Hi,
Trying to get serious about my Irish learning so have signed up here.

I have a question about the modern native usage of bh, mh and ph.

these are usually taught to be sounded as v/w, v/w an f respectively (Sorry, buy I'm good with the IPA yet)

I read an old CB grammer book which described the process of aspirating consonants. The process holds in modern spoken Irish with ch and gh. I.e. to make a hard c or g sound you block the air coming out of your throat with you tongue on the roof of your mouth briefly and when you release the air a c or g comes out. The ch and gh are made by only partially stopping the air before release, hence aspirated.

The same process can be applied to b, m and p but with the lips. To make these sounds you push some air into a closed mouth and when you open your lips the desired sound comes out.

Aspirating as for ch and gh can be applied to b, m and p but using the lips instead of the tongue and the roof of the mouth so with m and b you get a sound that could be described as an English v made without touching the teeth to the lower lip. I believe this is the Spanish b sound . You can do the same with ph

The English ph, whatever it was in the past is now an f


My question is, is this still the case or do modern speakers simply say v/w for bh/mh and f for ph?

Another way to ask it is: do your upper teeth touch your lower lip when you say bhí or phóca?

This is very difficult to hear and when I ask the question to people they tend to be unaware of how they make sounds, wondering if there is any consensus here.

thanks,

The v and f used to be bilateral fricatives all over Ireland/. i.e. the f was not labiodental, but made with both lips, which I think you describing. But only the very oldest, if any, speakers would still have this. This is normally just what an English speaker would think of as a v and an f.

But it should be added that the broad v can be more of a w. Abhaile in the north is more "awallye", but in the south "avali".

the broad bh/mh was another question I had. As I understand it you make the sound as an unrounded English w. I.e. read is if bh='w' but don't bring the corners of the lips together to in an 'oo' shape as you start.

Well, I think you may be describing something in Northern dialects. It is more likely to be a proper V in Munster.

Listen to the three dialects saying "a bhó" at http://www.fuaimeanna.ie/en/Recordings.aspx?Ortho=bh

I don't see the task of learning Irish as requiring learning how to pronounce all three dialects. It is much better to pick one and stick to it.

This video gives a very good broad overview of the Irish consonants https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI1RF7JfcFs.

p (broad and slender): https://youtu.be/nI1RF7JfcFs?t=173
ph (broad and slender) (=f): https://youtu.be/nI1RF7JfcFs?t=300
b (broad and slender): https://youtu.be/nI1RF7JfcFs?t=676
bh (broad and slender): https://youtu.be/nI1RF7JfcFs?t=757
(broad bh in Ulster, being the semivowel [w]: https://youtu.be/nI1RF7JfcFs?t=794)
m (broad and slender): https://youtu.be/nI1RF7JfcFs?t=873
mh (broad and slender): https://youtu.be/nI1RF7JfcFs?t=889
(he doesn't talk about broad mh for Ulster but I think it's identical to broad bh in Ulster)

Slender 'mh' is a nasalised version of slender 'bh'.
Broad 'mh' is a nasalised version of broad 'bh' [with the exception of Ulster (and sometimes Connacht), where broad 'bh and broad 'mh' are both [w], I think].

This parallels broad/slender 'm' being a nasal version of broad/slender 'b'

Having listened to the recording posted by Djwebb, to me, broad 'bh' in Ulster sounds like [w] i.e. same as in English 'wet'. This is a rounded semivowel corresponding to the rounded vowel [u].

What you seem to be referring to is the unrounded version of [w] which is [ɰ]. This sound can often be heard in Irish e.g. directly after the 'c' in the word 'cuid'. However, it isn't a phoneme in its own right since speakers never deliberately set out to say it (I don't think) i.e. it is just automatically sounded when transitioning between certain broad consonants and a succeeding slender vowel.

(See the semivowel table at this webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel)