Why is the Alba party pronounced Alaba?

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Alba (Alaba) is old Scots Gaelic for Scotland.

Interestingly it was actually the name used for Britain prior to it becoming more predominately used just for Scotland.

No idea why they are pronouncing it like that if they aren't Gaelic speakers though.

Albion was the name for Britain was it not?

And Alba was derived from that.

Because that’s how you say it

Because it's a Gaelic word and that's how you say it. Gaelic has 'extra' vowels in some places (I forget the technical term for them). It's the same as when many Scottish people say film - sounds like filum.

I would pronounce it more like a cross between Alapa and Alaba.

@Helspopje

Because that’s how you say it

This ^

There's a Scottish poet lady on Twitter and Tik Tok who was talking about the word for the extra vowel we use. Totally fascinating!

They were getting a lot of stick for not pronouncing it correctly which is fair enough. If you are going to use a Gaelic word you should probably pronounce it correctly. (Says me who has pronounced it incorrectly ever since I first heard it 😃)

Is it not alapa?

It’s not. It’s alapa

It sounds like alapa. Oh well.

Alapa?? I had no idea.

I'm going to venture that it's not the best idea to use a name that most people won't know the correct pronunciation of.

The fact that most people don’t know how to pronounce it simply highlights the farce of using Gaelic on signs, public documents and vehicles throughout Scotland!

Well you know the correct pronunciation now!
It's not exactly difficult.

I didn't say it was difficult. I said it seems an odd choice to use a word that 99% of the population will pronounce incorrectly, i.e. phonetically.

It feels like a William Wallace let's paint our faces blue shticky backwards-looking outdated choice to me.

As others have said, because that's how it's pronounced. Will be mispronounced by many people outside of Scotland, just like Barcelona is by many. It doesn't bother me people will mispronounce it, but equally if you know the correct way to say it, it's a tad more polite to use it. And as a scot who randomly inserts extra vowels in many words (Arum for arm, Farum for Farm, Burun for burn- usually misheard as button) it's a long standing Scottish thing for some of us.....

Are parties arranged alphabetically on the list ballot? They probably wanted a name that started with A...

Well of course it's polite, I don't think anyone said otherwise. My point is that most people will get it wrong though, so it's a daft choice.

I've heard Alba candidates use it both ways - Alba, Al-ah-pah (or Ahhhhl-pah). I'd say it the first way in English, second way in Gaelic. Why not let people pronounce it how they see fit?

@SoMuchForSummerLove

I didn't say it was difficult. I said it seems an odd choice to use a word that 99% of the population will pronounce incorrectly, i.e. phonetically.

It feels like a William Wallace let's paint our faces blue shticky backwards-looking outdated choice to me.

Quite sad you feel this way. Of course, our Irish and Welsh cousins speak their language and it's not viewed as 'backwards- looking'.

I have 5 young, fluent speakers in my family and it's lovely listening to them chat to each other and sometimes, to others they meet.

Oh I hadn't connected the extra vowels (filum etc.) with Gaelic before. That makes sense.

I had no idea it wasn't pronounced Al ba as I've only seen it written down.

Every day's a school day!

I'm a native Gaelic speaker.

I appreciate I'm a minority, even as a Scot, but I find terms such as 'backwards-looking' and 'outdated' quite offensive, TBH.

Do you make a habit of telling other minority language speakers that their native tongue is 'wrong'?

But much of scotland never spoke Gaelic. I’m a low lander and I object to having a language forced on me at great signage expense which is not my native Scots tongue. Which I am rather proud of!