to pronounce the name ‘Ciarán’?

[Mummy2Sienna]

I’ve heard ‘KEER-on’ all day on Radio 4, and just now ‘’Keer-ON’. (It’s the Irish spelling of ‘Kieren’ and pronounced as such).

Don’t the BBC have people to teach them how to pronounce names? I can think of a couple of famous Ciaráns. It’s not THAT unusual a name!!

I was thinking of changing my name to the Irish version. I live in the UK. I was put off by the inability of British people to pronounce it even though there's a French name pronounced in a very similar way (good enough that I'd take it anyway) and I've heard British people get that right. Something about the fada really throws people.

You're absolutely right it completely changes the meaning of the name, Orla for example without a fada means "vomit" as far as I know rather than "Golden Princess" & Sean mean old rather than "God's gift"

So it seems the anglicised version is: Keer-ANN
The ROI version is Keer-AWN

Is that the long and the short of it folks?

Not the ROI version but the Irish language version, the original name, yes.

Not exactly. Firstly, a lot of people in ROI use anglicised names. There are lots of Kierans here. But I think what you mean is the anglicised vs the Irish language forms of the name.

Secondly, there is more than one correct Irish language pronunciation anyway. The 'awn' pronunciation of Ciarán isn't found in the northern part of ROI (eg Donegal) as the pronunciation of á is different in the dialect there.

My son is Ciaran, so pronounced keeran - am Scottish. But believe in the storm version it’s more keerawn or on

Gaelic news called it ‘Kee-RAN’ tend to trust the Gaelic pronunciation.

Ok but is it just the pronunciation of the last syllable that's causing all the debate?

Also, just wondering... when everyone on this thread says the name of the French capital city, do you all say "PaREEEEE"???

Or would you maybe just say it in your own accent? 🤔

Paris is a word in the English language. It just happens to be spelt the same as the French word, unlike the capital of Italy which is spelt differently in English and Italian. So if speaking English, pronounce it in the English way, if speaking French, the French way.

Ciarán is a word in the Irish language and so should be pronounced accordingly.

Also, just wondering... when everyone on this thread says the name of the French capital city, do you all say "PaREEEEE"???

Or would you maybe just say it in your own accent? 🤔

Interesting point. Where does correct pronunciation end and accent begin? If you had a French friend called Marie, would you say her name with full-on French accent, French 'r' etc? If not, why is that any different from pronouncing 'Ciarán' as 'Kieran'? I wonder if the people who are irritated by the pronunciation of a name from their own language are equally rigorous with accent and pronunciation of names in languages foreign to them.

As pp said, Paris is an English word, like Rome is. Ciarán is not an English name, but Irish. I would pronounce a French Guy as 'Gee' for example. I say torteeya not tortilla and Cha-batta not Kia-batta ( as some do!!). Interesting topic tho.

[I don't say French 'restaurant' tho to be fair but a name, yes, that's important IMHO, and similarly I always tell children with names of various origins in my class go let me know if I've got their names wrong.

I meant ghee in case that reads as jee or worse! 😆

And yes I probably would say Marie properly but tone down the r, like I'd say French Sophie properly or an Italian Claudia properly etc. I think most would.

"[I don't say French 'restaurant' tho to be fair but a name, yes, that's important IMHO, and similarly I always tell children with names of various origins in my class go let me know if I've got their names wrong."

@mikado1 well maybe the storm should let everyone know which pronunciation it would prefer we used then? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Very simple. If there's a fada, it's awn. If there's no fada it's uhn.

What a silly post. It has nothing to do with accent. As has been pointed out numerous times but still doesn’t seem to be sinking in, the fada on the ‘a’ makes the sound ‘aw’, hence Ciarán being pronounced Keer-AWN. That is not accent, that is phonology. It’s really not difficult.

No, also (and a bigger difference) is where the syllable stress falls.

Re. The pronunciation of loan words more generally, my friend who used to work in the BBC Pronunciation Unit (mentioned upthread) points out that those who insist on an 'authentic' pronunciation nearly always have the same hierarchy of which languages they do it for - French, then Italian, then other Romance languages, then German, then Scandinavian languages. Hardly anyone bothers for languages that fall outside of these, unless they have an ethnic connection to them. E.g. very few people will be concerned about whether their pronunciation of 'futon' or 'sushi' even approximates Japanese. Whereas you will see plenty of people wince at the thought of panini being used as a singular noun, or croissant pronounced as though it started kwa.

People's names are different. The Pronunciation Unit's advice was always to ask the person themselves as a first port of call. It's generally considered polite to stick to how they want their name to be said, or as close as you can get to it. When that's not possible, and if you can't even get hold of an agent or similar (e.g. if it's a storm, but also plenty of real people who aren't available to teach newsreaders how to say their name), then you go with how that name is most commonly pronounced in the country/ region of origin. In the case of names that include sounds not found in English, you just try your best. Me trying to say a Xhosa name with a tongue click was a nightmare earlier this year (not on the BBC!). I practised loads and got it right, but when I had to just click in the middle of a sentence I completely tripped over it.

Yep!

Huh?

So it's not pronounced keerAWN with the stress on the last syllable. Is that it. In a nutshell?

Rhymes with prawn? 🍤

’a’ fada gives an aw sound. Kerr-awn

Correct. The second syllable isn't stressed. It's a long vowel (aw) as in 'prawn' or 'yawn'. Keer-awn.