Need help with pronunciation
cbru...@my-deja.com
making the site that I have always wanted to do - the seafaring Celtic
saints of the 5th and 6th centuries. I have put a test version at
http://www.liquid2k.com/cbrundage/saints/ but will probably move it
when I am done. I would like to ask if anyone can volunteer to give me
the phonetic pronunciation for the following names (I know enough to
know Gaelic never sounds like it looks!) - Columcille, Canice, Machalus,
Maelrubha, Down (doon?), Comgall, Niall, Inishbofin, Moloc. I would
like to include the phonetic pronunciation in the text, for my benefit
and others' and I will be happy to give credit on the site for any help.
Christina Brundage
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Micheil
Most interesting. I really liked your sea sound effects and graphics!
As a "mac na mara" (son of the sea) myself, whose childhood was spent
in the Hebrides, my favourite is St. Brendan of the cowhide boat.
Some of these names I have never heard said, but I'll tell you how a
Scots Gaelic speaker would pronounce them from reading them
Columcille - KAW-lum-KEE-leh.
Colum is an old spelling for the modern Calum, from Malcolm. Cille is
a cell or a graveyard and is usually spelled Kil- in modern Scottish
placenames. A very loose translation of Columcille would be "The
Dove's Cell", the dove I believe being associated with St. Columba.
There's a St. Coloman knocking around as well and Calaman (?) means
dove in some language; I can't remember which. Obviously a popular
image for the men of religion.
Columcille went to school in the town my Grandmother was born in -
Moville, in Donegal.
I would guess that Malcolm is Maol Colum - Bald (shaven) Dove.
Let me get into this "bald/shaven" business a little more:
As you surely know, during the so-called Dark Ages, Celtic monks lost
the Roman Church's custom of shaving the crowns (pates) of their heads
to create a small bald circle, usually covered in the Catholic Church
with a skullcap, but instead shaved their heads from the front, back
to a line from ear to ear, not unlike the Japanese samurai style, but
without a pigtail brought forward and tied down.
To the people they looked as though they were balding ("maol" in
Gaelic) and so the word "maol" often has a religious rather than a
physical attribute association. For example, MacMillan (MacMhaolain)
literally means Son of the Bald One, but the implication is definitely
religious, so "Son of the Shaven Monk" would be a more comprehensive
translation.
Canice and Machalus are Latin names, I would guess. KAN-iss or
KAN-ee-chay and MAH-kal-uss. Your pronunciation would be as valid as
mine. I see from your site that Canice is also Kenneth, or Coinneach
(KAWin-yakh, where kh is the ch sound in Och or the J sound in La
Jolla) and that Machalus is also MacCul - son of Finn MacCool, a
legendary Irish hero.
Maelrubha - MAHL-roo-ah.
This is a name I sometimes heard invoked in the Hebrides when I was
small. Like the information above on Columcille, although the spelling
is different, I would again assume a religious association to do with
shaving the head. I don't know why Maelrubha's name was used by old
people, but I assume (obviously) that there must have been some
Hebridean association with him - perhaps he originally came fron
there?
<added later>
I see now from reading further in your site that he preached in the
Inner Hebrides as far north as Skye - my island, Rum, is six miles
south of Skye, so there's the connection.
I see also that he was descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, and
you may not be aware that the MacNeils, like many Highland clans, the
Kennedys and others, are represented in both Ireland (O'Neal) and
Scotland (MacNeil) and are provably related by their in-common
ancestor's names.
The O'Neals claim a family ancestry running back more than 7,000
years; but I have often wondered how much they owe to the Viking name
Nillsen.
The MacNeals are mostly from the Isle of Barra at the south end of the
Outer Hebrides and their last chief, an American architect from New
York City, was the only chief ever to buy back his clan's land - a
remarkable achievement for which he has been honoured by better men
than me when it comes to paeans of praise, all of which he deserved
and more.
The current chief is a Harvard professor; the clan were essentially
seafaring pirates and call themselves "The Sons of Dogs"; like the
Camerons who call themselves "The Sons of the (hunting) Hound".
A most interesting people for whom I've always had a soft spot, as my
family was engaged in much the same trade for several centuries before
getting into slavery and then opium. (Today we're so respectable we
don't even go to the bathroom - we have it removed by Caesarean...)
Down - DOWN.
Means brownhaired, spelled "donn" in Gaelic as in Aonghas Donn -
brownhaired Angus.
