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'''Epenthesis''' is the insertion of a sound within a word. Epenthetic segments are often vowels with neutral qualities like [ə] or [ɨ] or copies of the vowel in the preceding syllable. Epenthesis is regularly employed to break up undesirable or disallowed consonant clusters. English pronunciation of the word ''film'' is known to include an epenthetic vowel; the word can appear as [fɪlm], which contains a coda that lacks falling sonority, or [fɪləm], which is disyllabic and contains no consonant cluster.

Epenthesis is very common in Gaelic. Orthographic convention does not reflect the pronunciation of the inserted vowel, similarly to the English ''film'' example. This is apparent in in words like ''orm'' [ɔrəm] "on me" and ''Alba'' [alapə] "Alba" where the epenthetic vowel is spoken but not written.


''For information on epenthesis in Gaelic see [[Epenthesis]]''

==See Also==
*[[Epenthesis]]
*[[Hiatus]]
*[[Syllable (definition)]]

==External Links==
*http://akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=Helping_vowel
*http://akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=Svarabhakti_or_The_Helping_Vowel
*http://akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=Intrusive_T_or_Why_we%27re_writing_sròn_not_*stròn
The link below takes you away from the Gaelic Wiki to Wikipedia. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, they often contain inaccurate information. So be careful!
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epenthesis
*http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/E/epenthesis.htm

==References==
*Crystal, David. (1997) ''A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics.'' Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

[[Category:Technical Definitions]]
[[Category:Phonology]]
[[Category:Phonetics]]