Anna, Josh, & the Ever Multiplying M Kids, Part 12: Babywatch Continues

[sawasdee]

I had a friend called Grainne (Grawnyah), who had it mispronounced as anything from grainy to groin!

@Pinkdrink I love the Sister Fidelma novels of Peter Tremayne, but have no idea how most of the 7thcentury Irish names are pronounced - I'm sure I'm mentally murdering them!

[MadeItOut]

Way back, we had an irish mate in uni who introduced herself as 'Wiffy'. Took almost a year to get the courage to ask. Turned out her name was Aoife, but she'd had a junior school friend who'd seen it written down and said it looked like Wiffy and they'd had such a good laugh, it stuck.

[Karma]

My daughter had a doll called Aoife, bought in Ireland by my mum when she was little.  My Australian brain had absolutely zero idea how to pronounce it, and since this was in the pre google days we asked one of the GPs at our doctors office how to pronounce it (he's Irish).  If I remember correctly it was something like ee-fa.  It was a while ago, so  I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly.

[Kangaroo]

12 minutes ago, Karma said:

My Australian brain had absolutely zero idea how to pronounce it

Honestly this thread drift has been terrible for me. I can't pronounce by of these names or even guess.  My brain hurts on every one!

I'm sure they're all lovely names, but I just can't comprehend!!

[catlady]

several years ago, i read a book where one of the characters was Aoife; like @Karma, my American brain couldn't handle it either.  i ended up looking it up online, which told me it was kind of like Eva. 

[Karma]

Lol, @Kangaroo Aoife and Siobhan are probably the only ones I'd have any idea of, oh and Niamh, since watching the tv show  Heartbeat years ago. Siobhan is not unheard of these days I think, but years ago my friend had to call it out in a hospital waiting room (next patient), and literally called out sio-bhan.  I have no understanding of how you get shi-vorn from siobhan, and have total respect for our multilingual friends!

BTW I saw several of your namesakes yesterday, plus an emu.  Luckily the only roo that jumped on the road was before I reached the main road, so I was going slowly.

[mango_fandango]

My own name is pronounced two different ways: a 'British' way that my family uses (as well as most friends), and a 'European' way that many of my languages teachers have used. It's gotten to the point where some people have asked me which version to use and I've just replied "oh, I've done German for x number of years, I'm used to both". 

[EmainMacha]

@Pinkdrink I love your wee ones names! Left to my own devices my sons  (have 3) would have been chosen from Oisin, Naoise, Ciaran, Seamus or 2 other family names. A girl would have been Saorla. But husband is not Irish so we had to compromise. One has an Irish name spelt phonetically, one has Irish middle name and one has non-Irish name but traditionally common in Ireland.

Excuse my spelling and lack of fadas. Neither GCSE Irish nor the stays at the Donegal ghaeltacht were particularly rigourous. I wish I had good Irish but I've not much opportunity to develop it now.

[Imaginary_Wonderland]

Yeah, I went to school with an Aoife . At one point, she got a reply correspondence from something she applied for over the phone (can't remember details of it) but her name was spelled Eefa on it.

When I moved to England to go to uni, I was sharing a house with a guy who was on my course, and on the first or second day we were chatting while making dinner. He started telling me about an Irish girl he met earlier called AzzLing (actually I don't know how to spell how he pronounced it) and continued that there was a  Pod Rag also living in her dorms. Now I had already met Aisling so I just smiled and nodded, but a good few weeks passed before I realised there was a Padraig on the course too. I didn't even twig it at the time, because the name he was saying didn't make any sense to me.

All those dh's bh's and mh's are tricky to understand and wrap your head/tongue(?) around if not familiar with. Even when I was a late teen, I had no clue how to pronounce Sadhbh as I never met or came across that name much.

My brother has an Irish name, but he not the real Irishy version of it, more of an anglicized take on it. But still he has problems with people mispronouncing it, even in Ireland. It was worse for him when he got older and working. He often dealt with American companies or would be sent over there for work for weeks at a time. He is now living in New York for last 2 years. He started going by a 3 lettered shortened version of his name that also passes for a popular, more well known English/American name. But my Mum hates this nickname, but he is very short tempered anyway, and couldn't deal with wasting half a meeting dissecting and discussing his name.

[xlurker]

My kitten is named Lasagna.....she's my snuggle buddy

[SamiKatz]

I once knew of a woman called Siobhan Lefebvre - who I'm sure spent lots of dealing with non pronunciation and spelling of both names.

 

[Pinkdrink]

I never thought I'd see a thread drift about the Irish language 

People usually never believe me that English is actually my second language and Irish is my first, also in gealtacht (irish speaking) areas the government give you grants for everything, we lived in Shannon for a while for work but are now building a house closer to home and it's mad how much money they give you towards it

Plus you get extra points in your state exams for doing them as gaeilge 

[ShadowCat]

On 7/28/2017 at 10:25 PM, Pinkdrink said:

When we first got married  we lived in an Irish speaking area so we gave our kids traditional Irish names but since we've moved no one can pronounce their names poor little things!! For instance one of my daughters is called caoilfionn and one of my sons is called eoghan and they have to spell their names constantly!!

