Sorcha... pronunciations?

[pinkytheshrinky]

I know that for the most part this name is pronounced Sor-kha but I met a nice older lady years ago who was a Sor-sha - I do really like this name and it is top of the list for my new dc. What do you think?

I do also have two other dds with Irish names who's spellings have been Anglicised so I do have form for this....

[mathanxiety]

It's Cúchulainn, not Chúchulainn -- Cú being a hound, Culann being the owner of the hound, Cú chulainn being the possessive/genitive case indicating the hound is the property of Culann. You could probably spell it CúChulainn.

The only grammar I ever learned in school was Irish grammar, thanks to the worst wagon of a teacher you could ever hope not to meet in 4th and 5th class and a fantastic one for the whole of secondary. They had stopped teaching English grammar at that point, or else I was looking out the window for the duration. I still have to translate grammatical terms quickly in my head when the DCs have a question.

Tewkespeggy, Sorsha is a nice name spelled S-O-R-S-H-A nothing wrong with it.

[HardCheese]

Mo cheol thú, Mathanxiety! An bhfuil tú féin as an Gaeltacht? I am going to pronounce Cú Chulainn 'Cutch-ELAINE', with a kind of Scarlett O'Hara accent for the rest of my life.

What's nice about this thread is the well-informed non-Irish - all credit to you! Also the Irish people pointing out very reasonably that cherry-picking another language and culture's names because they're 'Celtic and exotic', but then fiddling with them to remove the troublesome bits of foreignness you don't like, is problematic.

I agree with Stokes on not every Irish person being an expert on their national language, but a fair number of us, while not native speakers, have a reasonable level of Irish, despite growing up with that weird guilt complex about 'my national language that I should speak a lot better than I do, oh my God, Peig Bloody Sayers' etc etc. Though mine is now a weird hybrid of Kerry and Connemara, rusty from disuse and living in England, alas. My partner, also Irish and a product of the same education system, can only say 'An bhfuil cead agam dul amach?' and 'Tá áthas orm an corn seo a ghlacadh...'

Caitlín pronounced 'Kate-lyn' used by Irish people does depress me, I confess...

[HardCheese]

Now also being revisited by the ghost of the tuiseal ginideach!

[mathanxiety]

That's what was at the back of my mind, Maryz -- I have been encouraging DD4 to read by staying close on her heels through the HP series as she plods he way through. We're on the home stretch now, thank goodness.

Is Jackeen mé (agus is fuath liom Peig Bloody Sayers freisin).

[mathanxiety]

The tuiseal ginideach is harmless enough. It's that fiendish modh foshuiteach láithreach that will get you every time.

[lettinggo]

You know, what's really interesting is how we speak English has been influenced by Irish. Speaking og the modh foshuiteach láithreach, whenever I have a night out and complain about a sort head the next day, my mam's line is always "that it may work you"! She's a Kerry woman and her language is so rich with Irish language influence.

I was doing léitheoireacht leis na páistí ar scoil inniu agus bhí an líne "lig sí béic aisti" in the reading. It only struck me that that's how "she let a roar out of her" came from. There are so many ways of phrasing things that come directly as a result of being directly translated from English generations ago. And isn't our language all the richer for it?

Maryz, to get the fadas, press AltGr and the letter at the same time.

[lettinggo]

Re Peig Sayers, the first time I went to the Blaskets, I couldn't believe this was the place she was talking about. How could you be so bloody miserable all the time living in such a beautiful place??

[lettinggo]

Maith thú!

I was there in the summer and I can imagine it would be very bleak in the winter. And I know life was hard thenBUT do you ever remember her saying "It was a gorgeous day, sun was splitting the stones, we all had a a lovely day in the sun". Nothing but misery. Maybe if I read it again now that I'm all growed up I'd have more empathy for her? I'd love to find my old copy of it, complete with lovehearts with initials in the margins!

[RitaMorgan]

So how is Cuchulainn pronounced then? Coo-cullan? Coo-hullan?

