I haven’t been able to found an answer to this. I’ve even checked with our Translation staff to check for me and haven’t been able to get an answer.
I’m looking for the French name of the Irish Whistle/Tin Whistle/Pennywhistle. I live in a French region of New-Brunswick and I’m often asked “What’s that instrument, a flute or recorder?” I say it’s neither but I can’t give them an official answer either. I roughly translate it for them as a “Sifflet Irlandais”, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the right name… or is it…?
And whistle is … “le whistle”, or “le tin whistle”, or even just “le tin”. Just as bombarde is bombarde in English, or biniou is biniou. The name whistle identifies it as the Irish/British type instrument, as opposed to one of the many similar fipple flutes common to just about every European culture area.
Around here in Portugal it’s a bit tricky too. I usually say “flauta irlandesa” which is a direct translation of “irish flute”, and that wrongly takes to your mind the flute, and when I say tin whistle everybody is like “what the hell?” The other problem is that flute in portuguese “flauta” means recorder too…
A big mess, so I tend to keep my (bad) whistling skills to myself, and to my gf’s horror, to her too.
, many beginners on our french forum talk about “flûte irlandaise” instead of “tin whistle” which is the right word in french. So there are often some misunderstanding but a whistle is “un/le whistle” and an irish flute is “une/la flûte irlandaise”.
L’Office de la Langue Francais’s online grand dictionnaire terminologique dbase has no suggestion for either ‘pennywhistle’ or ‘tin whistle’. This is Quebec-based, and often much more stubborn than French sources about refusing to francisize english terms.
My kids borrowed a BD from the library last week in which this magical object was referred to. It was actually not a Schtroumpf book but a Johan and Pirlouit title (my favourites - you can see them lurking in the background here).
It is of course a play on “flûte à six trous”, which is an acceptable name for whistle-type objects even if it’s not very useful in the context of Irish and related musics. If people look puzzled when I use “le whistle” I sometimes say “la petite flûte irlandaise”. But I think “le tin” is extremely cool and very français de France and I am definitely going to start bandying that around. Along with “six schtroumpfs”
, many beginners on our french forum talk about “flûte irlandaise” instead of “tin whistle” which is the right word in french. So there are often some misunderstanding but a whistle is “un/le whistle” and an irish flute is “une/la flûte irlandaise”.
