Irish people and "th"

I am pie

A Neurotic wrote: »

What's wrong with pronouncing the "th" in Thailand and Thomas? Correct pronunciation surely?

No, it isn't the correct pronunciation. You would be in a small minority not aware that in those cases that h is silent. I imagine in Irish the H would signify a different pronunciation but in English those proper nouns have silent h's. To me it is wilful ignorance to mispronounce Thailand as thighland, a kind of colloquial stubborness. The same with the names of Thomas or Thompson or the River Thames.

rm234

Was at a houseparty in London recently and for the entire day/night was getting the p*** ripped out of me for the "th's", then this nice Jamaican girl told me Jamaicans do the exact same thing! She went on about similarities between the two. Point of this is, if you go somewhere (9/10) bigger country that speaks English and considers your English to be incomprehensible, think of ALL those other immigrants who arrived without a word. Brush it off, and keep your accent, for every d**khead you meet there will ALWAYS be a nice girl that'll arrive soon after totally intrigued by your accent.

rosie16

I was in france a month ago working with a scot and she got a great laugh over the fact that I couldn't pronounce 'th'. I never noticed before. I'm from cork btw.

A Neurotic

I am pie wrote: »

No, it isn't the correct pronunciation. You would be in a small minority not aware that in those cases that h is silent. I imagine in Irish the H would signify a different pronunciation but in English those proper nouns have silent h's. To me it is wilful ignorance to mispronounce Thailand as thighland, a kind of colloquial stubborness. The same with the names of Thomas or Thompson or the River Thames.

Seems like a fairly understandable assumption, for someone who's never been to Thailand, to pronounce the 'th' as it's spelled.

My mind is being blown here. Always try to speak correctly, never had a notion that there was a silent 'h' in those. Googled it and found this, funnily enough.

SpaceTime

I wouldn't really worry about it.

English people in particular are obsessed with mocking people about their accents. It's part of the class system hang-over and parochialism. Ireland's got a bit of it too, but I think it's not quite as vicious.

A friend of mine from the North of England used to get ripped apart in an office in London to the point that she'd actually be in tears.

Every morning "Ay up chuck!" in a chorus from the whole office.
They also used to make her say things like "upper" just so they could laugh at her.

They used to say stuff like "Ay chuck.. could you put Kettle on for nice brew?"

and stuff like "is you mum Nora Batty then? init?"

In the a HR person spotted it and gave written warnings to those involved. It was taken very seriously as a bullying issue.

Also, Londoners have extremely strong accents in many cases and can be totally unintelligible to Americans where as clear Irish accents tend not to be a problem. This is largely because English people tend to do strange things with H, R and lots of other sounds and use a lot of elision (slipping one word into the next)

Wacker The Attacker

Dr hoRse wrote: »

First of all, have you lived in a bubble somewhere in Dublin all your life with no contact with any one from outside Dublin?

and to answer the point, as far as I'm aware we don't have the soft th in Irish so it has possibly stemmed from there

I think we can safely assume that in the majority of cases it doesn't come from speaking irish

spank_inferno

rosie16 wrote: »

I was in france a month ago working with a scot and she got a great laugh over the fact that I couldn't pronounce 'th'. I never noticed before. I'm from cork btw.

Cork people tend to throw in the word "like", often multiple times into their sentences.

Corcaigh84

It wrecks my head, especially hearing public representatives on TV who can't pronounce their th's.

They sound uneducated, or like Bertie Ahern.

P. Breathnach

jimmybeige wrote: »

I don't think that explains it really. People in Connemara, Irish speakers, often pronounce Irish words starting with "T" as "th" i.e The word Tá would be pronounced "Thaw" there.

I think it's just a weird habit we have. My parents pronounce the word three as "tree", but pronounce the word trash as "thrash". Makes no sense.

There is some sense in it - or, if you prefer, an explanation for it.

In Irish, the general pronunciation pattern is that "t" followed by a broad vowel (a, o, u) is pronounced something like the English "th"; when it is followed by a slender vowel (i, e) it is more like the English "t". It makes no difference if there is another consonant in between, as in your example "trash".

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Don't forget what happens when you turn 50 in this country, the following changes take place overnight:

Butter --> Buher

Kettle --> Ki-hel

Basically anything with 'tt' in the middle of a word magically morphs into a 'h'.

Not ubiquitous I guess, but common enough in the geriatric world.

So one becomes a geriatric at 50?

The speech feature you describe is known as a glottal stop (maybe a glo-al stop). It's also found in some English dialects.

It seems to me that the glottal stop is found more commonly in Dublin than in other parts of Ireland. I suspect the reason why you have noticed it more among older people has nothing to do with things changing as they become older, but is due to their having had less exposure when young to British and American influences via television.

Surveyor11

SpaceTime wrote: »

Also, Londoners have extremely strong accents in many cases and can be totally unintelligible to Americans where as clear Irish accents tend not to be a problem. This is largely because English people tend to do strange things with H, R and lots of other sounds and use a lot of elision (slipping one word into the next)

I used to have the p!ss taken out of me as well when I lived in London for 5 years, guys in the office found it funny how I would pronounce the number three. What's ironic with the London accident (in the main) is that they would pronounce 'three' as 'free'.

was the same when I lived in rural Shropshire for a while, people found my accident strange, both in pronunciation and turn of phrase. If anyone's been to Shropshire, they have a who phraseology and diction all of their own. Not that I mind, but it's like everywhere -we all speak differently.

