djwebb2021 wrote:
I've been told by an expert in Cork Irish that this is pronounced /ur'uːn՛/. Tuath-Mhúmhain is pronounced /tuən՛/.
That would fit with 'Deasmhumhain' being pronounced 'Deasumhain' i.e. silent 'mh'.
Using the pronunciation section of teanglann.ie, i could find only two words that feature broad 'rmh' in the middle of the word. these are 'formhór' and 'formhuinigh'.
formhór: The Ulster and Connacht pronunciations use a 'w' sound (with no preceding 'guta cúnta) but the Munster pronunciation uses what sounds like a 'v' sound preceded by a 'guta cúnta'. And they all put the stress on the first syllable, which is not what I would have expected. With 'for' being a prefix of sorts, I would have thought it would not be stressed. [Edit: The Munster speaker at
https://forvo.com/word/formh%C3%B3r/ has the same pronunciation as the Munster speaker at teanglann.ie except that he puts the stress on the second syllable.]
formhuinigh: All three dialects use a 'w' sound (with no preceding 'guta cúnta) in the recordings. So there's an apparent inconsistency here regarding Munster (although, granted, the two words are pronounced by different Munster speakers). The stress was on the second syllable for the Munster speaker only.
--
With 'mh' and 'bh' being close, I searched for recordings that had broad 'rbh'. I could only find two.
órbhuí: The Ulster and Connacht recordings have a 'w' sound with no preceding 'guta cúnta'. The Munster recording has a 'v' sound with no preceding 'guta cúnta'.
arbhar: Ulster recording:- pronounced as if spelt 'aruar' (stress on first syllable) Connacht:- 'arúr' (stress on first syllable, also vowel of first syllable made long). Munster:- 'aruar' (stress on second syllable)
--
Finally, Ó Dónaill's dictionary has '
arbhú' as a variant of 'arú' (used, for example, in the phrase 'arú inné'). This might suggest that 'arbhú' (with a non-silent 'bh') was the original version of the word, and that later, when the 'bh' became silent, it was respelt as 'arú'.
As it happens, the Munster speaker at
https://forvo.com/word/ar%C3%BA_am%C3%A1rach/ pronounces 'arú' as 'arbhú' ('bh' as 'v', no 'guta cúnta', stress on first syllable).