Not always complimentary - there is a Gaelic idiom, "Is e duine donn"
- lit. "He is a brown man". The sense is, "He's an indifferent sort of
fellow; a nonentity." It parallels the English concept of dull people
being grey-coloured.
Comgall - KAW-gall
Looks like an Irish spelling, where a change in pronunciation of a
consonant was often marked by a dot over the consonant but by a
following "h" in Scots Gaelic. Probably Comhgall in Scots Gaelic,
which would mean "with" or "linked to the Foreigners".
My guess is that the Foreigners would be the Vikings. You may not know
that the Hebrides, which were settled by the Vikings, are often called
"Innse-Gall" - Isles of Foreigners, although modern official
"politically correct" Gaelic usage prefers Eileanan nan Iar - The
Isles of the West., confusingly partnered by Eilean Siar and Eileanan
Siar, all with the same general meaning.
A Hebridean is locally called Eileanach - an Islander (also means a
generous man - we're nice folk!) and a female Hebridean is
Ban-Eileanach.
Comh is like the English Co- as in co-worker. In modern Gaelic it
would be said Kaw-gowl.
Niall is pronounced like Neal, Neil or whatever - all are variations
on the same name. A Niall writes in this newsgroup.
Inishbofin - EE-neesh-BAW-feen.
Inish is Irish and Scots Gaelic for an island. Spelled Innis in Gaelic
- is has an eesh sound, except when it is part of the verb to be, when
it is pronounced eess. Is e duine donn - ees eh DOON-yeh down.
bofin is anyone's guess. Bo is Gaelic for a cow , as in the proverb,
Far am bi bo bi bean - where there's a cow there will be a woman; and
its delightful companion, Far am bi bean bi buaireadh - where there's
a woman there will be trouble.
Let me explain that the first does not mean that a woman is a cow, but
that women and cows are generally found in the same locale. No
Hebridean except me will give you the true translation of the second
proverb, which is actually, Where there is a woman there will be
temptation - Gaelic correctly concludes that temptation and trouble
are the same thing (after several thousand years successfully testing
the concept) and so uses the same word for both!
Fin can be several words in Gaelic, but my guess is that it refers to
Finn McCul, so Innis Bofin is the "Island of Finn's Cow" and there's
inevitably a story to go with it.
Moloc, like Baal (English baleful, Gaelic Bealltuinn - Beltane) is
probably Moloch, the pagan god of the Bible to whom sacrifices were
offered in Gehinnom, the Valley of Hinnom, whence the Muslim name for
Hell, Jehennam.
I hope you don't have too many more of these - my poor brain is
staggering! Time for a quick shot of God's Gift to the Hebridean
people, a dram of Islay malt whisky! It's four in the morning, so the
sun must be over the yardarm somewhere!
In truth, the pleasure was all mine, for I'm a great proponent of the
spread of learning about our Gaelic culture and your website is a fine
example. Beannachd Dhe leibh - may God's blessing attend you.
- měcheil
- innis dhomh sgéile mu 'n Thěr nan Ňg...
Ruiseart agus Ceit
<snipped>
> Let me get into this "bald/shaven" business a little more:
>
> As you surely know, during the so-called Dark Ages, Celtic monks lost
> the Roman Church's custom of shaving the crowns (pates) of their heads
> to create a small bald circle, usually covered in the Catholic Church
> with a skullcap, but instead shaved their heads from the front, back
> to a line from ear to ear, not unlike the Japanese samurai style, but
> without a pigtail brought forward and tied down.
Greetings,
Just popped back to see what was happening and I saw this, so I thought I'd
add a bit.
The practice of shaving the head in the manner described, is actually a
Druidic thing. The early Celtic Church absorbed much of the earlier Druidry,
in fact many Druids "converted" to Christianity and continued with their
earlier practices whilst giving lip service to the new religion. Druids and
Christians worked side by side for many years until the Roman church decided
to squash it all.
Beannachdan oirbh,
Ruiseart.
---------------------
Ruiseart agus Ceit
(Joint Chiefs of G.D.O.S.C.)
(Foundation Members of the A.D.C.)
http://druid.drak.net/druid/druidorder.html
http://ravenswing.bizland.com/
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/11/ravenswing.html
ian-s...@blueyonder.co.uk
Mic...@Ireland.com (Micheil) :
<snipped>
>
>The O'Neals claim a family ancestry running back more than 7,000 years;
> but I have often wondered how much they owe to the Viking name Nillsen.
