I am considering trying to translate my group’s website into french, but am unsure how best to translate my whistle. My french teachers have told me I should go with “flute irlandais” but we also have an Irish Flute (sideblown, black, etc), and I don’t know how to differentiate the two in a way that would make sense in French and make it clear which was which.
I’ve been told that “siffle” which is literally whistle, doesn’t work as well.
You could use “pipeau,” but that’s not really what we call a whistle. As far as I know, most French speakers (in Canada, France, and elsewhere) use the English term and call it “le whistle.”
Brother Steve’s Whistle pages has a French version, and you could have a look at that for starters.
I’d just write ‘whistle’ or ‘tin whistle’ since most of ITM fans will know the meaning of that. It is true that in some translations to Spanish, the whistle is referred to as ‘Irish flute’ but that leads to misunderstanding and I particularly hate that inaccuraccy.
If you don’t have the words, just use the proper native one rather than long inexpressive describing sentences such as (small tin or wood or plastic diatonic flute with six holes…).
Not necessary, Emm. Brad and I live in the same city as Az and we know what he and the rest of us call the thing - “le whistle.” Anyway he’s at the Catskills this week and would be slow to respond.
In any case, what we call it in conversation may or may not be the best choice for a website, depending on the intended audience and level of formality. FWIW the lads who translated Brother Steve are both French-from-France, living in Montreal at the time, and they chose “tin-whistle” for starters, and “whistle” thereafter.
The transverse Irish flute would be “la flûte irlandaise” and I’ve heard it referred to that way both here and in France, although people also call it “la flûte traversière en bois” (transverse flute in wood), which is more accurate (unless your flute happens to be made of plastic!) You can also call it flûte à système simple (simple-system flute) which distinguishes it from the Boehm-system flute that is commonly used today.
It might be a little late to give you an answer, but…
A good translation for whistle would be flûte irlandaise… and irish flute would become flûte traversière irlandaise.
On this latter, you can even be more accurate by using the terms sans clefs which stands for keyless or avec clefs which stands for with keys.
Low whistle would be flûte basse and high whistle would be flûte soprano.
I also agree with one of the posts saying that whistle or tin whistle would be understood by most people knowing a little bit about the subject.
French being my native language, I hope this can help you… although it might be a little too late!
We can easily conclude that the french language doesnt really have a good word for the “whistle”. The word “Flageolet” comes to mind, yes, but it’s very similar to the verb “flageoler” which means to whip someone, in other words some form of torture!
Also, a recorder in french is a “flûte à bec”, so when we use the word “flûte” by itself, people think you’re talking about a recorder, at least here in Québec. So people will call your whistle a “flûte” because they think it’s a recorder.
So yeah, I would rather use “flûte irlandaise” than “flageolet”, but “whistle” is what most french speakers I know use for the instrument.
Wouldn’t trust les Canucks on this one, as in spite of Ségolène Royal’s attempts to assert Quebec’s sovereignty, Canadian French is [very open to]/[heavily contaminated by] anglicisms (barrer la mention inutile).
I’ve seen “flûte irlandaise” used years ago by French or Breton French-speakers for the tin whistle, but this entails considerable risk of confusion with “the timber flute” (plus bewilderment at the “British made” label on Generations, ach sin scéal eile ).
My wife (from the lowlands of Haute Savoie) has always referred to it as un pipeau, and I would therefore recommend this term, with "flageolet ou tin whistle " in brackets after it to ensure being picked up via search engines.
Oh yeah, unlike the French French? If you start a war on that point Roger you might lose. Just for starters, ici on stationne dans un stationnement , on s’envoie des courriels et on fait son magasinage la fin de semaine…
whereas as we all know the Europeans put their car in un parking, send each other des mêls and do le shopping during le weekend.
Touché, as we say in English. I suppose it’s rather that Canadian French is relaxed about translating English words and expressions, whereas official French French is hunkered down behind the Maginot Line of the Académie Française and doesn’t even realise that les anglais ont débarqué depuis longtemps (forgive the anachronistically mixed martial metaphor).
And now I must really take le métro home, since I’m not an adept of le footing.
).