...] the extra vowel is usually an exact copy of the first and carries as much stress as the first" vs "the helping vowel does not count as an unstressed vowel". I don't get it - if it carries as much stress as a stressed one, why should it count as unstressed?

p 341- "unless if the nn, ll, rr or m is followed by a vowel"

p 476 - [d?aRs] -> [d?a:Rs]

p 351 - "these must been around" -> must have been

p 352 - "mainly affects verbs that have more than two syllables and end in a so-called liquid" - the following examples either have only two syllables (in present tense) or don't end in a liquid (in the other tenses)

p 362 - "if eu followed by m, it is generally" -> is followed

p 368 - "nì+ [ni:] future of dèan" - the superscript + is explained on p 377 but what does it mean here?

p 372 - "if a short o (not oi) is following by hiatus" -> followed

p 373:
"this usually either [h]" -> this is usually...
"if the word following a word ending in [h], the [h] often disappears" -> "if the word following a word ending in [h] begins with a consonant" I guess?

p 377 - "they don't all agree on ó vs ó" -> ó vs ò

p 380:
"a few words with simply have unpredictable pronunciations" -> which
"here are some of some common ones" - technically not a mistake but cf p 21
"those already deal with" -> dealt

p 382 - "[Gaelic is] pretty insistent on initial stress" - muhaha, Czech is pretty insistent, we shift it to prefixes and even to one-syllable prepositions, so you end up with iris ?gun fo-sgrìobhairean or daoine ?air leth-eileanan - okay, okay, bidh mi a' dol ?a leabaidh an ceartuair

p 384 - "here are some of examples"

[Thrissel]

pp 444, 448, 450 - are the imperative table at rach and conditional table at thoir supposed to look like the future and conditional tables at abair?

p 451 mentions an author as MacLennan and refers to bibliography, where on p 584 he's given as MacGill-Fhinnein [but perhaps this is intentional]

p 480 - "there are two rules which could apply..." - I think what follows would be more user-friendly as given on the second line:
(-)o + g(-) or (-)o + C ELSEWHERE ->
(-)o + g(-) or (-)o(-) ELSEWHERE

p 483: the paragraph about o is indented too far and once again has O 15 as "(-)o + C ELSEWHERE" while the Guide gives "(-)o(-) ELSEWHERE"

C03: "Cases of this are rare.", C12: "Cases of this are rare also."

C05: I'm not certain the note about nasality doesn't contradict a bit the last two paragraphs on p 176

D10: "In case if a dr" -> of a dr

E27: "The only common exception to this are some of the special endings..." - I was taught this was Czechism and should be is (also in N06)

F02: what is fhalla? haven't found it anywhere

G10: "it is a special endings" -> ending

I18: "preceded and followed by other letters" -> optionally followed

N08: "There are a few exceptions (see 5.6.16)" - didn't find there any

O09: "consulting the Wordlist at the end" - Wordlist precedes the Guide

O11: "and the immediately another consonant" -> then

R11: "Slender r before another dental [...] it will strengthen to [R]."

S01: "so you can do without as a learner" -> without them
"Check section 5.6.4" - 5.6.6 (as in S03 and S08) or "page 358" (as in S13) would be better

S18: "the it will be pronounced" -> "(then) it will..." / "the s will..."

T01: "definite article an t- causes lenition"

T04: "broad th in results in hiatus"

U05: the text (not the heading or the examples) is mistakenly copypasted from U08

U07: "other letters my follow" -> may

U13: "(-)ui" in heading should be "(-)u"

By the way why has the black framing of the rules' numbers disappeared from R01 on? Cuts as everywhere?

p 585: "On a lighter not" -> note

On a happier not, obviously this was the last batch, so you can stop cursing me . In fact it wasn't all that bad, provided you didn't pay somebody for professional proofreading - and what's a few typos in comparison with a certain guy in Central Europe that up to quite recently used to pronounce 'the notorious dìochuimhneachadh' as [d?i:?xuiwN??.ax??]...

[akerbeltz]

Oh heck, lol. Mìle mìle taing a charaid - cuiridh mi sùil air nuair a bhios tìde agam an ath sheachdain!

