Preaspiration

[11] Preaspiration is perhaps best known from North Germanic languages, most prominently in Icelandic and Faroese, but also some dialects of Norwegian and Swedish.

In certain accents, such as Geordie (among younger women) Watt & Allen (2003:268) and in some speakers of Dublin English[22] word- and utterance-final /p, t, k/ can be preaspirated.

This likely represents two waves of innovation: an early preaspiration of long consonants dating back to Proto-Sami, followed by a secondary preaspiration of half-long consonants that originated in the Western Sami area and spread eastwards to Skolt Sami.

[25] In several Sami languages, preaspirated stops/affricates contrast with lax voiceless stops, either due to denasalization of earlier clusters (e.g. *nt > [d̥ː]) or in connection to consonant gradation.

In Scottish Gaelic, however, due to the historical loss of voiced stops preaspiration is phonemic in medial and final positions after stressed vowels.