Phonetic Structures of Scottish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic is an endangered language with very few fluent speakers under 60. Recordings were collected in the neighbourhood of Greater Bernera, Lewis, from 11 native speakers. Aerodynamic and palatographic data were collected from one 70-year-old male speaker. Palatographic data made in 1955 by...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1998-06, Vol.28 (1-2), p.1-41
Main Authors: Ladefoged, Peter, Ladefoged, Jenny, Turk, Alice, Hind, Kevin, Skilton, St. John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Allophones
Consonants
Descriptive studies and applied theories
Ellipses
Linguistics
Phonetics
Phonology
Pronunciation
Skull
Stop consonants
Syllables
Vowels
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Scottish Gaelic is an endangered language with very few fluent speakers under 60. Recordings were collected in the neighbourhood of Greater Bernera, Lewis, from 11 native speakers. Aerodynamic and palatographic data were collected from one 70-year-old male speaker. Palatographic data made in 1955 by Frederick Macaulay, a Gaelic speaker from South Uist, provided additional information. Analysis showed that all the stops were voiceless unaspirated or aspirated, with the aspirated stops being preaspirated intervocalically. Spectra of various consonants were also determined. Vowel analyses showed the nature of the 7 long and short vowels. Special attention was paid to the back unrounded vowels. Problems of syllabicity were examined and shown to affect pitch contours.
ISSN:0025-1003
1475-3502
DOI:10.1017/S0025100300006228