The chapter starts by presenting a sketch of the phonology of Irish. This covers first the segmental phonology dealing with consonants and then vowels. The importance of the palatalised–non-palatalised distinction in the consonant system is stressed. The phonotactics of Irish are described and the range of possible consonant clusters outlined. Attention is then turned to prosodic aspects of Irish phonology, with a description of both stress and intonation.

Phonological processes such as allophonic variation and sandhi phenomena are also included, and a description of the initial consonant mutation system is given in phonological terms. In all these sections of the chapter, important dialect differences are noted. Following the description of Irish phonology, a review is presented of studies of the acquisition of Irish as a first (or joint first) language. Two diary studies provided some information on order of acquisition of segments and on patterns of simplification. A longitudinal, group study is also reviewed and the results of this add much more to our knowledge of phonological acquisition in Irish. The chapter concludes with a look at the development of new, urban, forms of Irish, and at the need for more research into phonological acquisition norms in Irish.

This chapter examines the acquisition of Welsh in its social and cultural context, with a particular focus on how Welsh being a minority language influences how children speak it. The primary perspective taken will be sociolinguistic, that is variation in children’s Welsh. We review the literature on the linguistic effects of language contact between English as the dominant language on Welsh in the speech of children as well as adults, including discussions of code-switching and diachronic grammatical change. Next, we turn to examining the social factors that have been found to affect children’s acquisition of Welsh, especially language exposure and how this can vary considerably from child to child. The next section reviews one of the main methodological approaches that has been used to collect data in Welsh linguistics, namely corpus data, and considers some of the benefits and challenges that such a method provides for researching child language as well as directing readers to relevant corpora and making some recommendations on considerations for future corpora of children’s Welsh. The chapter concludes with ideas for research directions in this field that the reader may find useful.

The acquisition of a minority language undergoing revitalisation through education poses unique questions about the individual and environmental factors that modulate language development. Unlike monolingual acquisition, the acquisition of a minority heritage language such as Scottish Gaelic (Gaelic hereafter) always occurs in a bilingual, if not multilingual, context. Gaelic speakers are bilingual speakers whose proficiency in the two languages may differ as a function of exposure to the minority language, the languages spoken in the home and in early childhood, as well as the opportunity to use Gaelic outside the school context. This leads to great variability in the Gaelic language outcomes observed in the acquisition of Gaelic. In this chapter, we provide an overview of existing studies on the acquisition of Gaelic morphosyntax in children. We highlight the gaps in the literature and we identify the areas where research is yet to be carried out. We conclude by reviewing reasons why the study of Gaelic can inform us about (bilingual) language development more broadly.

This chapter provides an up-to-date review of the literature on the phonetic and phonological patterns of Welsh and their development. While typically developing children’s acquisition constitutes a major component, it also discusses socio-phonetic variation and adult second language acquisition, thereby approaching Welsh speech development from a lifespan perspective. The chapter is structured in four major sections. The first section introduces the reader to the segmental and suprasegmental properties of the two main varieties of Welsh: Northern and Southern Welsh. Subsequently, the second section considers methodological aspects of studies on Welsh phonology, while the third section focuses on children’s development of Welsh speech patterns, starting with evidence from studies on early word productions before moving on to a discussion of consonant and consonant cluster acquisition in preschool and school-aged children. The section concludes with an account of developmental error patterns. The final major section then reviews the literature on the speech patterns of different groups of Welsh speakers and the role that extra-linguistic variables, such as sex/gender and language dominance, play in shaping these. Finally, studies on the Welsh accents of second language learners will be discussed. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.

This chapter provides a review of the acquisition of the Welsh lexicon. Because Welsh-speaking children are growing up as both Welsh and English speakers, consideration of the acquisition of Welsh in relation to English allows a comprehensive picture of development. The chapter first explores what an examination of the number of lexical items a child knows in the two languages reveals, and this is followed by an examination of other factors central to lexical knowledge. These include children’s acquisition of the collection/unitiser system in Welsh, the acquisition of mutation and its ramifications for the acquisition of grammatical gender, and bilinguals’ processing of semantics in their two languages when these carve up the semantic space differently. Discussion includes ramifications for practitioners.

This book is about doing variation analysis. My goal is to give you a manual which will take you through a variationist analysis from beginning to end. Although I will cover the major issues, I will not attempt a full treatment of the theoretical issues nor of the statistical underpinnings. Instead, you will be directed to references where the relevant points are treated fully and in detail. In later chapters, explicit discussion will be made as to how different types of analysis either challenge, contribute to, or advance theoretical issues.

What do you do with your data once you have collected it? This chapter will elucidate the procedures for judicious handling of a large body of natural speech materials, such as audio files, interview reports, and consent forms.

How do I visualise my results so I can understand my data better? This chapter will outline several methods for turning all the numbers from statistical modelling into plots. I will include basic cosmetics for conditional inference trees and random forests, effects plots for glmer models, and a few enhancements you can make using ggplot functions, including cow plots and ribbon plots.

How do I report my results? This chapter will outline the method for reporting the results of statistical modelling, including rate (%), number of observations (Ns/cell) for each level of a categorical independent variable, and Total Number of observations (Total N) in the data.

How do you conduct a sociolinguistic interview? How do you talk to strangers, your targeted sample of individuals who you do not know yet? This chapter will discuss ways and means of mitigating the observer’s paradox, enabling the analyst to obtain natural speech data.

How do I conduct a mixed effects logistic regression of a linguistic variable?This chapter will illustrate the procedures for performing statistical modelling using mixed effects logistic regression with the lme4 package in R. It will review the steps for conducting analyses, for finding the best model for the feature under study, and what to do with it when you find it.

How do you find a linguistic variable? This chapter will discuss the key construct in the variationist paradigm – the linguistic variable. It will detail its definition, describe what a linguistic variable is, how to identify it, and how to circumscribe it.