Scots pronunciation question
 

We're having a disagreement on how 'Oban' is pronounced. I knew there'd be an expert response here.

The locals would say "Oh Ban" with the stress on the "Oh".

Here in Glasgow the "Ban" might even mutate to a "Bin" or a "Bun".

Jim

Wet. We pronounce it "wet"

Sheila, LOL!

I read somewhere that pronunciation of Gaelic words almost always stress the first syllable. True?

Most of the locals I encountered said, "OH-bn"

No matter hown you mispronounce Oban, you'll be closer than you'd be trying to pronounce Islay!

It's also a great place to base yourself, and beautiful when it's not raining (as evidenced by this shot):

http://community.webshots.com/photo/...60634479QmCTsF

Thanks guys. We were there overnight some years ago, but have been mispronouncing it all this time.

Oban is a delightful single malt whisky. You can drink it without pronouncing it!!

Anselm

Anselm, it's actually easier to pronounce after a nip or two. Although, I'd recommend Laphroaig.

This thread brings up a question: is there any guide anyone can recommend to learn basic ways to pronounce names in Scotland?

We are set to visit places I can't pronounce - have no trouble asking directions but will have to spell everything!

Dorothy

If you think Gaelic's tricky, wait 'till you get to New Zealand with all those "W"s and "Wh"s morphing into Vs & Fs without any discernible rules.

My rellies had me repeating
"Whakatane" while they rolled on the floor laughing. Finally told me about the secret Kiwi trick with the WH & then laughed even harder when I tried that!
Ah - the English language! :)

Laphroaig is very heavy and peaty you really must aquire a taste for it, MacAllan its far smoother and easy to take - beautiful whisky. Two completely different ones, granted! Ahhh, wish I wiz home the now.....

Mouseireid - what about Talisker? (my fave!)

Is that an islay one? I must admit I am not too familiar with it. Bowmore is very good - ten year old. Bonahaben is another Islay mild mellow one!

I've got a (fairly) good ear and I like to get foreign pronunciations about right. So I get seriously frustrated when confronted by Irish, Scots and Welsh words, none of which seem to exhibit any rational association between spelling and pronunciation - in fact they appear to be worse than English. I'd love to find a guide to getting them even roughly right.

Just realised that I described the Celtic tongues as "foreign" - ironic, isn't it, given that my roots are English/Scots/Irish/Welsh? For this purpose, though, they might as well be Calabrian or Lebanese. Come to think of it, their pronunciations would be easier. Hell, in a past life I even learned a scurrilous Maltese insult and two Latvian folk songs, apparently pretty accurately...

PS to last message: I should have added that I was, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed as a parrot when I became a temporary Latvian folk singer. I can report that this condition is a huge help to foreign language fluency, Swahili included, and I can't recommend it too highly. The only drawback is that your fluency doesn't extend into the next day.

Oh oh, this is turning into one of those wonderful threads that talks about several different things at once. Having already hikacked it towards single malts, let me just mention that a decade ago our liquor store sold a "sampling" package of eight miniatures. There were Speysides, Islays, and I can't remember what else, but it was a clever way to showcase the wide variety of single malts available in Scotland. As a result, I can say that I haven't yet met a single malt I didn't like. However, I'm with doonhamer--Talisker is my favourite, too.

On the topic of pronunciation, those of us in Canada have a tricky one in our past: the last spike on the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven in at Craigalachie in 1871. We all seem to know it exists, a few know where it is, and only a tiny handful seem able to pronounce it.

Anselm

Craigallachie (2 x ls) in Scotland is pronounced with the emphasis on the second a.

I'm no expert, but I don't have a lot of trouble (once I'd been told about those old BBC test questions for announcers - Milngavie and Kircudbright; I'l leave you to guess). Pronunciation for names derived from Gaelic is pretty regular, I think: the problem is that the spelling rules are different from the Anglo-Saxon equivalents, and it probably helps to recognise what might be separate words (Craig, Ben, Eilean) or descriptive add-ons (Mhor/more, Beag) in Gaelic and therefore what might be the "core" word that governs the stress.

At the last election, there seemed to be much joshing among English reporters and commentators as to who could possibly pronounce the new (Gaelic) name for the Western Isles constituency: Na Eileanan-an-Iar. But if you've learnt any foreign language you start by recognising that the allocation of particular spelling in English to particular sounds isn't the be-all and end-all.

It's the local corruptions and elisions, particularly in English, that are really inconsistent.

