"Éa" pronunciation
Hello everyone!

I know it's probably a very insignificant thing, but I'm doing spelling exercises (trying to write down words "by ear"), and there are a few things I don't quite understand. As for this one, I'm not even sure it's a correct observation, maybe I'm just mishearing it for some reason, but I can't confirm it by myself so I'd really appreciate it if you could explain it to me.

So, my question is: could that be that "éa" can stand for slightly different sounds in different environments? It's just that it seems to me that the same person is pronouncing it in at least two ways. When he said "céanna", it sounded like /ˈcʲeː(ə)n̪ˠə/, but when he said "téann siad" it was more like /tʲeːjən̪ˠ ʃiəd̪ˠ/, it sounded kind of longer and with this distinct /j/ sound.

So I'm just wondering, why is that? Is there a rule I should know or maybe it's just a natural individual variation in pronunciation and I shouldn't worry about it and can pronounce it as [eː(ə)] in both words?

Question

"Éa" pronunciation
Hello everyone!

I know it's probably a very insignificant thing, but I'm doing spelling exercises (trying to write down words "by ear"), and there are a few things I don't quite understand. As for this one, I'm not even sure it's a correct observation, maybe I'm just mishearing it for some reason, but I can't confirm it by myself so I'd really appreciate it if you could explain it to me.

So, my question is: could that be that "éa" can stand for slightly different sounds in different environments? It's just that it seems to me that the same person is pronouncing it in at least two ways. When he said "céanna", it sounded like /ˈcʲeː(ə)n̪ˠə/, but when he said "téann siad" it was more like /tʲeːjən̪ˠ ʃiəd̪ˠ/, it sounded kind of longer and with this distinct /j/ sound.

So I'm just wondering, why is that? Is there a rule I should know or maybe it's just a natural individual variation in pronunciation and I shouldn't worry about it and can pronounce it as [eː(ə)] in both words?

Answer

Tá cluasa easóige agat!
Morphology is the answer. Think about the make-up of "céanna" and "téann": "céanna" isn't really reducible to any smaller elements (well, etymologically speaking, it is, ach sin scéal eile); but "téann" is an inflected verbal form, made from the root "téigh" and the non-1st-person present tense ending "-(e)ann". In older literature you can even come across "téigheann", but such spellings were simplified in the 1950s. Other similar examples would be "dónn sé" = "it burns", formerly written, and pronounced, at least in some places, as "dóigheann sé" (and there is a whole series of monosyllabic verbs ending in "-igh" which behave in exactly the same way) and "níl" = "is not", contracted from "ní fhuil" and pronounced "ní-il".

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