[akerbeltz]

I don't know how to thank you for starters, that's an amazing buglist - I'll think of something At the very least, here are some answers where you raised a questions:

Btw, just being pedantic, should there be an additional arrow in the key in sentence 11 from droch to cho-dhùnadh?

yes

underlines dealbh as the particularizing half of dealbh-chluich - seems odd to me but maybe I just follow different logic here

The idea is there are many types of play, this one is "pictoresque". Look at it the other way, a "picture that's playing" would more likely be a film or suchlike. But you're right, sometimes these things are borderline and language specific.

pp 278-279 - not exactly a mistake, but confusing to a learner: after the sentence "There are some [function words] which can be both stressed or unstressed depending upon the sentence" all the examples show them stressed (or all unstressed in the case of "na(s) - than").

You mean contrasting examples of stressed/unstressed would have been better?

Or does that only apply in writing and are thus eg a' ruith, a' reic pronounced [? gr?j], [? greçg?]? The book discloses so many things I've never noticed before I'm currently willing to believe almost anything

LOL yes, it applies to more than the list of one that GOC bochd cites. Especially older publications (pre 1950 ish) are rife with it: ag rùsgadh, ag reic, ag ràitinn, ag rèiteachadh, ag riadhladh..."

[??? k?auN], [??? g??ran] - should the superscript be there at ???

Yes, remember the -n in the definite article always adjusts for palatalness, even if it doesn't jump.

it would be good if the key in addition to the spellings also said which animals make the particular sounds

Oh poo... they used to be there >.<

?, ?, l?, ?, š, ?, ž

Apart from having to type it (just install a Slovak keyboard?) ? has a font display issue. In Times or such a font you get the apostrophe like symbol. In Arial Unicode, you get the caron above the l. Gah.

the extra vowel is usually an exact copy of the first and carries as much stress as the first" vs "the helping vowel does not count as an unstressed vowel". I don't get it - if it carries as much stress as a stressed one, why should it count as unstressed?

Well, you could look at the IPA of [kaLam?] and say there's 3 syllables and since only the first syllable is stressed, some overclever person might want to turn the [La] into [L?]. I've reworded it a bit for the next edition.

p 352 - "mainly affects verbs that have more than two syllables and end in a so-called liquid" - the following examples either have only two syllables (in present tense) or don't end in a liquid (in the other tenses)

Argh. It used to say "at least two syllables" and then I messed up the sentence. What do you mean "in the other tenses"?

pp 444, 448, 450 - are the imperative table at rach and conditional table at thoir supposed to look like the future and conditional tables at abair?

Yah it's a space issue.

The only common exception to this are some of the special endings..." - I was taught this was Czechism and should be is (also in N06)

My mistake.

what is fhalla? haven't found it anywhere

fhalla = thalla

By the way why has the black framing of the rules' numbers disappeared from R01 on? Cuts as everywhere?

Cause ... cause... will you buy that saturn was in the 3rd house and Sirius was playing tag with Orion? I messed up

On a happier not, obviously this was the last batch, so you can stop cursing me . In fact it wasn't all that bad, provided you didn't pay somebody for professional proofreading - and what's a few typos in comparison with a certain guy in Central Europe that up to quite recently used to pronounce 'the notorious dìochuimhneachadh' as [d?i:?xuiwN??.ax??]

I'm glad you feel that way, I'm sitting here with a face like an Arizona sunset and I'm glad I managed to smoothe your [d?i:?xuiwN??.ax??]. I can see how you got there but yikes Gun robh mìle math agad a-rithist!

[Thrissel]

Look at it the other way, a "picture that's playing" would more likely be a film or suchlike.

Come to think of it I did say to myself "would be more appropriate for a film than for a play" when I first encountered the word - but by the same token the way it actually is reminds me more of tableaux vivants or carnival floats - why couldn't they just stick to cluich like English & Czech?

You mean contrasting examples of stressed/unstressed would have been better?

Yes, the way it's now one doesn't get even the vaguest hint as to when they are unstressed, so may tend to stick to stressed option at all times, despite knowing one shouldn't.
Btw I now see I wrote 'or all unstressed in the case of "na(s) - than" ' which isn't true, I mixed up the two kinds of na in the example sentences, but then nas is only "more", so the heading "na(s) - than" is misleading...

it applies to more than the list of one that GOC bochd cites

Let's not make GOC a scapegoat for everything, the TYG I mentioned was published in 1971, which I think precedes the Convention. Fact is its wording is ambiguous, Mr Mackinnon doesn't expressly say it relates to spelling and pronunciation; OTOH the only example beginning in r that follows in the lesson is "a' rannsachadh" which in his phonetic system is "(? rauns?ch?gh)".

just install a Slovak keyboard?

