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.