Page 1 of 1
Tòin - An t-Albanach (Bottom - The Scotsman)
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 1:56 pm
by *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...
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 3:14 pm
by 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
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:14 pm
by 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.
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:00 pm
by 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".
Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:18 pm
by 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.
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:26 am
by 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!
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:01 pm
by 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.