It's all those weird aspirated wheezing 'h' sounds at the end of their "pronunciation guide" syllables that baffle me. How to give people a bad sore throat in one easy lesson!
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The “h” is only there to soften the consonant. The Irish alphabet has 20 letters, as opposed to 26 in English. In old script, a dot was placed over certain consonants to make a different sound ( eg: Siobhán ; the “b”with a “h”makes a “v” sound) With the introduction of typewriters the “h” was…
sep 1, 2025, 1:55 pm • 2 0 • view
… introduced, as a dot on a consonant could not be produced on typewriters for what was, at that time a very small (2.5-3 million ) population.
sep 1, 2025, 1:55 pm • 3 0 • view
That's an interesting one, 'g' is as in 'get', and adding 'h' as 'gh', softens the 'g' to a 'j' sound. Therefore, Genghis Khan... I was years old before I discovered he /wasn't/ pronounced 'Geng-jis' 😂 But again, important to remember, while Genghis Khan, Immanuel Kant. 😁
sep 1, 2025, 7:39 pm • 2 0 • view