Dùn Dèagh or Dùn Dè?

[Creag]

Throughout the Speaking Our Language series Dundee is spelled as Dùn Dèagh, though it now seems to be Dùn Dè.

Has Dùn Dè officially superseded Dùn Dèagh or are both versions acceptable?

Mòran taing.

[MacCoinnich79]

Hi Creag,

Both are acceptable. Dropping the -agh at the end is the same with the word for day - latha, you can simply drop the -tha and use là. There are probably a few more words that do this. It doesn't change the pronunciation so there is no need for the letters that are being omitted.

[Creag]

Thanks for that.

Just out of curiosity how do the road signs spell it nowadays?

[faoileag]

I've never seen anthing but Dùn Dè.

That's also what's given officially in the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba database.


http://www.gaelicplacenames.org/index.php


Pronunciation also in LearnGaelic dict.

http://learngaelic.net/dictionary/?abairt=dundee

[akerbeltz]

What they said but note that while the phonetic outcome of Dè / Dèagh is /dʲeː/ in both cases, latha and là are different, latha yields /La.ə/ but là /Laː/; the shortened là form you either get in fast speech or compounds such as Là na Nollaig or Là-Luain etc where the stress is away from latha, leading to shortening (as you don't normally get hiatus in unstressed syllables.

[Seonaidh]

The "official" form, on all road signs I've ever seen, is "Dundee".

Sin e, chan eil soidhneachan Gàidhlig san sgìre idir.

[An Gobaire]

The official Scotrail form at Dundee's railway station is Dùn Dè. The railways stations in Broughty Ferry and Invergowrie also have Gaelic signs now. Indeed there was even a Gaelic sign for the Co-op's Scottish bakery section in Broughty Ferry.

The spelling used to be Dùn Dèagh, and I think I have discovered the reason why.

I was listening to a recording from Tobar an Dualchais of a Perthshire Gaelic speaker from near Schiehallion between Loch Tummel and Loch Rannoch. He was being asked the forms of local and Perthshire names, but also of the main towns and cities in Scotland. When asked about Dundee, he pronounced the Dèagh in Dùn Dèagh like a rounded "deagh (good), and nothing like the pronunciation we here nowadays. It was always written "dèagh", until one day (about 10 years ago or less, I can't remember when exactly) it suddenly became "Dùn Dè"....

There was a lot of movement between Perthshire and Dundee when Gaels from the area moved to Dundee over the centuries.

[akerbeltz]

Good point - I just checked Ó Murchú and he records /dʲau/. Mind you, Dèagh wasn't really a good representation of that either. Dùn Deamh might have been but as you said, it's shifted to the MMG form /dʲeː/ on the whole now.