# Irish: caol



## Gavril

Hello,

As I understand it, the Irish term *caol* "slender" is connected to palatalization: in older Irish (perhaps not in Modern), consonants that were _caol_ were palatalized by a surrounding front vowel. (Some examples would be the -l- in _céi*l*e_ "companion" and the -ch- in _fí*ch*e_ "20".)

Is the term _caol_ only used to describe the pronunciation of sounds in Irish, or could it also be used for palatalized consonants in other languages (such as Russian, where there is a significant contrast between palatalized and non-palatalized consonants)?

Thanks


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## Tegs

Since it's an Irish word I doubt it would be used to describe any language other than Irish. You'd need to ask a Russian speaker what they call this in Russian  

The term is still used in Modern Irish e.g. in the basic spelling rule _caol le caol agus leathan le leathan _(i.e. the vowels on either side of a consonant should agree and be either both slender or both broad).


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## L'irlandais

I'm with Tegs on this, I doubt any Russian grammarian would even be aware of this Irish word's existence.
By the way, it's not just a grammaticial term, very much like the word _"slender" _in English it's meaning depends on context.


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## Tegs

L'irlandais said:


> By the way, it's not just a grammaticial term, very much like the word _"slender" _in English it's meaning depends on context.



Oh yes, I hadn't considered that maybe that needed pointing out too, but as l'irlandais said, it's used in other contexts too - often translating as "narrow" in English.


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## L'irlandais

I imagine Gavril may already be aware of it, but other members may not be.  Also some terms like *Séimhiú* (lenition) are purely used in grammar,  while it's opposite *Urú* (eclipsis) could refer to an eclipsis of the sun.


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## uress

So, if you are speaking *IRISH *and about ANY language in *Irish *you call the *palatalized *consonants -of any language, of any other language than Irish-, _coal_  in *Irish*? 

I.e. the *Irish *name for every *palatalized* consonant of the world is _coal_, or not???


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## Tegs

If speaking in Irish about palatalized consonants, you use the word CAOL to describe them - AO not OA in the middle there. tearma.ie - Dictionary of Irish Terms - Foclóir Téarmaíochta


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## elroy

I thought the question was, what would an Irish speaker use when speaking in Irish to refer to Russian palatalized consonants?  Would they use "caol" or a different word?


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## pimlicodude

Tegs said:


> Since it's an Irish word I doubt it would be used to describe any language other than Irish. You'd need to ask a Russian speaker what they call this in Russian
> 
> The term is still used in Modern Irish e.g. in the basic spelling rule _caol le caol agus leathan le leathan _(i.e. the vowels on either side of a consonant should agree and be either both slender or both broad).


Yes. In Russian linguistics caol (slender) is called мягкий (soft), and leathan (broad) is called твёрдый (hard). The "slender" makes sense, as patalised consonants have a "more slender" mouth (ie closer). Why this is regarded as "softer", I don't know.


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## pimlicodude

elroy said:


> I thought the question was, what would an Irish speaker use when speaking in Irish to refer to Russian palatalized consonants?  Would they use "caol" or a different word?


Well, probably the would refer to e.g. a soft m in Russian as caol. But the issue also depends on the fact that there isn't a one-to-one equivalent in the realisation of softness/slenderness.

Russian soft s is /sʲ/, a true palatalised s. The Irish slender s is pronounced /ʃ/, so there are some differences.


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## se16teddy

As I understand it, Gaelic and Slavonic differ in a fundamental way in how they split consonants into contrasting (and sometimes alternating) phoneme pairs. 
- A Slavonic SOFT consonant is marked by a relatively HIGH tongue - positioned towards the hard palate (and of course a hard consonant by a low tongue). So a more scientific word for “soft” is “palatalized”.
- A Gaelic SLENDER consonant is marked by drawing the tongue towards the BACK of the mouth (towards the velum or soft palate) and of course a broad consonant by putting the tongue towards the front). So a more scientific word for “slender” is “velarized”. 
Having said that, I think that any Russian would tend to interpret a Gaelic slender consonant as soft and a Gaelic broad consonant as hard, and vice-versa.

As Pimlicodude says, there are exceptions/ complications. I was taught that Russian, g, k and kh are always pronounced soft (at least in native words), and ch, sh, zh and ts are always pronounced hard. Whereas I have been taught that in Irish h is always broad, as are the other ways of spelling the h sound (th, sh).


