ИСТИНА

Present-day usage of Irish cannot be confined to its dialect varieties used in Gaeltacht areas, as the majority of the country’s population, coming from English-speaking families, learn Irish at school and universities. In most cases, however, learners never use the language outside educational institutions, English being the general (and most natural) means of communication in their everyday life. Still, some of them, having mastered Irish well enough, would use it in communication when necessary without any hindrance (for example, in Gaeltacht areas, in radio and TV programmes). This non-native variety of Irish is characterised by the same phonetic inventory as the dialects (distinction between palatalised and non-palatalised consonants, vibrant [r] sound, long and short vowels), however, the distribution of particular sounds does not necessarily coincide with what is found in the dialects. This subject has been previously neglected by linguists, yet it presents an interesting case of study as the existing phonetic deviations cannot be fully explained by the speakers’ L1 influence. In the present paper the distribution of palatalised nasals and laterals in learnt fluent Irish will be touched upon, special attention being given to its consistency and unanimity among different speakers.