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I have been saying Cillian Murphy's name wrong all these years :(

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Kevers

Kevers

The Fallen
Oct 29, 2017
14,684
Syracuse, NY
Cillian
Saoirse
Siobhan
Aisling

I'm from an Irish family and I was still surprised when I found out how all these were actually pronounced
 
Yams

Yams

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Oct 25, 2017
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lol I only know how to pronounce Irish names because of my dad's older family
 
hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly

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Oct 25, 2017
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NORDFRIESLAND, DEUTSCHLAND
There is no K in Irish Garlic alphabet. And consonants in this case with C is pronounced like a K in Englisch. All languages in Europe that at some point adopted the Latin alphabet (incl their own new letters) have different pronunciation, like in German our C is pronounced tseh, and our I is pronounced like "ee" like see, and we have letters like ö, ä, ü and ß which are pronounced like ae, oe, ue, and a sharp ss, and the former 3 doing so using rounded lips. a and ä for example are completely different letters, if someone has the name Käthi then pronouncing it any other way is wrong and doesn't even sound the same.

I am German and learned a little bit of Irish Gaelic so I know it's alphabet and always knew Cillian himself is Irish and I know someone with the same name.
 
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Geoff

Geoff

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Oct 27, 2017
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Gaelic don't conform to English notions of pronunciations. If you are looking at an Irish name and you don't know how to pronounce it you just need to look it up and learn it. It's unlikely you'll be able to puzzle it out yourself, unless you have some experience with gaelic
 
Westbahnhof

Westbahnhof

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Oct 27, 2017
10,143
Austria
xaosslug said:
idk if this is just a running gag or something? But why would y'all go the nonsensical route and make THAT connection when "Kilian/Killian/Cillian" is an actual name and we have "Krillin" (which my brain always goes to w/ Cillian Murphy's name, for some reason even as far back as 28days)? That's just so funny, to me. lol
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No gag, it makes much more sense for your average English speaker to use the same starting sound as in circle.
And what does Krillin have to do with it? That's like saying I should know how to pronounce the first two letters of "cecede" based on the pronunciation of the word "concede".
 
Grath

Grath

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Oct 27, 2017
467
Akai_XIII said:
I'm continually counting cute cucumbers in court whilst cackling.
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Is the concept of high and low sounding vowels taught in school in English-speaking territories?

In Hungarian grammar they affect lots of stuff, and I always thought that in English it controls among other things the pronounciation of C. A-O-U (following the C) are low sounds, and make the written C into a K, E-I-Y are high sounds and turn it into an S. Is this not correct?
 
Eoin

Eoin

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Oct 27, 2017
7,116
YukiCT said:
Didn't know this. Irish names seems to ones which don't quite sound like it's written from an English convention perspective. Like Saoirse didn't even find out until I watched Song of the Sea.
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Most languages don't really confirm to English pronunciation. Even English.

With Irish, it doesn't help that common Irish words (including names) all started to be written in the Latin alphabet before the Great Vowel Shift that happened to spoken English between the 13th and 16th centuries.

DrSlek said:
C doing the work of both S and K is dumb.

I vote we abolish the letter C!
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Agreed for C by itself. It's a useless letter.

Thing is, ch can't be replicated with either S or K. Try doing "church" without a C. Shursh? Khurkh? So we kind of need C for that.

Catshade said:
Wow, never knew that. How about Ciaran Hinds?
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Ciaran is pronounced keer-awn, though there are places in Ireland where that will sound closer to keer-in. As a general rule any Irish name starting with C is not going to start with an S-sound.
 
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Deleted member 48434

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Oct 8, 2018
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I'm at the point where every new word or name I encounter I usually end up pronouncing wrong until I have actually heard it spoken.
English is stupid.
Vowels have multiple pronunciations.
Consonants can have multiple pronunciations.
Loan words and foreign names can have completely different pronunciation to what you'd expect.

Is it Gif or Gif?
source.gif


It's hard G btw.
 
weemadarthur

weemadarthur

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Oct 25, 2017
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Grath said:
Is the concept of high and low sounding vowels taught in school in English-speaking territories?
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Pretty sure they get called long and short sounding vowels. There are pronunciation indicators in dictionaries, and the long vowel sound is a straight horizontal line over the letter, while the short sound is a curved line.