That's right, apparently Czech keyboard anticipates use of Slovak words and of course I was using the Czech one when writing that bit.

What do you mean "in the other tenses"?

Sodomy non sapiens, as Terry Pratchett translates buggered if I know - I possibly thought I saw there some forms with more than two syllables - will you buy that Sirius was playing tag again?

Yah it's a space issue.

Nah, I meant that before the tables you say "Where a form is in grey [...] italics", but only their &c are in grey, with canaidh &c in italics, and my question was: should racham/thoirinn &c be in grey and theirigeam/thugainn &c in italics as well?

I can see how you got there but yikes

Exactly, what my Czechoslovak background won me in knowing [N?, L?, b, g, d] beforehand was more than anulled by the tendency of pronouncing everything - you mention this in the book but in my case this is aggravated by the Czech IPA-like tendency "one letter - one sound". (If I wanted to tell somebody how to write Gàidhlig in Czech I could say [g?: "long" ?: i: d?: ha: ?l i: g?:] but nine times out of ten I'd just say [ga:.i.d.h.li.g].) This was also a partial motivation for the lèirmheas: the recurring thought of "such a helpful book and all you post about it anywhere is some holes you picked?"

Finally,

I don't know how to thank you

I think you already have, not only by answering my questions first but also by answering all those other questions I'm giving you both here and at Wiki - which I'm afraid won't stop . Just now I'm troubled by how important are the differences between [e]/[?], /[?] and [o]/[?]. Are there many minimal pairs like each/eich or does using the wrong one usually just sound unnatural without an effect on one's intelligibility? I ask because in Czech they work like dialectal markers, eg [ten] vs [t?n] is the very same word but indicates which region you come from.

[akerbeltz]

Yes, the way it's now one doesn't get even the vaguest hint as to when they are unstressed, so may tend to stick to stressed option at all times, despite knowing one shouldn't.

Ah perhaps I'll work that into the sentence. You just stress them when you need to stress them, for example:
chaidh mi ann gun airgead vs chaidh mi ann gun airgead

I've tried hard not to "assume anything" but I seem to have slipped here.

Let's not make GOC a scapegoat for everything

Och let's Anyway... it's hard to be aware of all these things. Not everyone is insane enough to keep a record of odd things they see when reading a Gaelic book and IT has developed massively since, it's so much easier checking if something WAS used these days.

will you buy that Sirius was playing tag again?

Súhlasím

Where a form is in grey [...] italics", but only their &c are in grey, with canaidh &c in italics,

Oh poo >.< I see what you mean.

the recurring thought of "such a helpful book and all you post about it anywhere is some holes you picked?
...
I think you already have, not only by answering my questions first but also by answering all those other questions I'm giving you both here and at Wiki - which I'm afraid won't stop

I know it's not meant negatively at all, I'm ever so grateful and by all means keep the questions coming. At the very least you have earned yourself a free copy of the revised 2nd edition!!!

[e]/[?], /[?] and [o]/[?].

Hwoill... there's a bit of wriggleroom. and [?] in unstressed syllables shouldn't be at the top of your list. With the others there are some dialect differences but on the whole, it's a general phenomenon so you can't or shouldn't try to avoid it. But again it's relative. Preaspiration is more important than the vowel thing for example but overall, it all contributes to how authentic your Gaelic sounds.

[Thrissel]

Thanks, that's what I needed to know! Trouble is, there are so many bad habits I've acquired that I have to concentrate on overcoming the most schrecklich ones like the 'overdiphthongsizing' or not leniting l n r, so of course I'm trying to make out how much I can or cannot slack with the others, and ever since I've found out about the stress-on-the-first-syllable co-incidence between Gaelic and Czech I'm prone to looking for similarities where, naturally, there are none.

And thanks again for treating my answers preferentially. As I was saying, it's only a matter of time before I'm back with more...

