"Donald" in Scottish Gaelic
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A one-second audio of "Dòmhnall".
It's the <mh> that nasalizes the vowel. Supposedly this nasalizing effect is still found in some Irish Gaelic.
If you have 4 minutes, a great animation of a folktale in Nova Scotia Gaelic with a main character named "Dòmhnall". Very peculiar sounding!
The English of the story:
There once was a fellow and his name was Donald. He was an old man and he had a hump on his back. This day Donald was walking out in the forest. And while he was walking he heard music. He stopped and looked between the trees and who did he see but the fairies and they were dancing and singing, “Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday”. Donald shouted out “Wednesday!” The fairies jumped out and they grabbed on to him and they took him to their king. The king of the fairies said to Donald, “You put a beautiful finish to our song. What do you want? Silver? Gold? Donald put his hand on his back. The king of the fairies took his wand and placed it on Donald’s back. The hump disappeared. The next day Donald was walking on the road and he met his neighbour. He was an idiot. And he had a hump on his back as well. He asked Donald, “Donald, what happened to you? You’re as straight as a fishing rod!” Donald told him what happened. The next day the idiot was walking out in the forest and he heard music. He stopped and he looked between the trees and he saw the fairies and they were dancing and singing, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday”. The idiot man shouted out “Thursday!” The fairies jumped out and they grabbed on to him and they took him to their king. The king of the fairies said to the idiot, “You ruined our song and now I am going to ruin you!” And he took his wand and placed it on the foolish man’s back and he put the hump that was on Donald’s back on the idiot’s back. And he went home with two humps!!
And here’s the Gaelic:
Bha fear a bha seo is ’s e Dòmhnall an t-ainm a bh’air. ’S e bodach a bh’ann is bha croit air a dhruim. Là a bha seo bha Dòmhnall a’ coiseachd a-mach ’s a’ choille. Agus fhad ’s a bha e ’coiseachd chuala e ceòl. Stad e is choimhead e eadar na craobhan is có chunnaic e ach na sìthichean is bha iad a’ dannsadh is a’ seinn, “Di-luain, Di-màirt, Di-luain, Di-màirt, Di-luain, Di-màirt”. Dh’éibh Dòmhnall a-mach “Di-ciadain”. Leum na sìthichean a-mach is rug iad air is thug iad dhan rìgh ac’ e. Thuirt Rìgh nan Sìthichean ri Dòmhnall, “Chuir thusa crìoch bhriagh’ air an òran againn. Dé tha bhuat? Airgead? Òr?” Chuir Dòmhnall a làmh air a dhruim. Thug rìgh nan sìthichean an t-slat dhraoidheach aige is chuir e air druim Dhòmhnuill i . Dh’fhalbh a’ chroit. An ath-là bha Dòmhnall a’ coiseachd air a’ rathad is thachair e air a’ choimhearsnach aige. ’S e amadan a bh’ann. Is bha croit air a dhruim cuideachd. Dh’fhoighneachd e do Dhòmhnall, “A Dhòmhnaill, dé dh’éirich dhut? Tha thu cho dìreach ri slat-iasgaich!” Dh’innis Dòmhnall dé dh’éirich dha.An ath-là bha an t-amadan a’ coiseachd a-mach ’s a’ choille is chuala e ceòl. Stad e is choimhead e eadar na craobhan is chunnaic e na sìthichean is bha iad a’ dannsadh is a’ seinn; “Di-luain, Di-màirt, Di-ciadain, Di-luain, Di-màirt, Di-ciadain, Di-luain, Di-màirt, Di-ciadain”. Dh’éibh an t-amadan a-mach “Di-ardaoin’!” Leum na sìthichean a-mach is rug iad air is thug iad dhan rìgh ac’ e. Thuirt rìgh nan sìthichean ris an amadan. “Mhill thusa an t-òran againn is a-nist tha mise ’dol ’gad mhilleadh!” Is thug e an t-slat dhraoidheach aige is chuir e air druim an amadain i is chuir e a’ chroit a bh’air druim Dhòmhnaill air druim an amadain. Is chaidh e dhachaidh le dà chroit air!!
The Gaelic and the English are both from "Experience Gaelic Antigonish", by Lewis MacKinnon, Executive Director, Gaelic Affairs, Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage for the Province of Nova Scotia. First published in The Highland Heart Weekly (a community paper for the Strait Area of Nova Scotia) on 2/28/14.
The original's "foolish man" for Gaelic amadan does not seem strong enough, so it has been changed to "idiot".
Gaelic is enough of a "thing" in Nova Scotia that there's a Minister for Gaelic Affairs.
The storyteller in the video is Lewis MacKinnon, a fluent Gaelic speaker: "… a singer, musician, and poet born in Inverness, Cape Breton, and raised in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. […] In 2011, Lewis was awarded the Scottish Bardic Crown, making him the the first non-Scottish official bard (poet laureate) of the Royal National Mod."
Photograph of Lewis MacKinnon being crowned poet laureate for the Royal National Mòd –- an eight-day celebration of Gaelic music, dance, drama, arts, and literature held annually in Scotland.
It is well-known that Donald Trump's mother, from the Island of Lewis, was a native speaker of Gaelic and spoke it all her life; English was her second language.
