Welsh speakers - pronouncing 'LOWRI"???

[missjackson]

It's 'LOW'-ree, am I right? Low as in opposite of high?
People seem to be saying 'L-ow-ree' (Ow as in ouch) but maybe I am just not finding the right welsh speakers, or for some reason that TV presenter says her name like that and now everyone thinks that's correct.
I like both ways actually, but I just need to know the right one! We live in Wales, are both half Welsh, but not welsh speakers.

sounds like exactly the right pronunciation of rhys to me. I say that as someone who was born in England and moved to Wales aged 7. I am by no means fluent but every welsh speaking (first language) person I work with who is called Lowri pronounces it the way it is in the link. Of coure I know plenty of people who would pronounce it the English way but the OP is asking how it is spoken by Welsh speakers and in my experience that is how fluent firt language speakers say it. more so, that is how it hould be said if you understand and use the Welsh langage and alphabet correctly.

I'm not trying to deliberately disagree for the fun of it, it just happens to be the truth of the language.

Like any country, in Wales there are regional accents depending on where you live. Even with English-speaking people there are massive variations - someone from Cardiff has quite a different accent to someone from the valleys and there are different accents again for people in Barry and Swansea - places all relatively close to each other geographically (South East Wales).

I have friends called Lowri who pronounce it Low-ri and others who pronounce it L-aaw-ri. Neither way is wrong and there is no correct way. Just as, for example, a Cardiffian would pronounce Cardiff Kaa-diff and someone from the valley's would say Car-diff but neither way is wrong.

PS meant to say that both my friends called Lowri are first language welsh speakers!!

It sounds right to me too fanjo...but I know of no English person who says Rhys like that. They all say "Rees" kind of the way you say Peace.

They don't sound the RH in the way the welsh do and that's my issue with saying that the baby's name is Lowri to rhyme with Mow-ri. English will simply read it wrongly...and anyway...the Welsh version DOES'NT really rhyme with Mow or Go does it...it's a far more subtle sound than that.

I think the problem is that Lowri isn't Low as in Bow tie, or as in how, its in between the two. The same is true on Aneurin, which isn't an eye sound or a neigh sound but slightly between the two. This is hard to hear unless you are familiar with spoken Welsh. And of course there are differences in how Welsh is spoken in different parts of Wales.

Slightly off topic, I watched a programme recently which was presented by someone called Sian. The voice-over guy spent the whole programme calling her 'See-anne', I was shocked because either he got it wrong or her parents actually thought Sian is pronounced 'See-anne' rather than 'Shan'!

I saw that too DF - couldn't believe it!. Well, actually I could, I've taught some children with similar issues over the years

Agree with everyone about the difference in North and South Wales accents - I have one parent from each area, and the accents and pronounciation of things are very different.

Dueling - I know who you mean - Sian Astley or something is her name and she pronounces it Sigh-Anne. She was on Property Ladder once (and spent most of her time arguing with Sarah Beeny - her project house looked a bit rough round the edges at the end too!)

I assume her parents must have thought that's how you pronounce Sian - bizarre though!

But I see you say it should be pronounced Shan - I always thought it was Sharn to rhyme with barn or darn and have a cousin called this (not Welsh though) - is that incorrect then? Or is it another regional variation?

I don't think Lowri has differences in pronounciations between North and South Wales. All the Welsh speaking Lowris I know are (to rhyme with bow) Low-ree and the non-Welsh speakers Law-ree. To me, Law-ree sounds wrong for Lowri, and should be spelled Lowry or Lawry.

Sigh-Anne for Sian makes me want to weep. It's Sharn to rhyme with barn, and it's one of the prettiest names on the planet.

Rhys is a bit of a North-South thing. I has a southwalian friend called Rhys, and for years I thought his name was Rees. :o

to me Sian is Shan with no audible 'r' in the middle but like barn, if that makes sense. I have a friend called Ceri (female - although men are called Ceri too) and whenever she was called from London they called her 'cherry' which is a nice enough name in itself but not correct

Another example if you want to be picky is Dylan. It should be (in Welsh ) Dull-anne but everyone pronounces it Dill-un.

Ah Sian Astley! I saw her on the Wright Stuff just before her series started (I know, sorry ) and MW asked her about her 'interesting' pronounciation. She claimed it was Sigh-Ann because there was "no hat on the 'a'". We know it is because her parents are a bit twp .

Dueling - I have been on that website you linked to for the OP to hear the correct pronunciation of 'Lowri' and listened to the official Welsh pronunciation of 'Sian' - and to me it sounds somewhere in between 'Shan' and 'Sharn'. I guess its a similar case to Lowri - problem being that, as others have said, it is hard to transcribe a Welsh word/name accurately into English as the sounds of the language are different.

Absolutely - this is true of all languages I guess.
Trying to explain to people how to make the 'll' sound can be difficult too.

And dd! I have a Dafydd in the family, and no matter how many times I say "the dd in Dafydd is like th in there" he is still ALWAYS Daffyd. In fact, I once heard, "oh, that's nice! Daffyd is the Welsh form of daffodil, isn't it?"

I suppose it's like Dewi - v. difficult for an English speaker to get right, because I don't think that 'ew' sound exists in English words. (I think I can just about get it right as I knew someone called Dewi when I was a child, and I seem to retain the ability to pronounce words Welsh words I learned then, although am as tongue tied as any other English person with new ones.)