>
Friends in Sweden spell their name Nilsson, literally "son of Nils"
-- Ian Stewart
-- http://www.ian.stewart.ukgateway.net/
Alan Smaill
> Most interesting. I really liked your sea sound effects and graphics!
> As a "mac na mara" (son of the sea) myself, whose childhood was spent
> in the Hebrides, my favourite is St. Brendan of the cowhide boat.
>
> Some of these names I have never heard said, but I'll tell you how a
> Scots Gaelic speaker would pronounce them from reading them
>
> Columcille - KAW-lum-KEE-leh.
>
> Colum is an old spelling for the modern Calum, from Malcolm.
> Cille is
> a cell or a graveyard and is usually spelled Kil- in modern Scottish
> placenames. A very loose translation of Columcille would be "The
> Dove's Cell", the dove I believe being associated with St. Columba.
> There's a St. Coloman knocking around as well and Calaman (?) means
> dove in some language; I can't remember which. Obviously a popular
> image for the men of religion.
>
> Columcille went to school in the town my Grandmother was born in -
> Moville, in Donegal.
>
> I would guess that Malcolm is Maol Colum - Bald (shaven) Dove.
or "my Callum" in English --
isn't this more likely the possessive pronoun, my friend,
when applied to saints' names?
> - mìcheil
>
> - innis dhomh sgéile mu 'n Thìr nan Òg...
>
--
Alan Smaill email: A.Sm...@ed.ac.uk
Division of Informatics tel: 44-131-650-2710
Edinburgh University
Micheil
wrote:
>Mic...@Ireland.com (Micheil) writes:
>> I would guess that Malcolm is Maol Colum - Bald (shaven) Dove.
>
>or "my Callum" in English --
>isn't this more likely the possessive pronoun, my friend,
>when applied to saints' names?
>
No, the possessive pronoun is "mo" and it would lenite the following
word as Mo Cholum - My Dove. The only religious change in Gaelic is
with the name of the Virgin Mary - Mairi for ordinary Marys, Muire for
the Virgin. Thus Tobar Muire - Mary's Well - Tobermory. Like so many
religious names, there is a Scots/Saxon equivalent - Motherwell. And
not only religious - Dublin = Dubh Linn = Black Pool = Blackpool.
What is sad is the wealth of information lying just beyond our
fingertips, thanks to the thrice-accursed churches which told the
peoples that their old stories were sacriligeous and thereby destroyed
most of the oral evidence that could have filled in so many blanks.
I remember when my friend Rose Abomsawin died. She was a shaman of the
Cree Nation, the largest tribe of native Americans in Canada. When she
drew her last breath, she took with her an encyclopaedic knowledge of
plants and their medicinal uses; knowledge handed down over thousands
of years, yet lost with her death as far as we know.
She took me for a walk on a hillside one day and showed me over forty
plants, naming them and detailing their medicinal uses. My friend was
a walking database of plant knowledge, learned from her mother and her
grandmother before her, and so on, back into the mists of time.
This is the real tragedy of ignoring what are dismissed as primitive
cultures. Yet as I know from my own lifetime interest in survival in
the wild, every culture maintains a (usually) knife-edged balance with
Nature and has refined that balance to the point that the loss of such
information is irretrievable because it was so detailed and had passed
the test of experimentation and observation over millennia.
Let me give you some examples of Highland folk medical knowledge:
1. Old Highland women, who specialized in healing, would make a strong
tea from foxgloves and allow patients with heart disease to sip small
amounts of it, heavily watered down. We now know that foxglove is a
prime source of digitalis, present in such quantities that to sip the
tea at full strength would stop the patient's heart immediately.
I should emphasize here that many - perhaps even most - plants have so
much of the desired chemical that they can be toxic if taken directly.
2. Men who suffered cuts in battle would have their friends urinate
directly on the cut. Urine is a mild antiseptic and almost ideal for
wounds, providing the provider is not afflicted with AIDS or some
other malignant disease. If you find yourself with a wound in the
wilds, pour warm urine into it if you have no medical kit along - you
can do nothing but good because you will sterilize it. Use a clean
bandage or cloth to cover the wound and you will have a fair chance
that it will start to heal cleanly. You should of course pick out any
foreign matter first.
3. When a man was severely cut in battle, cobwebs were gathered in
large amounts and packed into the wound, thereby ensuring that it
would heal much more quickly and with less blemish than wounds not
treated in the same way. John Hopkins, a famous American hospital, was
the first to try this technique. It is now a standard procedure, as it
works exactly as advertised. The web strands promote new flesh growth
and do so without leaving ugly scarring and the awful looking
depressions associated with major wounds.
