Gaelic for Morons (Like Me)

Poststructural Pub
1

My sister who lives in London just flew over for the celebration of our mother’s 70th birthday. She’d spent some time going to school in Galway & had taken some Celtic heritage studies classes, so I thought I’d talk to her about my fledgling interest in ITM.

Much to my surprise, she had to correct my pronunciation every 30 seconds or so. It all started out when I had to be informed that bodhran has a silent ‘d’ and an invisible ‘w’, more like ‘bowrun’ that my phonetic interpretation. By the time I found out Uilleann only had 2 syllables & sounded more like ‘Ellen’ than anything, I was feeling mighty foolish.

To prevent further embarrassment when I make my initial forays into meeting ITM musicians, what else do I need to get under my tongue?

2

Whisky?

3

First, you need to call it either Irish Gaelic or Gaeilge so people don’t think you’re talking about the Scottish language. Second, you need to talk to Redwolf who will give you an abundance of suggestions about resources for beginners.

4

There may well be classes in Toronto, and even if you don’t want to get too seriously into it, classes are probably a much more effective way of getting started than trying to understand other people’s efforts at phonetic transcription or sweating solo through a grammar book.

In Ireland the language is simply known as “Irish”: the word “Gaelic” in English is applied mainly to the football, and is somehow perceived as slightly patronising when used by an Irish person about the language, even though in Irish it’s known as Gaeilge, and we will commonly use the word “Gaelic” to avoid confusion with Hiberno-English when speaking to a foreigner. So even when you’ve got the phonetics, the vocabulary, the grammar and the syntax sorted out, there’s still lots of sociolinguistics going on :stuck_out_tongue: .

There are always a few people here willing to help with the pronunciation of the odd word, if your motivation falters.

5

Irish classes in Canada are kind of on again/off again. Here’s some links for Toronto:

http://www.geocities.com/canadiancelticarts/language.htm

http://www.torontoirishassociation.com/gaelic.htm

I have no idea if these are still current or not.

djm

6

For a long time I thought it was Willy-in’ pipes, until somebody informed me it was related to the Irish word for elbow, and had nothing to do with the willy. :wink:

7

Eww!!
EEWWWW!!

and just who have we been taking rude lessons from?

8

It’s always been latent. I’m just trying to Live More Intensely (see Rush thread) :wink:

9

10

i understand he makes a mean sausage, too

11

Jimmy Dean played UPs? :astonished:

djm

12

Ooooooo…I’m impressed! It’s not everyone that can pull of cross-threading so well! :wink:

13

Since Chatterton (great name, btw) seems to be referring to Irish, whiskEy might be a better choice :wink:

14

at’s it, innit! izz all about the differences, ain’t it?

15

Thanks for the name appreciation. Much appreciated.

As for whiskey appreciation, I do prefer it with an ‘e’, although I have been know to make exceptions.

16

whiskEy might be a better choice

Well said, a Iosfhairíne dhílis.

Here’s a rough guide that I found on the Mudcat, posted by one Bill Kennedy, with a few edits by myself. I would take issue with some of his other suggestions, but don’t want to over-complicate things.

BASIC pronunciation, discounting regional dialects, and not getting into the broad and slender characteristics are:

a - between short a and short o
á - as aw in maw
e - as e in bet
é - as ay in say
i - as i in bit
í - as ee in feel
o - as u in up
ó - as o in go
u - as u in up
ú - as oo in boot

b - as in boy
c - as in cat, ALWAYS a hard c, never like an s
d - voiced American-style th as in they
f - as in fit
g - as in good
h - as in hat
l - as in luck
m - as in Mary
n - as in nut
p - as in Paul
r - as in rat
s - as in sam (when before or after a, o or u) or sh as in shim (beside i or e)
t - as in american thing

dots over certain consonants cause lenition (commonly misnamed “aspiration”, which is what it’s called in Irish - séimhiú)

bh - as v or w as in will or vwill
ch - as in German ach, a gutteral sound, as in chutzpah
dh - as in y in yell or silent, Gaelic was spelled Gaedhelic once
fh - silent
gh - as y
mh - v or w
ph - as f
sh - as h
th - as h, silent if at the end of a word

another consonant change at the start of words (as in welsh) is called eclipsis, always pronounce the first letter in the combination

mb - as m
gc - as g
nd - as n
bhf - as v
bp - as b
dt - as d

17

I would question a couple of those, Roger, though I am no expert.

o - short as in cot, bottle

gh - guttural h lower in the throat, versus ch, which is guttural h in the back of the mouth. If “gh” were like a “y” as in your example, the word “lough” would be pronounced “loy” which I think you’d agree isn’t right.

Another weird one is d, which may be pronounced more as “dj” when it appears as the first letter syllables other than the first … sometimes … hard to nail down.

djm

18

There’s a new one on me. Often as not I hear “uilleann” pronounced as Swede might render “Julian”. Around here that’s probably logical enough. :wink:

Although rumor has it that it’s sort of okay to pronounce it as “Ill-yun”, I wouldn’t do so. Pronounce it “Illun” or otherwise everyone mis-hears it and thinks you said “Alien Pipes”. It’s a good hobbyhorse for jokes, though.

19

Wouldn’t it be be easier if you just said you were sick? :boggle:

djm

20

I’ve always thought a recording called Uilleann ‘n’ Chillin’ – Gettin’ Jiggy Wid It should be done. Not by me, though. :wink: