Scots Gaelic final "r"

[OC Richard]

Yes my old teacher would pronounce muir as 'mooth' more or less.

When you say "approaches English 'r'" that opens a can of worms.

I'm assuming you mean the flapped 'r' of some dialects rather than the retroflex 'r' of American English. I'm told that a retroflex 'r' is quite rare in the languages of the world.

When you say that fear becomes "fet" I'm guessing what you're hearing is a final flapped 'r'.

The final 'r' becoming "th" is a slender 'r' thing, no? Or would it affect broad and slender?

[DWFII]

Yes my old teacher would pronounce muir as 'mooth' more or less.

When you say "approaches English 'r'" that opens a can of worms.

I'm assuming you mean the flapped 'r' of some dialects rather than the retroflex 'r' of American English. I'm told that a retroflex 'r' is quite rare in the languages of the world.

When you say that fear becomes "fet" I'm guessing what you're hearing is a final flapped 'r'.

The final 'r' becoming "th" is a slender 'r' thing, no? Or would it affect broad and slender?

Well, I'm not a Gaelic speaker nor have I taken any formal lessons. But here is the one source on the 'Net that I rely on. This link brings you to the dictionary (there's also online lessons, even a thesaurus) with audio.

I've linked to a "look-up" for seanair (grandfather...I have a new grand-daughter--Fionaghal) and the native Gaelic speaker pronounces it with a distinct "d" sound--"sheh-ned". Fear...as in "fear an taighe"...is pronounced "fedt, and even the "r" in feileadh-mor is pronounced with a "d" sound. " Similarly athair, brathair and many others.

On the dictionary site, I actually haven't run across any word ending in "r" that wasn't pronounced with a "d" or "dt" sound.

It's confusing and maybe unique. I don't think I've run across any Irish Gaelic that transforms the "r" so completely, either.