re: #103 HappyWarrior
Tee-shock. Hell of a language isn’t it?
The position of vowels after consonants inform the pronunciation of the consonant.
A vowel after an S turns the S in to an Sh. Examples:
Sean = Shon
Seamus = Shamus
Siobhan = Shivon
Oh, and in the last example, certain consonant combos are always consistent. A bh combo is always a soft v, not a vex, but a vh(schwa).
If you look at it, as printed in English, it would appear that it should be pronounced almost like German, with lots of glottals and harsh hard consonant dipthongs and triphongs. But it’s not. It’s quite melodic. As is, to a lesser degree, Scots Gaelic. Welsh is another world altogether. The other Gaelic languages are in Breton, Cornwall, and Galicia, in Spain.