[Thrissel]

Three more miniscule ones (two from am Blas, one from AFB) and three questions:

p 390 has headwords an2, an3 but no an1 (presumably for the definite article?)
p 398 - [bu.?] at bùth should also be black, not grey
dealanach - lightening -> lightning (http://www.faclair.com/ViewEntry.aspx?I ... 5BC643F040)

p 406 - "dhen an" under de - I thought the definite article was already inside the dhen - is this a (more formal?) alternative'?
p 414 - the [h] in forms of gabh (gabhail [gahal] &c) sounds like the "strong" one as in eg tha or more as when preaspirating?
p 440 - I often see the 's toigh le construction written as 's toil le - is the latter also pronounced [sd? l?] or is it [sd? l?]?

[akerbeltz]

p 390 has headwords an2, an3 but no an1 (presumably for the definite article?)

Ah yes, changed that to 1/2. There used to be a section on the definite article but it was ... unhelpful in this format so I took it out.

p 398 - [bu.?] at bùth should also be black, not grey

Check

dealanach - lightening -> lightning (http://www.faclair.com/ViewEntry.aspx?I ... 5BC643F040)

More than one actually, thanks!

p 406 - "dhen an" under de - I thought the definite article was already inside the dhen - is this a (more formal?) alternative'?

I have yet to figure out how that patterns. For some speakers it seems to be an individual preference for one or the other. Others seem to use the longer form in ways I can't quite figure yet but there may be something about syllable structure that makes the longer form a bit easier to say or recognise. Not sure. But they both exist.

p 414 - the [h] in forms of gabh (gabhail [gahal] &c) sounds like the "strong" one as in eg tha or more as when preaspirating?
Depends on the speaker. You have to view that as a bit of a continuum form /gaval/ > /gahal/ > /ga?al/ > /ga.al/ and depending on where you are it's stronger or weaker. I normally suggest something between /gahal/ and /ga?al/.

p 440 - I often see the 's toigh le construction written as 's toil le - is the latter also pronounced [sd? l?] or is it [sd? l?]?

Another good one. Technically there is toil /t?l/ and toigh /t?/ but the two have become so confused even amongst native speakers it's a realy free-for-all.

[Thrissel]

Mòran taing! I think I'll stick to simple "dhen" and to /t?/ and go for /ga?al/ - it's closer to what my unreliable ears hear in the BBC Litrichean (/g?.?l/ ).

[akerbeltz]

/go.al/ is also common but in practice I've found it almost impossible to get learners to say /go/ /go.al/ /?o/ etc. They see the <a> on paper and don't want to take a hint using /ah/ is the only workable solution I've found to wean people off /gav/ /gaval/ which sounds really odd to most native speakers.

[Thrissel]

Well, having accepted that in addition to the Czech /a/, a can also be /?:/, /æ/, /e?/ or /?/ in English, adding /o/ for Gaelic makes little difference to me. And it's good to hear my ears aren't that bad yet...

[akerbeltz]

Yesno, it's /o/ if there's a labial nearby that is heading for hiatus, so the labialness of the consonant transfers to the vowel. But most learners don't like the idea so I'm grateful for every disciple

[Thrissel]

A dangerous kind of remark, it tempted me to dig deeper and be faced with knew questions : so that's why sabhal is given as /so.?l/? Does it also apply to abhainn? And what about rabhadh /Rau.??/ - is inserting an /u/ between the /a/ and the hiatus another option?

In other words, should I for the sake of consistency use /go.al, so.?l, o.?N?, Ro.??/ or /ga?al, sa.?l, a.?N?, Ra.??/ or /gau.al, sau.?l, au.?N?, Rau.??/ - or should I, whatever I do about gabhail, stick to /so.?l/, /a.?N?/ and /Rau.??/ and when I meet a new one use the "rhyming" method (eg ends in -adh => /au.??/ &c)?

[akerbeltz]

The answer to the first one is yes, it's all to do with what Gaelic does do b > bh > ? in a historical sense. Sometimes you get hiatus, sometimes the v hangs around and it usually does weird stuff to the vowels nearby in the process.

Ok, the quick answer to the second one is no. /so.?l/ and /Rau.??/ are not odd by the same speaker whereas /o.?N?/ would be weird (though according to the Survey, the eastern end of the Great Glen has /o/ and /?/ forms). When you get which I have to pass on just now but I'll think about it and come back.