Dia Daoibh!

For any who may know the answer, I have a rather specific question about the pronunciation of abair, beir, and tabhair in an Chanúint Ghaoth Dobhair. Unlike not so long ago, I am much more confident now about the use of the Gaoth Dobhair slender-r “y-sound”…in fact, after many many hours of listening to native speakers and writing down patterns, I believe I have “cracked the code,” as it were, on the y-sound version of the slender r and when it is applied among native speakers of the region. (I hope to share my findings here soon when I have it written coherently.)

But I don’t believe I have ever heard the above three irregular verbs pronounced as-is (in their dictionary/imperative forms) by a native Gaoth Dobhair speaker.

My logic (and the pattern that I’ve recognized) tells me that these are pronounced…

AH-bwee
bey
tō-y

But, since I’ve never heard them spoken by a Gaoth Dobhair native (and because I know that there sometimes random exceptions in the area to pronouncing the slender r), I find myself feeling a bit unconfident that anyone really pronounces them that way…

Can anyone help me out on this? Más amhlaidh a bheadh, go raibh míle maith agat!

Rosie

Is fearr mall ná go brách…

I‘Ve never heard tabhair pronounced like that, but I wasn’t completely sure about beir or indeed abair so I checked with a native Gweedore speaker. She pronounces tabhair and abair in the “normal” way - like on Teanglann - but she pronounces beir as you supposed, though I’ve heard it pronounced in the “normal” way too.

In An Teanga Bheo - Gaeilge Uladh there’s a chapter on the pronunciation of the vowels, consonants and diphthongs, and the variations between different areas within Donegal. However, the author, Dónall P. Ó Baoill, somehow contrives not to mention the single most distinctive feature of the biggest Irish-speaking parish in the county (and in the whole country apparently) - that peculiar pronunciation of slender r. And him a Gweedore man!

Anyway, I’m fascinated to hear you’ve cracked the code. Care to enlighten us?

Edit: I wrote the above before I knew you actually had the book ‘Gaeilge Uladh’, so you already knew that.

Hi, Errigal! Thank you so much for both of your replies and for consulting your friend. I previously consulted with some other experienced speakers on this topic, and I definitely got mixed answers. One man said he’s definitely heard tabhair as “toy” before…but that it depends on the speaker, location, and whether or not they were influenced by school Irish.

Sure! I’d be glad to share (what I believe to be) the code. This comes after a couple of weeks of intensively listening to hours upon hours of Gweedore speakers speaking, and writing down my observations…it seems pretty consistent (at least among those of West Gweedore):

Observations about the Gweedore slender r.
It seems that the slender “r” is usually not pronounced “y” in the following cases:
* On an unstressed ending-syllable of a word, when preceded by a slender consonant (except for slender consonants made slender by “é”) (Example: cóisir = KO-shir’…as opposed to obair = UBB-bwee)
* On a monosyllabic word or disyllabic word (on the unstressed ending-syllable) when an “í” or “aoir” makes the r to be slender (Example: tír = tcheer’…as opposed to fir = fayy … or “cathaoir “= KAI-heer’ as opposed to “cathair” = KA-hayy)
* Words ending in -úir. (But sometimes people will pronounce this slender r as “y” in the plural: gasúirí, dochtúirí, etc.)
* Words ending in -óir. (But sometimes people will pronounce this slender r as “y” in the plural: eg. bainisteoirí, etc.)

Some individual words are rare exceptions and are never pronounced with a slender r:
Such as cuir, onóir, Mí Eanáir, etc…I suppose these must just be observed and memorized.

Think I might be on to something?