Irish Phonology - History of The Discipline

History of The Discipline

Until the end of the nineteenth century, linguistic discussions of Irish focused either on the traditional grammar of the language (issues like the inflection of nouns, verbs and adjectives) or on the historical development of sounds from Proto-Indo-European through Proto-Celtic to Old Irish. The first descriptive analysis of the phonology of an Irish dialect was Finck (1899), which was based on the author's fieldwork in the Aran Islands. This was followed by Quiggin (1906), a phonetic description of the dialect of Meenawannia near Glenties, County Donegal. Pedersen (1909) is predominantly a historical account, but has some description of modern dialects as well. Alf Sommerfelt published early descriptions of both Ulster and Munster varieties (Sommerfelt 1922 and Sommerfelt 1965 for the village of Torr in Gweedore, Sommerfelt 1927 for Munster, and Sommerfelt 1929 for the now extinct dialect of South Armagh). The dialect of Dunquin on the Dingle Peninsula was described by Sjoestedt (1931). From 1944 to 1968 the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies published a series of monographs, each describing the phonology of one local dialect: Ó Cuív (1944) for West Muskerry in County Cork (Ballyvourney, Coolea and vicinity), de Bhaldraithe (1966) (first published 1945) for Cois Fhairrge in Connemara (Barna, Spiddal, Inverin and vicinity), Breatnach (1947) for Ring, County Waterford, de Búrca (1958) for Tourmakeady in County Mayo, Wagner (1959) for Teelin, County Donegal, Mhac an Fhailigh (1968) for Erris in County Mayo. More recent descriptive phonology has been published by Lucas (1979) for Rosguill in northern Donegal, Hughes (1986) for Tangaveane and Commeen (also near Glenties), Ó Curnáin (1996) for Iorras Aithneach in Connemara (Kilkieran and vicinity), and Ó Sé (2000) for the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry.

Research into the theoretical phonology of Irish began with Ó Siadhail & Wigger (1975), which follows the principles and practices of The Sound Pattern of English and which formed the basis of the phonology sections of Ó Siadhail (1989). Dissertations examining Irish phonology from a theoretical point of view include Ní Chiosáin (1991), Green (1997) in optimality theory, and Cyran (1997) and Bloch-Rozmej (1998) in government phonology.