Dear dreh, Dear dreh, Dear dreh

[Toomanythalias]

Following on from the Call the Midwife thread. Jeeze it's not difficult to pronounce Deirdre correctly, but so many English people continue to insult our beautiful old Irish name with that ghastly Coronation Street pronunciation. It's Dear dreh, folks, not DEEER DREEE.

i have never heard anyone in the UK pronounce the (originally Hebrew) Benjamin as what we now hear in the Tv news as ‘Binyamin’ (Netanyahu).

How do you pronounce local people called Benjamin, OP?

I'm absolutely incapable of rolling my Rs however much I have tried over the years. So I'll forever be assumed to be disrespecting French and Spanish names with an R in them. 😥

I'm going to take issue with this.

If English people can wrap their heads around Charlotte and Marguerite they can manage Deirdre.

Simon and Laura are names that are 'native' to most countries in western Europe. They have biblical and classical origins amd have been absorbed into many cultures. Deirdre is a name that is very region-specific, along with many other names - Angharad, Eilidh, Noortje, Lahja, Silke, and many others. They have not spread widely except to countries next door.

It is apparently asking too much that a namenfrom next door is pronounced properly.

And again, Benjamin is a name that is common to many languages thanks to the spread of Christianity throughout Europe.

There are as many pronunciations of Benjamin as there are languages.

I read the title and clutched my breast thinking Snoop Dogg had died!

Thankfully no.

Its De-ar-dree in my book, although I'm happy tp pronounce any name in how the person or region and nearest, de'ar'est prefer.

Neither is wrong because the A clearly has a fada in both accents.

You wouldn't know this if you weren't familiar with Irish.

I very much doubt there is any country in the world that would pronounce Deirdre the Irish way.

There are many foreign names (not just Irish ones) that we don't pronounce correctly. But that is the beauty of each language. If you've never heard the correct pronunciation, you just say it as you see it, or hear it.

Lots of people say Mel-BORN.
Aussies say Melb'n.

Lots of people say Los AngeLEEEZ.
Americans say Los angeliz.

It's just flavour. No disrespect is meant.
Same with Deirdre. It'll always have the British pronunciation in the UK. In Ireland, it can have it's correct one.

Yes, I agree; it's just ignorance and laziness to not bother pronouncing a name properly when the person has corrected you.

It also really bugs me when people who have Irish parents don't pronounce their names correctly. For example, the Gallagher brothers and Saoirse Ronan. I've heard their respective parents interviewed and they both pronounced the names correctly. It just perpetuates the wrong pronunciations.

For those comparing with names from other countries, I think there is a particular sensitivity when it comes to Irish names because of the widespread Anglicisation of Irish names during the English/British plantations. So many Irish people had their beautiful Irish names butchered and stolen from them. My own maiden name is very English-sounding, and it could have originally come from any one of several different Irish surnames. It annoys me that I may never know which one. So it's a sore point for me personally, and other Irish people may feel the same way.

Ok, so I have a son called Llewelyn.

I live in England, I don't go into spasm every time someone pronounces it lew-el-in.

It's obviously nice when someone pronounces the Ll correctly, I appreciate that.

But in all honesty, he's lived in England for more than half of his life and he's happy enough with the Anglicised version.

NC. I get Danni yell a lot (Danielle)
If I say it dan yell, then people repeat it back to me as Daniel
I'm sick of being called Daniel! It's like people can't tell the difference between Daniel being masculine and Danielle feminine any more

That's because Binyamin is his actual name.

Benjamin is the Anglicised equivalent in the English speaking world and is always pronounced Benzha-min.

I'd pronounce it Deardrah

Then you think wrong. It’s two syllables in Ireland: Deerdrah

Surely most people try and pronounce names in the way the person whose name it is prefers? Or as close as they can get to it with accent / language limitations. Regardless of whether that is the original way or not?

I always pronounce Danielle;

Dan yell.

That's how it's pronounced isn't it?

I assume you're pronouncing Shorn the same as Shaun...just to note that shorn is pronounced differently in Ireland as the r is pronounced. I found out on MN that 'Shaun the Sheep' was meant to be a pun. That would never have occured to me!

There are different dialects of Irish so words and names can sound a bit different depending on the part of the country the speaker is from. Shan sounds like a pronunciation from the North of Ireland to me. Is he from the North of the country do you know? My guess is that he is and your other friend is further south.

Deirdre isn't pronounced Deer-dree in any dialect of Irish though.

@Tetsuo yep, but it's very common to get the mispronunciation of Danni yell so it ends up being three syllables
It's like if I don't pronounce it the wrong way, people say "oh hi Daniel"

Only been happening over the past few years and I nearly missed a hospital appointment as they were shouting Daniel.. sorry I'm not male so I wasn't listening for that!

That's very annoying!

I have a Hebrew name that is very easy to pronounce, I've never had a mis-step.

My sister has a Welsh name that also seems to never have caused any problems.

My brothers and other sister have very Anglo names that I can't imagine causing problems.

I do find that people shorten my name to a popular derivation that I never use. That pisses me off & I always correct people when they do that.

It's always men that do that. And I always tell them it's not ok.

In British English, it isn’t natural to put an “eh” sound on the end of words. An “ee” sound or an “ay” sound, yes. But not an “eh” sound.

Our family is bilingual and we live in a non-English-speaking countries. Our names are all pronounced a bit different in the two languages and that’s fine.

If you live overseas, your name may be pronounced in a slightly different way. It’s not the end of the world and it’s not disrespectful.

Funny I had just been thinking today of when Deirdre Barlow had the fling with Dev. And then there was the whole 'free Deirdre Barlow' campaign when she went to jail for something or other.

And don't forget folks, the oldsters in the Bay Area, CA pronounce San Francisco as "The City". Just sayin.......

Probably depends on the accent, it doesn’t sound especially soft in NI. I don’t much like either but Deer-drie isn’t worse IMO. Prefer Caitlin in its anglo phonetic form too. Shoot me now…

What about "Mary"? I work with two of them. One is Mare-ry and the other is Meer-ree.

The French “r” is not rolled though. The Spanish”r” is rolled. The Scots, and other rhotic speakers of English, roll their”r”s in a less pronounced way than the Spanish.

The French “r” is pronounced in a uniquely French way in the back of the throat which probably has a name in French but no equivalent name in English. Some people do find it very hard to replicate, and being a rhotic speaker doesn’t make it any easier.

yes, I feel the same about the name Seren which is beautiful until it gets mangled into Seh-run.
its painful