Liquids or - L N R in Gaelic
Undoubtedly, this is one of the most challenging bits of Gaelic grammar and phonology a learner will come across. Ever.
There are several reasons for the difficulty. For one thing, unless you're a learner from an Irish speaking background, Gaelic has a number of sound distinctions which English, and most other European languages, simply don't have. That makes it very difficult for the learner to even begin to distinguish those sounds. Dialectical differences aside, the other reason is that the system inherited from Common Gaelic is not 'clean', not for learners anyway.
However, there's, no need to despair. In spite of what linguists might tell you about Second Language Acquisition, Performance, Representation and stuff, it is feasible to learn how to produce the right sound in the right place, even though you might never learn how to "hear" the difference. Not being able to hear the differences is not as significant because in 99% of all cases, context will clarify whether the fine distinction you have just missed means A or B. But, if you make the right sounds, you will shed the Blas na Beurla air do chuid Ghàidhlig.
A last word of advice: Try not to be Anglo-centric. Some learners might think a lot of the following consists of nit-picking about "irrelevant" detail. But, just because from the point of view of the English language a distinction is irrelevant, or minor, that does not mean that the same irrelevance goes for another language. To many German learners of English then sounds like den and thin like fin. This happens because German does not have a th, much less a "minor distinction" between two versions of "th". So, a native German speaker substitutes with the closest sound that his native language can come up with. While that does not make communication impossible, most people would agree that it does not constitute "good English". The same goes for Gaelic, so making the wrong L does not constitute "good Gaelic".
Common Gaelic and why "simplification" doesn’t always make things easier
Not to worry, this is not going to turn into a lecture in historical linguistics, but it just might help clarify things a bit. If you find it confuses you more than it helps, just jump down to the "hardcore" stuff.
Until the 16th/17th century, Common Gaelic's literary (i.e. formal and especially written) language, that was common to both Ireland and Scotland, had a "clean" system of liquids that were spoken with a clear, 4 way distinction. Sounds scary, but from the point of view of a learner it might have actually been easier to learn. Symmetry and all that. Those Common Gaelic form are shown below with IPA symbols in slashed brackets and the annotation commonly used amongst Celticists shown in in round brackets. Both forms are given as you might find it useful to correlate the two:
| /l̪ˠ/ (L) latha mall |
/ʎ/ (L') liath caill |
/n̪ˠ/ (N) nàire ceann |
/ɲ/ (N') nèamh binn |
/rˠ/ (R) ràmh barra |
/*/ (R') rionnag girre |
| /lˠ/(l) balach màl |
/l/ (l') baile càil |
/nˠ/ (n) manach làn |
/n/ (n') faoineas coin |
/ɾ/ (r) caran mar |
/rʲ/ (r') fireann fir |
* no one actually knows exactly which sound this was, and no Gaelic, Irish or Manx dialect has preserved initial slender R. All three languages have merged them with initial broad R.
So, this system was very symmetrical and symmetry is something which languages seem to favour. It was even symmetrical from the point of view of lenition, that is, a lenited sound at the top row is the corresponding sound in the bottom row.
Ulster
Moving on after Common Gaelic, both Irish and Gaelic lost phonemes. The most "complete" set can be found in Ulster Irish which has the following:
| /l̪ˠ/ | /ʎ/ | /n̪ˠ/ | /ɲ/ | /rˠ/ | ✖ |
| /lˠ/ | /l/ | /n̪/ | /n/ | /ɾ/ | /rʲ/ |
East Sutherland
East Sutherland Gaelic has a very "reduced" system. Please understand that by "reduced" we do not mean it is a degenerate dialect - it's simply reduced in comparison to Common Gaelic:
| /l̪ˠ/ | /ʎ/ | ✖ | ✖ | /rˠ/ | ✖ |
| ✖ | /l/ | /n̪/ | /n/ | ✖ | ✖ |
Most other dialects in Scotland
Most Scottish Gaelic dialects have established a three way system and that's the one we'll present here. For those interested in a four way system, Harris Gaelic has all four L's:
| /l̪ˠ/ | /ʎ/ | /n̪ˠ/ | /ɲ/ | /rˠ/ | ✖ |
| ✖ | /l/ | ✖ | /n/ | /ɾ/ | /rʲ/ |
In itself, this reduction