were named after trees. Grapheme to phoneme correspondence Grapheme to phoneme correspondence tables on this page follow the layout shown above, on this layout stands for Mayo and Ulster Irish, for southern Connacht Irish and for Munster Irish. In the consonant table, 1 and 2 stand for broad and slender, respectively, while in the vowel tables they stand for stressed and unstressed. Initially and finally mean word initial or final unless stated otherwise. The IPA transcriptions of examples on this page are in Connacht Irish. Consonants The consonant letters generally correspond to the consonant phonemes as shown in this table. See Irish phonology for an explanation of the symbols used and Irish initial mutations for an explanation of eclipsis and lenition. In most cases, consonants are "broad" (velarised) when beside and "slender" (palatalised) when beside . Vowels Sequences of vowels are common in Irish spelling due to the "" ("slender with slender and broad with broad") rule. This rule states that the vowels on either side of any consonant must be both slender () or both broad (), to unambiguously determine if the consonant(s) are broad or slender. An apparent exception is , which is followed by a broad consonant despite the . Pronunciation of vowels in Irish is mostly predictable from a few simple rules: Accented vowels () are always long vowels and in digraphs and trigraphs containing them, surrounding unaccented vowels tend to be silent, but there are several exceptions, e.g. when preceded by two unaccented vowels. Accented vowels in succession are both pronounced, e.g. "sixth", "royal, kingly, majestic", "sympathy", etc. Unstressed short vowels are reduced to . is silent before and after a vowel (except sometimes in ). is silent before a broad vowel. have multiple pronunciations that depend on adjacent consonants. A following lengthens some vowels and in Munster and Connacht a following syllable-final or word-final may lengthen or diphthongise some vowels depending on dialect. Followed by When followed by , a stressed vowel usually forms a diphthong or lengthens. For , see also Exceptions in verb forms. Epenthesis After a short vowel, an unwritten epenthetic gets inserted between + (as well as , when derived from devoiced ), when within a morpheme boundary, e.g. "blue", "red", "dark", "name", "prickly, thorny"’ "child", "silver, money". The main exception to this is which is mainly used for or . Epenthesis does not occur after long vowels and diphthongs,