Ultrasound Investigation of Irish Palatalization (Phase 1, Connacht dialect)

This dataset documents the production of palatalized and velarized consonants in Connemara Irish gathered in 2010 using a portable ultrasound device. Ultrasound imaging provides direct information about tongue body shape and movement, crucial to an understanding of palatalization and velarization. We also recorded video of lip movement, and audio, simultaneously with the ultrasound video. The shape of the tongue body, and of the lips, were extracted from video and averaged by statistical means. This dataset is part of a larger project that documents the articulatory and acoustic properties of palatalization in the three major dialects of Irish (Connacht, Munster, and Ulster); material in this dataset comes from the Connacht dialect (Connemara Irish). This data is useful for researchers studying the effects on the palatalization contrast of consonant identity, vowel context, etc., as well as speaker strategies for maintaining contrast and coordinating gestures. In addition, learners and teachers of Irish can use this data for guidance on how to produce the Irish contrast between palatalized (slender) and velarized (broad) consonants.