4. When a man got gangrene, maggots were laid all over the affected
part. Maggots eat only necrotic (dead) tissue, leaving healthy tissue
alone. This technique is now used in some UK hospitals.
6. Swelling from severe blows can be reduced quickly by applying
leeches to the bruised area. The leeches suckd out all the blood and
lymph, promoting faster healing. Several UK hospitals now use this
technique.
Every nation has its store of folklore. Testing it has become a
medical prioity. As much as 80% of all drugs are plant-derived.
Similarly, surgical techniques from the past can be applied in modern
operating theatres because they work; the most famous being the
trepanning of skulls by South American Indians who worked directly
around the exposed brain. We know the techniques worked because the
skull evidence shows that normal healing took place afterwards.
If you've ever had metal stitches, you are benefitting from South
American tribal techniques of holding large ants against a wound until
it bites and seals the cut. The body of the ant is then twisted to
break it away from the jaws, which remain in place.
My mother witnessed this technique in Guyana (I think), but the result
was the invention of the metal stitch. Metal stitches (and ant jaws)
leave almost no scar, as the flesh is held firmly, instead of slopping
around as it was with thread stitches, which healed with ugly scars.
My wife had this technique performed on a nine inch incision in her
abdomen and after a year the scar could not be seen.
This interest of mine extends to encompass all forms of saving old
ways and means. For instance, I am very interested in the preserving
of plants which do not yield sufficient quantity, yet have superlative
taste. Posters may remember me writing about banana potatos, a much
favoured potato in this region 80 years ago, which looked like a small
finger banana and tasted delicious. I've eaten them, and I'll eat them
again, as several gardens are now growing them to make sure they don't
disappear again.
Rice and corn are much more serious matters. As I write, researchers
are trying to find rice plants in Taiwan which can resist salt water.
They existed 40 years ago, but were abandoned when the standard
Chinese long grain rice was crossbred to increase its yield.
Unfortunately, the rice also became more vulnerable to disease, but
even so it is the main - almost only - rice grown in Asia. If it ever
gets affected by blight, you can expect 60% plus of the population of
Asia to die of starvation, because it has replaced almost all other
rices which do not yield its lavish harvest, two to four times a year.
Sweetcorn, aka American corn is now generally represented by two main
types in North America and by their crossbred descendants. The
importance of corn to North American culture is so critical that this
almost unbelievable example can be used to illustrate its presence in
almost everything we touch.
In the average supermarket, everything, from the glue holding the
wooden beams of the roof together, to the floor tiles, to the food, to
the paper receipts, to the baskets, to the corn-fed meat, uses corn,
to the point that almost certainly the only thing inside that
supermarket that does not utilize corn in some way is the fresh fish
for sale.
If a blight strikes those two corns, North American civilization will
teeter badly if it does not collapse. And as noted above, whenever
vegetables are crossbred to enhance a specific characteristic, their
defences against diseases are weakened.
My favourite story - some unknown squash seeds found in a cave in the
Anasazi country in the southwestern US. Dating techniques suggested
the cave had not been used since the 1600s. Yet, when the seeds were
planted, they grew a squash never before seen by any living person.
Not a particularly wonderful squash, but those seeds had remained
fertile through their 400 year wait, and today grow once again in the
southwest. That's what conservation is all about.
I like that story!
- měcheil
- innis dhomh sgéile mu 'n Thěr nan Ňg...
Alexander Maclennan
> What is sad is the wealth of information lying just beyond our
> fingertips, thanks to the thrice-accursed churches which told the
> peoples that their old stories were sacriligeous and thereby destroyed
> most of the oral evidence that could have filled in so many blanks.
> I remember when my friend Rose Abomsawin died. She was a shaman of the
> Cree Nation, the largest tribe of native Americans in Canada. When she
> drew her last breath, she took with her an encyclopaedic knowledge of
> plants and their medicinal uses; knowledge handed down over thousands of
> years, yet lost with her death as far as we know.
> She took me for a walk on a hillside one day and showed me over forty
> plants, naming them and detailing their medicinal uses. My friend was a
> walking database of plant knowledge, learned from her mother and her
> grandmother before her, and so on, back into the mists of time.