Mouseireid - Talisker is a Skye whisky [from the only distillery on the island]and has a wonderful smoky quality.

PatrickLondon: I often use Milngavie and Kircudbright (and Leicester and Cholmondeley) as examples of "two countries seperated by a common language" during my travel seminars.

As for single malts - I haven't yet acquired a taste for many of the island ones. I guess they are too peaty for me -- The Macallan is my fav. But Bowmore could certainly switch me over . . . .

After visiting Scotland in May (by the way - absolutely LOVED it), we were wondering if the word "Drum" has any particular meaning? Seemed as if a lot of words began with Drum or had Drum in them (Drummond Castle, etc.).

Further up the thread, dschoening asked about a pronunciaton guide for Scottish places names - I've found this site to be helpful - http://www.rampantscotland.com/features/pronounce.htm

I looked it up when we were planning to visit Glasgow and I needed to know how to pronounce "Buchleuch" since we were visiting a site on that street and if we took a taxi, I wanted the driver to actually know where to take us. As it turned out, we walked.

My goodness, I didn't realize I'd started something!
Now you know why my Scottie dog is named Talisker.
As an aside, we spent three nights at the above-mentioned Craigallachie (sp) and loved it.
We also toured McCallan and I think my husband would agree on its smoothness.

What a great website, Daisy54 -- now we have a chance of not mangling some of the place names!

Thanks for the site, Daisy54. It says that the stress should be on the second syllable for both Aberdeen and Inverness (see Braemar). Sounds funny to me - can that be right?

Hmmm..maybe they can't count. The stress in Aberdeen and Inverness is on the final syllable. The most commmon error is to stress the first syllable. But the second syllable? That's pretty hard to do.

zippo, I certainly spelled that name incorrectly. The Canadian place is spelled Craigellachie, according to Natural Resources Canada. (I also found it spelled with one "l" and with an "a" in various places, but I take the government website as being the horse's mouth.)

Anselm

Mousireid, Talisker is from Skye and is even more seaweedy than Laphroig. You're quite right to suggest that Bunnahabhainn is much smoother.

I don't think there is sufficient even-ness of pronunciation to have a set or rules in either Gaelic or Scots.

Is that how Craigalachie is spelt in Canada, Anselm? It's almost spelt the way zippo spelt it in Scots:) Ah, I sea your later post-that IS how it's spelt in Scots, tho' zippo was close.

There are 2 Craigellachies, one is the small hamlet of that name and the other is a big rock, up near Rothiemurchus (emphasis on the 2nd and third syllables), from when comes the motto og the Cla Grant (see the front of the MacAllan bottle. "Stand fast, Craigellachie!". And who remembers Grant's Standfast whisky (not a malt)


Drum, in Gaelic, means "back of" but not in Drummond where it's just a name

Sheila, what is the difference between Gaelic & Scots? Sorry to be ignorant but thought they were basically the same.

Gaelic and Scots are very different languages. Gaelic is a Celtic language (along with Irish, Manx, Welsh, and Breton); Scots is a Germanic language in the same language family (some would say a variant of) English.

Gaelic and Scots are very different languages. Gaelic is a Celtic language (along with Irish, Manx, Welsh, and Breton); Scots is a Germanic language in the same language family (some would say a variant of) as English.

I agree with lavernderdrye (twice). But Scots is not homogenous, and has many variations (like Gaelic doesn't, I hear you ask).

Differences? Here's an example. the Gaelic for "church" is "eaglais" (eekleesh) and the Scots is Kirk.

What's slightly amusing about that is that I was going to use "dust" as an example, for reasons which will be come obvious. The Scots for dust is stour(stoor) as the Danish is stoer, pronounced the same way- did you know the Danish for vacuum cleaner is stoersooker?); so i went to look up the Gaelic, and, would you believe, it's "stur"!!

It's interesting, Sheila, how close "eaglais" (or eekleesh) is to église in French. There were, of course, very close ties between Scotland and France over the centuries, so one could expect some migration of words between the two.

Anselm

Hmmm, on further thought, the Scots had a close relationship with Flanders, as well. The original Anselm Adorne, a merchant trader of Bruges, died in Scotland in the service of the Scottish royal family in 1485 or thereabouts.

Anselm

I don't know about eaglais/église, but it seems like it could predate the Auld Alliance and date back to the introduction of the Roman Catholic church: the Latin ecclesia, which in turn is derived from Greek.

By the way, for Scots fans, I was interested to find recently in Sweden that "good" in Swedish is "bra." I guess those braw Scottish lads have Viking antecedents.