Ken Rennie
Well-Known Member
A while ago I mentioned that Glen Etive is terribly pronounced. Getting it absolutely correct is difficult, getting it close is easy. https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/fortwilliam/buachailleetivemor.shtml
English people are well known for not being able to pronounce the ch sound in loch and I suppose that Americans may be the same but just using a barely audible very short hard k sound works fine. Many Gaelic place names are difficult to get right because the Gaelic rules are different from the English rules. They are not pronounced phonetically. There are rules, my wife studied Gaelic and knows most of them. I did not and often have to ask her. What annoyed me about the you tube Glen Etive is that the photographers get Buachaille Etive Mor close to correct with Etive pronounced "etuv" with the e pronounced as in egg and the stress on the first vowel and most Gaelic derived place names have the stress on the first vowel, that is apart from those that don't. This person put the stress on the second vowel sound and pronounced it as eteev with the double ee sound as in leave. It is simple to get right but now everyone uses the wrong pronunciation. Having said the Etive is the worst I had forgotten Kilchurn Castle. Here I can see why people get it wrong. One you tuber tried 3 or 4 different ways and said I don't know how to say this and repeated the same thing throughout the video. 1 minute with google would give him the answer https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/argyll/kilchurn-castle.shtml. I leave you with Milngavie (Mulgye) with the stress on the last vowel. Bolquhanran where I was brought up ( Bo whanran) with a slight stress on the second vowel and Kirkcudbright. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=kirkcudbright+pronunciation. Accents make an enormous difference and living on the English side of the border I notice the difference a lot. Just 10 miles from here the accent changes totally. Longtown on the English side of the border has a totally different accent from Gretna 2 miles away. I suppose a thousand years of warfare stopped them talking to each other. Here on the English side we have a few places to catch the unsuspecting Faugh (Faff) Burgh (Bruff). Having earlier stated that 1 minute with Google would get the correct pronunciation I did find lots of sites that were just terrible, typical internet "the wider the window the more rubbish gets thru". Ken
Kilchurn Castle processed to look soft and "painterly" it was actually raining heavily with very poor light and visibility
English people are well known for not being able to pronounce the ch sound in loch and I suppose that Americans may be the same but just using a barely audible very short hard k sound works fine. Many Gaelic place names are difficult to get right because the Gaelic rules are different from the English rules. They are not pronounced phonetically. There are rules, my wife studied Gaelic and knows most of them. I did not and often have to ask her. What annoyed me about the you tube Glen Etive is that the photographers get Buachaille Etive Mor close to correct with Etive pronounced "etuv" with the e pronounced as in egg and the stress on the first vowel and most Gaelic derived place names have the stress on the first vowel, that is apart from those that don't. This person put the stress on the second vowel sound and pronounced it as eteev with the double ee sound as in leave. It is simple to get right but now everyone uses the wrong pronunciation. Having said the Etive is the worst I had forgotten Kilchurn Castle. Here I can see why people get it wrong. One you tuber tried 3 or 4 different ways and said I don't know how to say this and repeated the same thing throughout the video. 1 minute with google would give him the answer https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/argyll/kilchurn-castle.shtml. I leave you with Milngavie (Mulgye) with the stress on the last vowel. Bolquhanran where I was brought up ( Bo whanran) with a slight stress on the second vowel and Kirkcudbright. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=kirkcudbright+pronunciation. Accents make an enormous difference and living on the English side of the border I notice the difference a lot. Just 10 miles from here the accent changes totally. Longtown on the English side of the border has a totally different accent from Gretna 2 miles away. I suppose a thousand years of warfare stopped them talking to each other. Here on the English side we have a few places to catch the unsuspecting Faugh (Faff) Burgh (Bruff). Having earlier stated that 1 minute with Google would get the correct pronunciation I did find lots of sites that were just terrible, typical internet "the wider the window the more rubbish gets thru". Ken
Kilchurn Castle processed to look soft and "painterly" it was actually raining heavily with very poor light and visibility
