Tòin - An t-Albanach (Bottom - The Scotsman)

[*Alasdair*]

I thought this was rather funny:

Teach yourself Gaelic

Tòin: bottom/butt/bum
A hard word to pronounce: say 'toon', but then add a short y-sound to the end of the n-sound. It has all the sniggering, 10-year-old connotations of the English word bum, and it's the kind of word to avoid in very polite company, but an exasperated parent might shout at a child "Suidh air do thòin" (See ur do thoon), sit on your bottom. One arguably controversial use of the word crops up in geography; the south of England, especially the south-east, is often called "Tòin Shassain", literally the arse-end of England. "A bheil an tòin agam a' coimhead mòr le seo?" (Uh vull mo hoon uh koo-wad more le shaw?) Does my bum look big in this? "Chan eil" (kha nyul), no, is always the answer.

Am i right in thinking he has got this sentence wrong: "A bheil an tòin agam a' coimhead mòr le seo?"?

I would personally say: A bheil mo thòin a' coimhead mòr le seo?

I am probably wrong, but y'know...

[neoni]

i would say "mo thòin"

you can't have mo and aig, but that looked just like a slip



i also can't for the life of me understand where he is getting his pronounciations from.

"Uh vull mo hoon uh koo-wad more le shaw?" < nonsense

[Cèid]

Most simplied phonetics for English speakers are nonsense, but it's especially the case when it's a language that cannot properly be represented by the "general" sounds of English, which can very considerably from dialect to dialect. You should hear what that sounds like when I pronounce the phonetic representation with either my native So Cali accent or a Texan drawl. Let's just say it sounds like anything but Gàidhlig.

What is this anyways? A column in The Scotsman? I would pronounce tòin closer to "tone" than "toon" myself, but with the slight y at the end to help voice the final n. I suspect it was previously tóin. In which case the oi is like còig (previously cóig), yes? That's what it sounds like on Colin and Cumberland to me.

[Níall Beag]

Dwelly spells it with ò, not ó, and MacBain agrees. It's certainly matches the pronunciation I've always heard.

Cèid -- you may be getting confused with the Irish, which more or less rhymes with "tone".

[Cèid]

Huh. OK. Then I guessed I learned it incorrectly. I went back and listened to the C&C files, and the Gàidhlig tòin definitely sounds more like "tone" to me, while the Irish tóin sounded more like "toe-in" voiced very quickly.

[Sìle]

I would say mo thòin too - i was taught that you use 'mo...' instead of '...agam' when talking about body parts/family/pets etc.

the only time i've heard it used is in 'pòg mo thòin', which is the only Gàidhlig a lot of people seem to know!

[Seonaidh]

Happen yers could use either - an tòin agam | mo thòin. Aa divven't unnerstan the pronunciation either. As for Cèid - bear in mind that US makes "tone" sound a bit more like "torn", i.e. not so much W as in Britski Received Pronunciation. So, "tòin" might well sound similar to a US "tone", but not to a Home Counties "tone".

Uh vull mo hoon uh koo-wad more le shaw - seo uabhasach! (show wavversock...) Try "avail mo hoin a-coyut morlay show" - nowhere near perfect, but a bit better!

Just had a quick squint at an antique copy of "Teach Yourself Gaelic": chan eil "tòin" anns an fhaclair. Mind you, the book is called "Tibi disc linguam Scottorum"...must be from a more puritanical era.

Àrd Bharg.