My youngest girl is Róisín. It's a common enough Irish name ..... until we go abroad. The amount of times I've had to correct people who rhymed her name with "Poison" and point out that it's Ro-Sheen.  Sometimes, I wish I'd just called her John. 

[sawasdee]

I have friends in the gaeltacht in Co.Mayo. Their parents are from there, but they grew up in England, and have no Irish language. But they moved back to family land, and their children are being educated in a junior school that teaches Irish, and then will go to an Irish  speaking secondary school. They will soon have the situation where the children can use a second language to keep conversations private from the parents.....

(And what makes this even funnier, from my outsider point of view, is that her parents used to speak Irish to keep discussions private from the children - she is getting it from both directions )

[ShadowCat]

Irish was my favourite subject in school, and thanks to a natural ability for languages and some passionate teachers, I came out of secondary school speaking fluent Irish. For anyone Irish here, I was able to understand An Nuacht, I was that good  

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to use my Irish, and it saddens me that I'm not fluent anymore. I'm ashamed to say that I now speak more French than my native tongue, because over the past 23 years since I left school, I've had more reason to speak French than Irish.

[Pinkdrink]

15 minutes ago, ShadowCat said:

Irish was my favourite subject in school, and thanks to a natural ability for languages and some passionate teachers, I came out of secondary school speaking fluent Irish. For anyone Irish here, I was able to understand An Nuacht, I was that good  

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to use my Irish, and it saddens me that I'm not fluent anymore. I'm ashamed to say that I now speak more French than my native tongue, because over the past 23 years since I left school, I've had more reason to speak French than Irish.

Even I have trouble with an nuacht, their dialect is all over the place sometimes

Hubby and I are both gaelgeoirì so irish is the only language spoken at home, we both work in English speaking roles (although I'm a sahm right now). All our extended family speak irish and the kids go to a gaelscoil so we are in the severe minority, you should see the looks we get when we're out and about 

I love the name roisin,  I had considered it for my 2nd daughter but then my sister called her daughter ròise so I couldn't 

[ShadowCat]

@PinkdrinkI can still catch the drift of a conversation on TG4, and I'm the "go to Mom" when my eldest or her friends need help with JC level homework. I'd love to be able to speak Irish again and maybe I will someday, but I'll be the only one in my house doing so I'll be chatting away to myself

 

[Beermeet]

I'm loving this thread drift!  As an American I don't get to learn much about Irish names and language.

I do know that Samhain is pronounced sow-an though. That's all I got.

 

[So-Virgin-It-Hurts]

I am loving this thread-drift as well.  I am fully (I believe) Irish on one side of my family although the feet of ancestors haven't touched the soil of the motherland in about 200 to 250 years as near as I can track.  Prominent family names are Love and Crawford.  When Trump got elected my husband was counting on my heritage to obtaining an Irish passport!  Hasn't come to that yet but we are planning a long trip to Ireland in the next two years.

[DamnPrecious]

Dd's middle name is Mairéad. I got pregnant after the Celtic Woman concert after two years of trying. Lol

[MadeItOut]

10 hours ago, Karma said:

If I remember correctly it was something like ee-fa.  It was a while ago, so  I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly.

That's it.

4 hours ago, ShadowCat said:

I'd love to be able to speak Irish again and maybe I will someday, but I'll be the only one in my house doing so I'll be chatting away to myself

 

That's the trouble. I got myself some Bran (Spot the Dog) books from the library and I have my Rosetta Stone, but it's all fragments, so I tried a ciorcle comra, but that didn't work out.

[EmainMacha]

4 hours ago, ShadowCat said:

@PinkdrinkI can still catch the drift of a conversation on TG4, and I'm the "go to Mom" when my eldest or her friends need help with JC level homework. I'd love to be able to speak Irish again and maybe I will someday, but I'll be the only one in my house doing so I'll be chatting away to myself

 

I'd love to learn again but I learned Ulster Irish and anything I've seen- classes or tapes etc- aren't in our dialect. I'm afraid it's Cad é mar atá tú or nothing!

Also incredibly impressed re An Nuacht.

Is it still the 6.01 news so we can say the Angelus at 6pm? Haven't been home for over a year and keep expecting that to die out.

[Bad Wolf]

If we didn't have thread drift, there'd be nothing to read. Boring Duggars.

[Saisa1984]

Dd's middle name is Mairéad. I got pregnant after the Celtic Woman concert after two years of trying. Lol

This was the middle name I had chosen if DS had been a girl. Love love love it!!

I love this thread drift. Irish is one of the most beautiful languages I've ever heard, and I wish I could speak/understand it.

[MadeItOut]

14 minutes ago, EmainMacha said:

 

Is it still the 6.01 news so we can say the Angelus at 6pm? Haven't been home for over a year and keep expecting that to die out.

Thank you! In 8.5yrs living here I never could work out why it was 6-1 until now.