[Thanks to "Anonymous"]
John Swindle said,
June 5, 2017 @ 10:25 pm
The optional closed captions are nice. ("CC" button at bottom of video screen.) For me, at least, they come out in English. Some parts, for example about the new grooving school and the autonomous turtle, are better in closed caption than in translation. The sound is close enough to English to allow total incomprehension.
Seonachan said,
June 6, 2017 @ 12:27 am
A notable feature of Lodaidh's Gaelic is the "glug Eigeach" (Eigg cluck), which renders broad as /w/. It's a feature of some of the Inner Hebridean islands and parts of the West Highland mainland that were carried over to Nova Scotia, and then spread to other dialect areas so that, unlike in Scotland, it is the dominant pronunciation there.
You can hear this most readily in the video with words such as "là", "di-luain", and "t-slat" – and of course with "Dòmhnall" itself. He doesn't do it consistently – I heard standard l's in "chuala e ceòl".
Note the scene where Dòmhnall meets his neighbor: "He asked Donald, 'Donald, what happened to you?'" In Gaelic: "Dh’fhoighneachd e do Dhòmhnall, 'A Dhòmhnaill, dé dh’éirich dhut?'" The 2nd iteration of Donald is in the vocative case, which slenderizes (palatalizes) the final ll (and lenites the initial /d/ to /ɣ/). Between this passage and the audio clip posted above, you get 3 very distinct pronunciations of .
Seonachan said,
June 6, 2017 @ 12:29 am
Gah, first sentence should read "…which renders broad as /w/"
John Swindle said,
June 6, 2017 @ 3:26 am
I don't know Gaelic, but I think in the second royal encounter the king of the fairies speaks to the foolish man rather than to Donald.
David Marjanović said,
June 6, 2017 @ 4:22 am
A Sheonachain, you can't use <> here or almost anywhere on the Internet, because everything between them is interpreted as an HTML tag, and if it doesn't happen to be an existing or rather allowed HTML tag, it's deleted wholesale.
I recommend using italics instead, but the trick I just used is to write < and >.
(And the trick I used to write that is &, and so on…)
JP said,
June 6, 2017 @ 7:19 am
(has to be a "hump day" tie-in here ;-)
Alexander said,
June 6, 2017 @ 7:36 am
"Correct" angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ should work too, but they are not easy to type. I copied them from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Angle_brackets
languagehat said,
June 6, 2017 @ 8:16 am
Very peculiar sounding indeed! I know some (Connemara) Irish, and it's like listening to Portuguese if you know Spanish, or to Danish if you know any other Germanic language.
Seonachan said,
June 6, 2017 @ 8:41 am
Okay, sorry about the coding mixup. I hope it's clear I'm talking about the pronunciations of orthographic L.
Christian Weisgerber said,
June 6, 2017 @ 9:56 am
A sound shift velarized l > w? Just like Polish ł, Old French lC > uC, …
Jarek Weckwerth said,
June 6, 2017 @ 3:42 pm
@Christian Weisgerber
Just like Polish ł, Old French lC > uC, …
Of course your … includes London and many other English accents with L vocalization ;)
Gearóid Ó Fathaigh said,
June 6, 2017 @ 5:36 pm
Domhnall is Dónal in Ireland after the Irish spelling reform now – not sure which sub-dialects have nasalised ó! That Nova Scotia Gaelic was 'iontach' wonderful. The faeries usually lived underground and were tricksters!
B.Ma said,
June 7, 2017 @ 12:16 am
@John Swindle
Funnier still, you can have the "English" subtitles auto-translated into Irish or Scottish Gaelic.
I can't get my head around the Gaelic orthography! It's almost as difficult as …err.. Tibetan.
mollymooly said,
June 7, 2017 @ 2:10 am
should be
Jen in Edinburgh said,
June 7, 2017 @ 3:53 am
B.Ma: I find it works pretty well once you get used to it – what I can't handle is Manx, which is essentially Gaelic written out with English orthography!
Victor Mair said,
June 7, 2017 @ 4:43 am
@mollymooly
Fixed now. Thanks.
anya said,
June 8, 2017 @ 3:55 pm
The fairies' song scans as an iamb, _ / _ /.
Domhnall' song scans _ / _ / _ / _.
The fool's doesn't, _ / _ / _ / _ _ /.
This is lost in English.
Traditional Gaelic songs are not necessarily syllabotonic, but this is something that was danced to. Puirt à beul (mouth tunes meant primarily for dancing) fit a rhythmic tune; as the link above shows, the stresses in the lyrics can deviate from the beat, but most of the examples here have a syllabotonic backbone.
Rodger C said,
June 9, 2017 @ 11:12 am
Another version of the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj-5Kvo-oF4
Jens B Fiederer said,
June 11, 2017 @ 6:50 pm
What is so bad about Thursday? Or is fairy logic just meant to be capricious?
John Swindle said,
June 11, 2017 @ 7:31 pm
@Jens B Fiederer
That puzzled me too, but anya's comment explains it. In the song, in Gaelic, "Thursday" doesn't scan properly.
Steaphan said,
June 13, 2017 @ 7:23 am
The stressed syllables in "Diardaoin" didn't fit the rhythm of the song which ended nicely on "Diciadain"(Wednesday). That's why it ruined their song. He spoiled their beat, man.