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Gaelic prononciation

  • 10-02-2017 4:22pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 2


    Hi everybody,
    I'm from Canada and for our Women's day show, which has for theme Earth (as the element) and Women condition, my mother, my sister and I want to sing Óró Sé do Bheatha Bhaile.
    Our reflexion is: What is the earth for us? Our roots; which are from many places including Ireland. So we were looking for a song that reaches: our roots, the women conditions, and some hope through it. What's best than this fabulous song?

    Now the thing is, that none of us (even if we would love to) speaks Gaelic.
    We've been lisening to many version of the same song and it seems that every singer has his own wait to pronounce the words.

    Does anybody on this forum could help us and explain us how to pronounce each words?
    Or if one of you know a version that seems very correct in the prononciation?
    This would be very appreciated.
    We speak English, French, Spanish and a bit of German so I don't think it will be a problem to learn how to pronounce correctly; we just need to know what is correct or not.

    I hope this is clear enough :)
    I already thank you all alot for the answers.
    Sabine


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 6,344 ✭✭✭Thoie


    Fair dues for trying. Regional accents and in some cases almost regional dialects can make the same word sound vastly different depending on the speaker.

    For your purposes I'd learn the pronunciation from Sinead O'Connor's version (with handy lyrics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3wkAyu5zuc

    But once you've got the pronunciation and lyrics learned, I'd be aiming for the tempo of the Dubliner's version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwM8pCAynbM The Dubliner's version could be more difficult to learn initially due to the mumbling into their beards ;)

    This "phonetic" guide might help too:

    http://www.celticartscenter.com/Songs/Irish/OroSeDoBheatha.html

    As an example of variations in how Irish is spoken around the country, the last word of the first verse "tsamhraidh" (summer) is given there as "tauw-rEE". I'd normally say something closer to "taOWrig", but both are correct, it just depends where you live. Just pick one and go with it :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 3 CorkBrian


    Thoi pretty much hit the nail on the head with regards to pronunciation.

    However Paul Brady's version is too class not to share and hopefully influence you!

    www . youtube. com/watch?v=RR-iI0ioKyI

    [new user so can't post links i'm afraid!]

    Go néirí libh!


  • Registered Users Posts: 2 Solea


    Hahah a big thank to you both!
    It's good then that I used Sinead O'connor's version to do my own "phonetic" sheet so we can read it and learn it an easier way ;)
    We are going to do our own version, mixed with a bit of all the ones we heard but with some twist of our own.
    If you want to hear some funny french speaker trying to sing in Gaelic, I'll post you the video of our show after we've done it ^_^

    Go néirí libh! (even if I'm not sure what it means hahaha )


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