Ar 5 Jan 2003 ag 23:53 scríobh nicky eysiz@...
fán ábhar "Irish spelling":

> does anyone here understand Irish gaelic
> spelling? i've read somewhere thet Caitlín is
> pronounced koytleen, but my girlfriend says
> it's more like ['ka:tli:n]...

Your girlfriend is correct...mostly. Actually the 'ai' sound varies
between /a:/ and /æ:/ in stressed syllables. Think I say ['ka:t´l´i:n´]
myself though. Your pronunciation would require an accent on the 'a',
i.e. Cáitlín /'kA:t´l´i:n´/ [ASCII-IPA], but in northern dialects the only
difference between 'a' and 'á' is length, so your pronunciation wouldn't
occur at all, i.e. they'd pronounce it /'ka:t´l´i:n´/.
`~:.,.:'^`~:.,.:'^`~:.,.:'^`~:.,.:'^`~:.,.:'^`~:.,.:'^`~:.,.:'^`~:.,.:'^`~
S e á n Ó S é a g h d h a junk@...

Tagann an cruatan i ndiaidh an chaite. Seanfhocal.