Mhairi

Deleted

My friend is Scottish and pronounces it Maree…

Let’s be honest - anyone with that name has called their child ‘v- hairy’ no English or Scottish language variation of that H! Why not Vari or Vairi if you are desperate for a V? I only know one Mhairi, it’s definitely a vocative case but their parents were calling her. The H drops away when you are talking about them, so it would be Mairi. At no point would Mhairi be Mairi with the H. Even worse is Mhairi as Mhari. I’ve avoid the name for my kids!

In Scotland if I saw Mhairi I'd go with the pronunciation Va-ree. In my experience most will use that pronunciation. Those who want the M sound are typically spelt Mairi. Marie is a different name.

In England I think anything goes.

But if you have got pedantic in-laws Mairi is safer.

Yeah I think once there’s a critical mass doing the wrong thing it can be hard to insist on the right way.

The Irish name Aoibheann should be pronounced Eve-an but most people say Ay-veen and will swear blind that is correct despite it being absolutely impossible given the spelling. So even though I know it should be Eve-an, if I meet someone with that name I’d usually go for the Ayveen pronunciation first off.

I'm in Scotland, originally from England, and would pronounce it as 'marry.'

But at what point does common usage of a pronunciation trump its original pronunciation? Like several pps, as a Scottish person I know Scottish Mhairis who pronounce it with an M. At this point, I'd assume it could be pronounced either with a V or an M if I came across it on a class register or whatever.

My understanding is that Mairi is pronounced Marry and Mhairi is pronounced Varry. They were originally different cases of the same name (ie the person's name would officially be Mairi, but you would say Mhairi when speaking directly to her), but Mhairi is now sometimes used as an independent name even in Scotland - the only one I have personally met is Scottish and definitely pronounces it Varry.

Not nearly so many Scots Gaelic speakers as Irish speakers and not taught in many schools at all - so all the vocative/genitive stuff is fairly lost!

I went to school with several Mhairis - all pronounced VAR ee , some Mairis , all pronounce MAR ee and a few Maries, usually pronounced MAR ee, unless at the end of Ann when it's AnnMareeeeeeeee 😁 or ANNmaree.

The trouble with this is that pronunciation varies widely according to where you are. A Gaelic-speaker from Stornoway will have vastly different ideas about it to one from Castlebay, for example.

This is the big problem with this name. Although, like Hamish, it is derived from Gaelic, it is never used as a stand-alone name in Gaelic; it is just the vocative form. As a PP pointed both Hamish and "Vairi" have been adopted into Scots and are used widely among non-Gaelic speakers. At this point the origins become immaterial.

But the spelling now becomes the material point. Hamish isn't a problem, as there is an easy, obvious spelling, known and understood by all, and doesn't bear any resemblance to the original Gaelic spelling, so no complications.

"Vairi" on the other hand is the opposite; there is no one universally obvious and accepted spelling for this sound. It's a name I did a lot of research on and found 18 different spellings starting with V used in Scotland with Vhairi being most popular, closely followed by Vhari.

There have been 13 different spellings of Mhairi used (although no idea if they are pronounced with an M or a V sound). But as there is no consistent non-Gaelic spelling, people tend to stick with the Gaelic spelling Mhairi, which then leads to the M or V question, as well as Gaelic speakers regularly insisting it's not a proper name at all.

I'd stick to Mairi if that's the sound you want.

TLDR:
If you want the M sound OP then suggest you stick to Mairi, as the Mhairi spelling is always going to be a problem until we decide on the correct spelling for "Vairi".

I wrote it earlier on this thread: the approximate pronunciation of Mhàiri is vaah-thee. The "r" is often pronounced like a soft th when it is not at the beginning of a word.

Agree regarding Irish sounds being different, but there isn’t just one sound in Irish represented by bh or mh. It varies depending on position in a word and also with dialect.

The link below has a male speaker with Munster Irish, and a female speaker with Connacht Irish, saying Mháire in a sentence. You can hear the difference, more like an English w in Connacht, more like v in Munster. They are both native speakers and both pronunciations are correct.

Non-native speakers often do get lots of the Irish sounds wrong though, substituting the English sounds as you said.

https://forvo.com/word/inis_do_mh%C3%A1ire_i_gcogar_%C3%A9%2C_is_inseoidh_m%C3%A1ire_don_phobal_%C3%A9./

The proper pronunciation of that MH (and BH) sound in Irish is somewhere between a V and W, a little closer to the W. People whose first language is not Irish don't hear the slight difference between an English V and an Irish MH, and go with the English V. It's unfortunately taught in schools like that a lot of the time.

Same with the Irish F sound, which should be made with lips only. The English F is made with lower lip touching the tip of the upper teeth, which is how most non native speakers of Irish will tend to pronounce the F.

Spoken Irish uses parts /configurations of the mouth that are not used in English; the sounds are similar but not quite the same. People end up with Irish words pronounced with English phonology.

Mhairi is the vocative case of the name Mairi.

It's pronounced VAR-ee.

The name itself is pronounced MAR-ee.

In Gaelic and Irish (Gaeilge), nouns change spelling and pronunciation according to case -- nominative / accusative (the basic noun), possessive / genitive (when the noun owns something), vocative (when you address a person by their name), and prepositional / dative case (when the noun is positioned).

Nouns come in masculine or feminine form, and are also changed by number.

The name "Mhairi" came about because non Gaelic speakers saw the spelling of the vocative case of Mairi and thought it was cute and quintessentially Scottish. The name itself is Mairi, pronounced MAR-ee. If you were speaking Gaelic and were addressing someone called Mairi, you would start your conversation with "A Mhairi..." ("A VAR-ee..."), using the vocative form to address her.

The same process of ignorant mixing of cases occurred for the name Hamish, which is a transliteration into English of the vocative case of Seumas (Scots Gaelic version of James).

In the vocative case, names that start with any letter apart from L and (iirc) R add an H after the initial consonant, which changes the pronunciation of the consonant. Mh and Bh become V, Sh becomes H, Th becomes H, Gh becomes a very soft G sound where the back of the tongue doesnt quite touch the palate at the back of the mouth, D becomes almost the same sound as Gh but closer to a Y sound, etc...

With fewer Gaelic speakers about, I think there's less knowledge of Vah-ree being the vocative of Mhairi.

I like Mhairi as Vah-ree.

But if you want the name to sound like Marry then spelling it Mairi will be the best bet.

Love that 😂

I asked someone in a university Irish department once, and he said 'Don't get me started.'😀

I’m in Scotland and have known both pronunciations for Mhairi - Varry and Marry basically but I’d hate to give my child a name where people only had a 50% chance of getting it right every time.

I actually meant mh makes a v sound in Scottish Gaelic @FranklyMyDears, I should have clarified that.
Maybe it’s not always the case in Scottish Gaelic either? I’m not actually sure, should stick to Irish😳

Like mná/mrá, cnoc is mostly said croc in Connacht and Ulster but cnoc in Munster. Don’t know why that is either.

https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/mn%C3%A1

Inexplicably, it's 'mrá' in Connemara Irish. Which despite using Irish on a regular basis during my years working in Galway, I was never able to bring myself to say!

I only know muh-naw.

Had no idea there were other variations.

And don't get me started on the various different pronunciations of 'mná'...