Stoirin - am I saying it wrong as Yogi-han then

[lettinggo]

Cúchulainn is pronounced coo-(throaty sound here, not a hard c,sort of like the ch in loch) cull - in

[SheCutOffTheirTails]

OR it is pronounced Coo-hulinn

But it is never (correctly) pronounced Coo-kulainn, although that is how lots of Irish people say it when speaking English.

[SheCutOffTheirTails]

Also Fionn is commonly pronounced Finn when people are talking about Fionn (Finn) MacCumhail.

[almondfinger]

I'm a sarah and it being the Irish translation, I was always called soraka wit lots of gutteral emphasis by my brothers when taking the pi$$

[almondfinger]

Good lord, after I posted I spotted this was 16 pages long!!!!

If it's of any help, DH and I are both Irish, he come from the Coirce Dhaoine Gealtacht and studied throughout school and university through Irish. My prononciation of quite a bit of the language sets his teeth on edge and I was a good little Irish speaker in my day!

We are looking at putting dd's name down for a gaelscoil and I know even the way I pronounce that word would annoy him, and his overly egging the pudding bog Irish bugs me. Could I cope with 8 years of that?

[MistyB]

I've lurked on this thread and really enjoyed the input of the Irish posters. Thanks for the trip down memory lane and putting so elequently some of the things I wanted to add. Somehow the pedants discussions about Irish smell of chalk dust and pubs whereas the ones about English smell of old books. I also think it's interesting how history and national temperament has been reflected in the debate.

[mamsnet]

Another can of worms there (or several), Almondfinger

I find the whole gaelscoil thing a bit up its own arse, tbh.

[MistyB]

eloquently ....

[SlinkingOutsideInSocks]

I have learnt loads from this thread - all sorts of things that I wad too afraid to ask IRL. Love Misty's evocative description re pedants...

Out of interest, how do you pronounce Fionnuala? My first gen. English friend has this name (Dublin Dad, Connemara Mum) and seems to pronounce it Fin-noola, as do her parents, but perhaps I've never properly listened for the subtle nuances/inflections when they say it.

[Stoirin]

I bloody love how Hiberno-English is influenced by Irish, even in Irish English Speakers! I gave a lecture once on the differences in possesive sense on the thought processes of Irish people. In Irish you don't own things the way you do in English, you don't say "I am hungry", you say, "I have a hunger at me", you don't say "I have a car" you say "there is a car by me". Its a completely different language with a rich and diverse history that should be celebrated and used, not denigrated and thought extinct!
Éireannach go brách!

[lettinggo]

agus IS FÉIDIR LINN mar a dúirt an fear!

[HardCheese]

lettinggo, I did come across my old copy in my parents' attic - complete with my moody teenage adjustments to the cover image, which now depicts Peig with horns, a Hitler moustache and fishnet stockings and garters...

Re-reading Peig as an adult is very interesting, especially if you look at other Blasket literature - life was just very, very tough at an absolute subsistence level well into the 20th century. And of course Peig's life before she married into the Great Blasket was pretty grim anyway - a more prosperous mainland girl would never have agreed to marry a Blasket islander. We all used to kill ourselves laughing at Peig's misfortunes as a 'cailín aimsire' and the even worse things that befell her family on the island, but re-reading as an adult, that scene where she has to lay out her dead son's body after he's fallen off the cliff, and has to get strength by putting a statue of the Virgin Mary by the bed is just chilling...

[CointreauVersial]

Awww....this thread is now one big Irish love-in.

[lettinggo]

I'm going to my parents' house on Saturday - I'm going to go up the attic because I have book envy now . I must reread it - I feel mean now to have loathed her so much. Life certainly was bleak - my mother grew up in 1930s and 40s Kerry and that was very very poor. It must have been so much worse on the islands.

They're selling the Inter Cert short stories book this Christmas (English language) and I can't wait. I can't remember the name, was it Exploring English? The story about the fish being caught by the hook and escaping turned me off meat forever after. I bought Soundings last year and it was lovely to read all the poems again - and amazing that I remembered so many of them as soon as I read them once, the power of overlearning!