Just based on how often I notice someone mispronounce a word without realizing it (or have done so myself and realized it later). Statistically I’m probably still doing it with some word.

  • GombeenSysadmin@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Welcome to the world of Irish names!

    We got:

    • Dearbhla (Derv-la, f)
    • caoilfhionn (kee-lin, f)
    • Meadhbh (Maeve, f)
    • Saoirse (seer-shuh, f)
    • Seoirse (shor-shuh, m)
    • Caoimhín (kee-veen, m)
    • Sadhbh (sive, f)

    And many more!

          • GombeenSysadmin@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            There’s meant to be a fada over the a (á), so it’s definitely meant to be a longer vowel sound.

            Take the name Sean for example. Spelled like that it’s actually pronounced shan, and means old. The name that we all pronounce as Shawn is actually spelled Seán

            • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              The name that we all pronounce as Shawn is actually spelled Seán

              And, fun fact, is the Irish version of the Hebrew name Yohanan (יוֹחָנָן) from which we get John and Jean and Jehan and Johan and Shane and Juan and many other variants!

              • Jojo@lemm.ee
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                9 months ago

                Everybody’s named John. All the way back. There is only one name, just lots of different spellings and pronunciations.

    • Soggy@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      We should re-do Romanization. Start over, sound it out, have a big Anglosphere conference to decide on what letters make what noise and stick to it.

      • jaxxed@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Many of the slavic romanizations have largely centralised on strict roman phonetics. There are still exceptions, but many of them can be sounded out with a bit of learning.

        • Jojo@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Yeah. English doesn’t use the “bh” and “dh” digraphs the same way we use “th”, but Irish does. One you learn that, that’s like 80-90% of the confusion.

    • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      My Irish cousin-in-law recently had a daughter and named her Blathnaid. I was very surprised to learn it is pronounced Bla-nid