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## se16teddy

Gavril said:


> As I understand it, the Irish term *caol* "slender" is connected to palatalization: in older Irish (perhaps not in Modern), consonants that were _caol_ were palatalized by a surrounding front vowel. (Some examples would be the -l- in _céi*l*e_ "companion" and the -ch- in _fí*ch*e_ "20".)


A Slavonic soft/palatalized consonant and a Gaelic slender/velarized consonant both mark the (current or former) presence of a back vowel i or e. This is reflected in Irish orthography, which marks a slender consonant with e and/or i. (One of the challenges of Irish pronunciation is to remember whether a vowel is pronounced as a vowel, or whether its purpose is only to mark a neighbouring consonant as broad or slender.)


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## AndrasBP

se16teddy said:


> So a more scientific word for “slender” is “velarized”.


There seems to be some confusion here.
It's the "broad" ones that are _velarized _(small ˠ symbol), e.g. 'salann' /ˈsˠalˠənˠ/ = 'salt'.
The "slender" consonants are _palatalized _(small ʲ symbol), e.g. 'méid' /mʲeːdʲ/ = 'amount'.


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## se16teddy

AndrasBP said:


> There seems to be some confusion here.
> It's the "broad" ones that are _velarized _(small ˠ symbol), e.g. 'salann' /ˈsˠalˠənˠ/ = 'salt'.
> The "slender" consonants are _palatalized _(small ʲ symbol), e.g. 'méid' /mʲeːdʲ/ = 'amount'.


Thank you. Sorry for the confusion. It sounds like I am wrong in assuming that, because the velum is at the back of the mouth, we must associate velarized consonants with back vowels or back glides. I am hoping someone can clarify just how profound my misunderstanding of the tongue positioning, and the related terms, is! 

As I hear them, 
- an Irish slender consonant runs seamlessly into a neighbouring back vowel (méid) whereas, between an Irish slender consonant and a front vowel, there is a glide akin to a back vowel (represented in the orthography by a back vowel - beoir)
- an Irish broad consonant runs seamlessly into a neighbouring front vowel (barr); whereas, between an Irish broad consonant and a back vowel there is a glide akin to a front vowel (represented in the orthography by a front vowel - buíoch).
Maybe my thinking is too influenced by the spelling…


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## pimlicodude

se16teddy said:


> Thank you. Sorry for the confusion. It sounds like I am wrong in assuming that, because the velum is at the back of the mouth, we must associate velarized consonants with back vowels or back glides. I am hoping someone can clarify just how profound my misunderstanding of the tongue positioning, and the related terms, is!
> 
> As I hear them,
> - an Irish slender consonant runs seamlessly into a neighbouring back vowel (méid) whereas, between an Irish slender consonant and a front vowel, there is a glide akin to a back vowel (represented in the orthography by a back vowel - beoir)
> - an Irish broad consonant runs seamlessly into a neighbouring front vowel (barr); whereas, between an Irish broad consonant and a back vowel there is a glide akin to a front vowel (represented in the orthography by a front vowel - buíoch).
> Maybe my thinking is too influenced by the spelling…


I think you are mixing up back and front. The vowel in *barr* is a back vowel. The vowel in *méid* is a front vowel. But I expect you pronounce them right, and so this is just a question of terminology.


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## pimlicodude

Of course, it's worth nothing that some consonants are patalalised in English - although there are no phonemic contrasts. Eg. in  the word "king", both the "k" and the "ng" are slender/soft in English. We just naturally pronounce them that way, although if you were to pronounce them broad, it wouldn't change the meaning. Even though there is no phonemic contrast, the mouth in any language still operates in the same spectrum from palatalisation to velarisation.

This creates a problem learning Irish: cinn is easy to pronounce, but coin ("dogs"; cúnna in some dialects) is harder, because you have to struggle as an English speaker to make the c velarised. See words like coinne, cuimhne etc.

In English, I think it is only the gutturals k, g, ng that are patalalised.


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## se16teddy

pimlicodude said:


> I think you are mixing up back and front


😳 No wonder I get blank looks when I try to talk about this


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## pimlicodude

se16teddy said:


> 😳 No wonder I get blank looks when I try to talk about this


It's OK. And you're right there are glide vowels where you switch from a broadness to slenderness. What about my theory that k g and ng in English are slender?


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## se16teddy

Sick
Ciggie
Sing 
I feel that I can optionally insert a glide to make the ck and gg “broad” if I wish; but that the ng feels odd (seeng) if I don’t insert a glide.


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