ScumLord

I remember when Dublin cousins used to call down during the summer as a young lad. We always used to make fun of the fact they couldn't pronounce "T" and say things like, in Dublin Mr T is just called Mr.

You would half expect the Dublin accent should be easier to understand being the most international town in Ireland but they went the other way with it. I've found too most foreigners there's no difference to their ears between a thick Kerry accent and a thick Dub accent. Both are illegible to foreigners.

jimgoose

Most Irish people speak English with an Irish accent. An Irish accent includes things like pronouncing "th" like "d", because in Irish "th" is pronounced like "h" in English. Similarly with many "s" sounds, e.g. "shtick the kittle on dere, Bridie!". It is not because we're thick, it is not because we're from the Cun-tray, or anything like that - it is simply a small matter of dialect. "Howay tha-day, wor lad!", as they say in the Queen's own English. :cool:

salacious crumb

To be fair, there's quite a broad spectrum of accents from one end of Dublin to the other, for example someone from Balbriggan would not sound very much like someone from Bray.

salacious crumb

jimgoose wrote: »

Most Irish people speak English with an Irish accent. An Irish accent includes things like pronouncing "th" like "d", because in Irish "th" is pronounced like "h" in English. Similarly with many "s" sounds, e.g. "shtick the kittle on dere, Bridie!". It is not because we're thick, it is not because we're from the Cun-tray, or anything like that - it is simply a small matter of dialect. "Howay tha-day, wor lad!", as they say in the Queen's own English. :cool:

Indeed, it's a dialect called Hiberno English.

kevthegaff

was over in southampton, when i said eight inch pizza they couldnt understand me a well

P. Breathnach

salacious crumb wrote: »

To be fair, there's quite a broad spectrum of accents from one end of Dublin to the other, for example someone from Balbriggan would not sound very much like someone from Bray.

I accept the general point, but you have overlooked the fact that Bray is in Co. Wicklow.

jimgoose

con1421 wrote: »

...I recently moved to New York and for the first time in my entire life I am not surrounded by Irish people. My workmates are all American and they correct me every time that I try and pronounce...

Is there a smiley on here for "In the corner in the foetal position trying to piss myself, sh!t myself and have about four simultaneous heart-attacks laughing"?? :pac::pac::pac:

salacious crumb

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I accept the general point, but you have overlooked the fact that Bray is in Co. Wicklow.

Yes, my bad :pac:

SoulTrader

con1421 wrote: »

Hi guys,
I recently moved to New York and for the first time in my entire life I am not surrounded by Irish people. My workmates are all American and they correct me every time that I try and pronounce certain "th" words (three being the exact same as tree,thunder,third,thrift.....). I really only began to notice that I can't say th's. Is this the case with most Irish people or is it just a Dublin thing? It's beginning to annoy me and its funny that I really only noticed now with the fact that I live in a foreign country. It's as if the th sound doesn't exist in our pronouncation or even possibly in the same way that British people can't or don't pronounce the letter r

I would love to know if anyone else noticed this or if its just a minority of Irish people that can't find the th?

Tinly veiled 'I live in NY' tread.

CroatoanCat

My mind is blown- blown! - by the revelation that the "h" is silent in proper nouns beginning with "Th", like Thomas and Thailand. I did so much tutting at the Brown Thomas ad last Christmas in which the voiceover lady kept saying "Tomas". And it was I who was wrong!! I love finding out stuff like this, after nearly 40 years on this earth :eek:. Thank you, AH !

shankespony

Phoned up Revenue Commissioners and they ask you automatically to say your pps number, i am not from ireland and it kept asking me to repeat it, i eventually said tree instead of three and it recognized it wtf!!!

Osborne

CroatoanCat wrote: »

My mind is blown- blown! - by the revelation that the "h" is silent in proper nouns beginning with "Th", like Thomas and Thailand. I did so much tutting at the Brown Thomas ad last Christmas in which the voiceover lady kept saying "Tomas". And it was I who was wrong!! I love finding out stuff like this, after nearly 40 years on this earth :eek:. Thank you, AH !

If this thread leads to only one person pronouncing those words properly, it will have been a success.

Precious flower

It really gets on my nerves when people can't pronounce their 'th's'. I don't think it has anything much to do with Irish, my father's from Connemara and he can pronounce his th's and all my relatives in Connemara are the same. Also my mother is from West Clare and she can pronounce her th's. I think some children and parents just somehow are not taught to say it properly or just hear it from their parents. To be honest I think it make a person sound less professional. But still those Americans can't talk, when they can't even say the word herbs.

Martin567

What about the 'wh' sound? Lots of English people in particular seem to say 'wat, 'wen' and 'wy' rather than 'what, 'when' and 'why'. Also, 'which' would be pronounced like 'witch'.

Some pronunciations on RTE are funny, even with the better known people. Gay Byrne has always been a stickler for words being pronounced properly but I've never heard him criticise the most high profile woman on RTE for the way she speaks. It's all 'pardy' and 'ciddy', etc. You'd swear she never heard of the letter 't'.

A Dub in Glasgo

My two sons don't pronounce their 'th' in three or the and they were born in Glasgow! My youngest can now switch his accent from Dub to Glaswegian quite comfortably, he tells me that his teacher pulled him up on the 'th' thing a few times.