In Scotland there has been a good deal of interest in this field. For
instance, Mary Beith has been contributing a column fortnightly in the West
Highland Free Press on the subject and has fairly recently published a book,
Healing Threads, covering some of her harvest. There is probably a lot
recorded in the manuscripts of the Beaton physicians who practised academic
medicine in Highland and Island Scotland for several centuries, dying out
about the beginning of scientific modern medicine. They studied first at
Padua and later at Leyden and made copies of such authorities of the time as
Averroes and Avicenna with gaelic translations and much annotation which
reflects the use of locally available herbs. There was still one of the
lineage practising by the time in the 18th C. when Martin Martin wrote his
account but they were no longer university men and he was described as an
empiric, though his knowlege of herbs was apparently profound and there are
still relics of his physic garden to be found, so far as I remember in Islay
or Mull. There are many surviving Beaton manuscripts in the Scottish
National Library and elsewhere but so far hardly studied.
--
Alexander MacLennan sand...@sandymac.demon.co.uk
S Viemeister
> In Scotland there has been a good deal of interest in this field. For
> instance, Mary Beith has been contributing a column fortnightly in the West
> Highland Free Press on the subject and has fairly recently published a book,
> Healing Threads, covering some of her harvest. There is probably a lot
> recorded in the manuscripts of the Beaton physicians who practised academic
> medicine in Highland and Island Scotland for several centuries, dying out
> about the beginning of scientific modern medicine. They studied first at
> Padua and later at Leyden and made copies of such authorities of the time as
> Averroes and Avicenna with gaelic translations and much annotation which
> reflects the use of locally available herbs. There was still one of the
> lineage practising by the time in the 18th C. when Martin Martin wrote his
> account but they were no longer university men and he was described as an
> empiric, though his knowlege of herbs was apparently profound and there are
> still relics of his physic garden to be found, so far as I remember in Islay
> or Mull. There are many surviving Beaton manuscripts in the Scottish
> National Library and elsewhere but so far hardly studied.
>
Mary Beith's book is excellent - published by Polygon in Edinburgh,
ISBN 0-7486-6199-9.
I also have a good book on the Beatons but I don't remember the author
and publisher (the book is in Sutherland - just down the road from
Mary Beith - and I'm not).
Sheila.
Alexander Maclennan
> I also have a good book on the Beatons but I don't remember the author
> and publisher (the book is in Sutherland - just down the road from Mary
> Beith - and I'm not).
Would it be The Beatons, John Bannerman, John Donald Publishers Ltd,
Edinburgh 1998?
--
Alexander MacLennan sand...@sandymac.demon.co.uk
S Viemeister
> Would it be The Beatons, John Bannerman, John Donald Publishers Ltd,
> Edinburgh 1998?
>
Maybe. My mind is on holiday.
It was a fairly slim book, paperback, with, I think a purplish cover.
Sheila.
Micheil
That's interesting - if this is John Bannerman, son of John Bannerman
MP, rugby cap for Scotland record holder, Gaelic scholar and about a
hundred other honours, then I'd like to get it as I knew the son when
I was a young man. His brother Calum and I knew each other better (we
were at the same school) and his family and my family are related by
marriage. As I remember, John Bannerman the younger has various
degrees in Celtic studies and I seem to remember someone once saying
that John the son could speak, read and write all six Celtic
languages.
Can you tell me how I can contact the publisher, please?
chu...@my-deja.com
John Donald Publishers Ltd.
138 Stephen Street
Edinburgh, Scotland
Sorry, I don't have the postal code. You can also by the book through
one of the online bookstores such as Thins or Amazon.co.uk
Rusty
Alexander Maclennan
>>
> That's interesting - if this is John Bannerman, son of John Bannerman
> MP, rugby cap for Scotland record holder, Gaelic scholar and about a
> hundred other honours, then I'd like to get it as I knew the son when I
> was a young man. His brother Calum and I knew each other better (we were
> at the same school) and his family and my family are related by
> marriage. As I remember, John Bannerman the younger has various degrees
> in Celtic studies and I seem to remember someone once saying that John
> the son could speak, read and write all six Celtic languages.
This is John Bannerman of the Dept of Scottish History ar Edinburgh
University so probably thr one you were referring to.
John Donald Publishers Ltd, 73 Logie Green Road, Edinburgh EH7 4HF.
This is for the paperback edition. I think I first saw this book in
hardback in a library but have no publication details or date for this.
--
Alexander MacLennan sand...@sandymac.demon.co.uk
Micheil
Thank you, Ceilteach Meirgeach!
Micheil
Thank you.