Just looking for some info on how to pronounce “Feadog”. As a newbie whistle enthusiast I rang the local “Irish” shop here in South Australia to see what whistles they kept in stock. I mentioned I already had a Feadog in D and was wondering what else they had on offer. The mistake I made was that I pronounced Feadog as “fed-dock”, which attracted howls of derisive laughter from the guy at the other end of the phone. He composed himself and said it’s pronounced “fay-dough” … like Play Dough. Is that the correct pronunciation? I thought afterwards I should have asked him how he would pronounce “customer service”.
He also assured me that the Little Black Whistle is made by Clarke, not Waltons? Do Clarke make a LBW too?
The man was probably right, despite his poor delivery of the news. I believe the “g” on the end is silent since it follows a stressed vowel, and therefore it is a so-called “hanging” consonant. Any of you true Irish speakers out there, please confirm or deny this.
You might want to search the archives to find Dale’s guide to Gaelic pronunciations. Or perhaps he’d be kind enough to post it once again. It’s simple, elegant, and easy to use. It changed my life.
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On 2002-02-04 14:46, TnWhistler wrote:
According to an Irish dictionary I had and have loaned out, it was pronounced
fee-jog
I’m not sure where you got your dictionary, but you’re probably as well that you loaned it out permanently.
I’m not an Irish speaker but I live in Ireland and I very regularly liaise with Irish speakers who work for the company who Make the Feadog whistle (Barbara and Lynette at Keynote) and who ‘improve’ it (Cillian O’Briain - a fluent Irish speaker, living in the Irish speaking part of Kerry).
Please be assured that my attempts at pronounciation are as close as you might come to hearing Feadog spoken, in Ireland.
Steve
p.s. I have made a number of translations, out of frienship on this board, and in private e-mails. However, I may not offer to translate again - as some people prefer their dictionary versions and it can be offensive to find that one’s efforts - from the ‘Waterfront’ so to speak, are so easily disregarded.
[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2002-02-04 17:29 ]
[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2002-02-04 17:38 ]
Years ago, I wrote a piece on pronunciation of Gaelic words, as WyoBadger points out above. It was a satirical take on my feeling that the correlation between how Gaelic words are spelled and how we English-speakers THINK they ought to sound is rather poor. I had the piece on chiff & fipple for some time, but it offended a few people who wrote me very kind notes explaining why they took offense. SO, I took it off the site but I occasionally dust it off, at the risk of offending more people. Here it is:
Uncle Dale’s Guide to Pronunciation of Gaelic
On the newsgroup rec.music.celtic, someone posted a request for help pronouncing the Gaelic word, Claddagh. This was my posted response:
It’s really very simple, like all Gaelic pronunciations:
The “Cl” at the beginning is pronounced "Firz’
The “a” is actually pronounced like the English phoneme
“arrrgh”
“d” is normally pronounced “d”, but the double d (“dd”) is
pronounced “ger-ger”
And, of course, the “agh” is prounounced “eye-loo”
So, putting it all together, the word “Claddagh” is
pronounced:
“Firz-arrrgh-ger-ger-eye-loo”
See, simple!!
Dale
P.S. Using these and other rules, “Feadog” would be pronounced “Hahg-lin-poolin-ahr.”
[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-02-04 19:54 ]
I asked the same question when I first came to the forum, and the guys rallied, and I walked away more confused than I started! Since I know I’m a lout and don’t want to end up looking like some wannabee, out of respect I refrain from singing in Gaelic, even thought I can imitate that very well, and have no idea what I’m singing…so, I give up and pronounce it whistle!
I believe you will find that “feadog” is pronounced differently in different areas of the gaelic speaking community. They are simply different dialects. North differs from south, irish gaelic differs from scottish gaelic and so on. While the spelling may be the same because of the attempt to standardise the language throughout Ireland each region has its own variations in pronounciation.
