Mamun -university roman -german philology english department

II.2 Similarities and differences of dipthong in O.E and M.E
In phonology the sounds of a language are described, the written result of these sounds does not belong to that and is secondary.
The Irish written language is for this reason discussed separately in the chapter orthography , with (further) guidelines about the pronunciation.
Note about the depiction:
The depiction of the sounds should actually be done using the IPA symbols (IPA = international phonetic alphabet).
But this is dependent on the font, and is still not feasible in HTML in a way in which all, regardless of what platform they use, can see.
It is for this reason that there are partially "substitutes" used here.
Some of these symbols are common as modified IPA symbols for Irish, so the apostrophe ['] for slender (palatal) consonants and with that the forms [x'] for [ç], [s'] for [] and [z'] instead of [ ]; as well as [L], [N], [R] for "tensed l, n, r" (in the IPA these are normally used for depicting other phonemes).
The fricatives [f] and [v] are partially spoken bilabial, partially also labiodental, for both the Irish transcriptions are normally without a difference [f] and [v] are used (actually according to the IPA they are only for the labiodental variants, [φ] and [β] would be the bilabial symbols).
As actually also in the modified IPA not-conform replacement symbols, there remains here only [ng] for the velar nasal (in IPA ein [ ]), [@] for the neutral vowel (in IPA a [ ]), [å] for a back a (in IPA a [ ]) as well as [?] for the glottal stop (in IPA a []).
I don't have here any listenable examples (in form of soundfiles) of the sounds of Irish but there are some to be heard on the website Fios Feasa: The Sounds of Irish (there one finds the sounds of the Munster dialect)

the vowels (na gutaí)

There is a difference made between long and short vowels.
In the artificial Lárchanúint (central dialect) there are:

• 
  long vowels: [a:], [e:], [i:], [o:], [u:],
  
• 
  short vowels: [a], [e], [i], [o], [u], [@]
  

The vowels [a], [o], [u] count as broad
The vowels [e] and [i] count as slender
Not only those vowels marked with an accent in writing (á, é, í, ó, ú) are long. Also preceding certain consonants the vowels are lengthened (e.g. preceding -rd, -nn, -rr, -ll, -m), if the word is monosyllabic, also further combinations lead to vowel lengthening (see orthography)
In Ulster, all vowels in an unstressed syllable are short, otherwise long vowels remain clear (and are not reduced to [@], as it happens with short vowels).
The [a:] is often spoken in Munster/Connacht as a "back a", similar to the scandinavian"å" (technically: an opem back unrounded vowel). In Ulster it is an [æ:], only the Lárchanúint uses a normal long [a:]
Furthermore, in Connacht/Munster there is the [æ] instead of an [a] in some combinations.
In Ulster, there is partially the [ш], which ist an unrounded ü-sound (technically: a closed back unrounded vowel), in Irish orthography "ao", which is otherwise appearing as [i:] (Standard, Connacht) or [e:] (Munster) , e.g. saor [si:r], [se:r], [sшr]