O'Carolan pronunciation

Subject: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Gypsy
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 10:11 PM

Okay, after being rather stiffly corrected the other night.........on the great mans first name is it :TurLOCK, or TurLOW? I was informed that it was the latter, but that to my mind would mean that we have a terrific band out of Ireland called the Boys of the LOW. Doesn't amount to a hill of beans, but now i wanna know how to pronounce Turlough. Preferably without a thick united statetion accent!

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 10:16 PM

Or how about Tur-LOFF like in cough? Or Tur-Lao as in bough?

I'd just say call him Jablonski and leave it at that.............Whaddaya' think?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Gypsy
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 11:00 PM

I've missed you, laddie. Us hd players gotta stick together! Like i say, it don't make a hill o beans difference. But since i AM interested in welsh/irish pronounciations (and they are VERY different than what most people think!) i would like the definitive answer.
Spaw, whatter you doin' up so late? aren't you in the east somewhere?

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 11:27 PM

Most people round here (Eire) seem to pronounce it Turlock.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Declan
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 12:57 AM

Its definitely not "low", its near to "lock", but its actually more like a ch sound, the sort of sound that you might make when you're clearing your throat. You got it right in your first post in that its the same sound as in the Boys of the ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 03:25 AM

Turlough - as in the lake that only appears in winter.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Paul Burke
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 03:26 AM

Boys of the Loo?

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Scrump
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 04:45 AM

Well, the letters 'ough' can be pronounced in any of these ways:

OFF as in cough
UFF as in rough
OW as in bough
OO as in through
OH as in dough
OCH as in lough (this is only an approximation!)

So take your pick! I suggest you call him "Turl" for short, and avoid the problem :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 05:32 AM

The original Irish would have sounded (roughly) "Tray-lock" - so the hard sound is closer and is invariably used in practice. Think of it as a trade-off!

Regards

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,Jim I
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 05:53 AM

I've always called him Tur-lup (as in Hiccough!|)

He never seems to mind

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 09:18 AM

Terry, short for Terrence.

eric

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Scrump
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 09:29 AM

Call him Toby (from TOBIH - Turlough O'Carolan Blind Irish Harper)

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 11:19 AM

"after being rather stiffly corrected the other night..."

Anybody who gets "stiff" over the pronunciation of a name that is more than 200 years old is a toxic nerd. No one can be sure of how a word was pronounced that long ago. Even at the time it may have differed from region to region.

Instead of being unpleasant, that person should have been congratulating you for your interest in O'Carolan's beautiful music.

------
Spaw, I'm with you. I like Jablonski myself. But then I grew up in Chicagomilwaukeeland.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 12:14 PM

Of course "stiffly" might mean the man was paralytic with drink. You have to make allowances in such circumstances.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,Guest:: Hempsy
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 03:08 PM

'Turlock' will get you adequately through the pronunciation. Perhaps more importantly, the man's name was 'Carolan' (or 'Cearbhalláin'). In his case the 'Ó' was a posthumous accretion.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Gulliver
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 07:37 PM

If you are going to credit him, then at least you should try to pronounce the name properly
(as Declan, above, has said, but Tur-lock would do)--anything else is an insult (in my humble--stiff--opinion).

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 07:51 PM

The name may be 200 years old (actually, 300 in the case of O'Carolan, isn't it - and it's a heck of a lot older than that!) but it's still in common use.

It's THURlock, except that the "ock" part isn't a hard clicky 'k' sound but a soft sounding of the 'ch' over the soft palate.

Now I'm going crazy again trying to remember that poem about the Frenchman (?) trying to learn the English-language pronunciation of 'ough', in which each succeeding 'ough' rhymes with the one before, wrongly. It ends: 'He killed him with a rough'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 02:47 AM

Mind you, as one of our Guests will know, "Hempsy" is a harp of a different colour!

Regards

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Scrump
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 05:20 AM

It's THURlock

No thyit Thurlock?

... I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Gypsy
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 10:48 PM

With a soft TH or a hard one? And oh yeah, as long as i am picking brains..........."the man's name was 'Carolan' (or 'Cearbhalláin')"
how do i say "Cearbhalláin" with a thick united statition accent? LOL! Thanks for all the help, peoples. Carolan's tunes are a long favourite of mine, the total reason that i play the Hammered Dulcimer. Here's to Laurie Riley for introducing me to his lovely work.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Declan
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 12:48 PM

Oh Carol (as in Neil Sedaka) on is close enough.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,Big bright and bouncy
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 01:54 PM

If anyone called my good friend's son Turlough 'Thurlough', they'd soom be getting a bunch of gives in a nasal direction.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Greg B
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 02:39 PM

Throatwarbler-Mangrove?

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Gypsy
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 10:30 PM

So, BB&B, what would be your phonetic pronounciation to a poor heathen such as meself?

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,Big bright and bouncy
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 01:42 PM

It's Toorloch!

Nuff said.

Subject: RE: Folklore: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Gypsy
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 09:16 PM

thankyoukindsirshesaid..............

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,martin furey
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 05:44 AM

hey...hope yer good...turlough is the name,the gh is silent and dat d troot :)

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 06:01 AM

Have read right turlough this thread & am now turloughly confused!

Was he, btw, any relation to my old friend Carole-Anne Pegg?

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 06:30 AM

Call him Toby (from TOBIH - Turlough O'Carolan Blind Irish Harper)

As we still have his reputation and the Receipt for Drinking
well - there is more debate to be had on whether he was mostly Blind Drunk or Ha' Pissed.

I'll get my coat.......

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: bubblyrat
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 05:58 AM

Well,he was certainly a keen advocate of "Fanny Power",anyway.Or even "Fanny Knee Power"----the mind boggles !

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: Mr Happy
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 07:57 AM

The Contemplator site http://www.contemplator.com/carolan/carlnbio.html#name gives this explanation:



Carolan vs. O'Carolan

I am often confronted with the opinion that my site should refer to Carolan as O'Carolan. I originally used "Turlough Carolan" because Grainne Yeats - certainly an expert on the man - refers to him as such. However, as this site relies strongly on Donal O'Sullivan's biography of Carolan I have decided to use his naming conventions for Carolan, except where I am quoting another source. There is a great deal of confusion and inconsistency in naming Carolan and so I have decided to devote some space to O'Sullivan's explanation.

Carolan's full name in Irish is Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin. As is often the case with names of the past, several variations of both the first and last name appear. In English the name would be Turlough or Terence Carolan.

According to O'Sullivan, when full names (first and last together) are written in Gaelic it is customary to add the Ó prefix. However, in using the surname alone, O'Sullivan states, one should use the form the owner and his friends used. In his songs for Fallon and John Stafford, Carolan referred to himself as Cearbhallán, not Ó Cearbhallán. In his elegy for Carolan MacCabe uses the same, as do several other close friends in writing of Carolan. Writing in English they refer to him as Carolan - not O'Carolan. O'Sullivan, therefore, feels certain that Carolan was known to himself and his friends as Cearbhallán or Carolan.

So, without meaning to offend anyone Gaelic or the bard himself, I will use the O'Sullivan conventions. When using the full name I will use Turlough O'Carolan and when using the last name alone I will use Carolan.

*****************

So ye see, he's really Terry Carolan!!

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 11:20 AM

Some composers are so renowned that the are referred to only by their last name. Beethoven. Schubert. Bartok. and also Carolan.

Just don't say the first name! We have no idea how it was pronounced in his place and time. It's like the word 'comprise.' Using it will merely stir up argument, so don't use it.

I doubt whether his name was Turlough at all. A turlough is a wet, sunken piece of ground. Who names their new baby boy after a wet, sunken piece of ground? Do we name our sons 'Swamp,' 'Bog' or 'Sinkhole'?

No, we do not. We may name our sons Cliff, Craig or Glen, but we don't name them after nasty, wet places that produce mosquitoes. So where did the 'Turlough' idea come from? Somebody probably read a hand-written register wrong, and a fallacy was born.

In the meantime, arguing about pronunciation wastes valuable time that could be spent playing Carolan's wonderful music.

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronounciation
From: weerover
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 03:37 PM

I have so far found 14 valid ways of pronouncing the letter grouping "ough" in English. The Irish pronounce "lough" much as the Scots pronounce "loch", a sound apparently difficult for English speakers from England or the US and known as the velar fricative.

wr

Subject: RE: O'Carolan pronunciation
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 05:11 PM

Some of the peculiar features of English spelling were introduced by the Gutenberg's German-speaking employees. I bet it was them who started this 'ough' stuff. They probably heard so many different pronunciations of these words that they decided to spell them all with 'ough' and leave the fighting up to the natives.

I still don't believe that anybody was supposed to be named Turlough. It occurs to me, nonetheless, that Tur-low rhymes with 'furlough.'

I don't think there's anything difficult about the velar fricitive. Unusual, perhaps, but not difficult.