But english has taken words from so many languages, with contradictory rules, that the rule for any given word comes from its parent language, meaning english itself is inconsistent. It's necessary to learn by rote in a lot of cases.
 

Jest

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,565
xaosslug said:
idk if this is just a running gag or something? But why would y'all go the nonsensical route and make THAT connection when "Kilian/Killian/Cillian" is an actual name and we have "Krillin" (which my brain always goes to w/ Cillian Murphy's name, for some reason even as far back as 28days)? That's just so funny, to me. lol
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It's not a running gag. The name is not all that common the US and US English is rather dominant in media across the world.
 

QuigleyMcShine

Member
Jan 29, 2018
9,541
I've always pronounced it "Kill Ian" in my head but I don't know that I've ever had the occasion to say his name out loud.

I've only ever been vaguely aware of Peaky Blinders and had no idea he was in it. To me he's always been the guy from Sunshine and 28 Days Later.
 
abellwillring

abellwillring

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Oct 25, 2017
8,969
Austin, TX
ThatCrazyGuy said:
I am ignorant. I was saying it with the 's" sound, like I say the Celtics in america. the "selltics".

Sorry scarecrow, I have been doing you wrong.
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To be fair, that word is said with a K sound in all other instances. I don't know why the Celtics pronounce it that way. Probably just a mistake that has stuck.

sleepless_swan said:
Keer-awn, you need to have the fada over the "a" as well for the pronounciation giving the "aw" sound, Ciarán.
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Ahh I've always been saying it Kee-ar-an. Good to know! I guess it's basically the equivalent to Kieran then (although that doesn't have the aw sound at the end..).
 
iksenpets

iksenpets

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,597
Dallas, TX
C is always hard in Irish, which is a small part of what makes spelling on Celtic names such a nightmare, all these Cillians and Ciarans.
 
maxxpower

maxxpower

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Oct 25, 2017
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If the Boston Celtics are gonna have a stereotypical Irish guy on their logo they should at least pronounce the team name Boston Keltics.
 
Twstr709

Twstr709

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Oct 27, 2017
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I learned that a couple of years ago because of Gamegrumps. I didn't know who they were talking about at first.
 
Tuorom

Tuorom

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Oct 30, 2017
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Oleander said:
That's how Saoirse Ronan pronounces it, but wouldn't be the most common Irish pronunciation of it from my experience. The most common would be "Seer-sha", or "Say-or-sha". Different dialects in different regions, and all that.

Saoirse Ronan has done a disservice to other Saoirses by implying hers is the correct and only pronunciation. And in my part of the country, we slag her off for it mercilessly.
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Say or sha makes sense to me.
Edmond Dantès said:
I did the same when first reading The Lord of the Rings many moons ago with the names Celeborn, Cirdan and Celebrimbor.
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Noooooo are you telling me......


Idk what it is but I'm kinda liking these Irish names some of you are throwing out. Half of you are just typing them though and I have no clue how to pronounce them lmao
 

Deleted member 4434

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Oct 25, 2017
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Made the same mistake for years too lmao

But on the bright side it wasn't as bad as that time I was a kid and had a friend whose name was pronounced 'yu-wen'. And every time I sent a card for bday/xmas/whatever, I had NO CLUE how to write his name so for YEARS I would avoid it by writing 'to my friend' & 'to the birthday boy' and like a year ago or something, after we lost touch for like a decade and a half, I finally found out it it's spelled Ewan. (°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥꒳°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥* )
 
DirtyLarry

DirtyLarry

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,131
I discovered this myself about 6 months ago.
Even after I did, I still say it the wrong way from saying it the wrong way for so damn long. I have been a fan of my man's acting since 28 Days Later.
I literally cannot correct myself.
 

Deleted member 4552

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Oct 25, 2017
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RustyNails said:
It's pronounced "Kellian". I have been calling him "sillian". But...nobody ever corrected me until yesterday when I started watching Peaky Blinders and was talking about it with coworker.

Anyway, AMAZING actor. Sorry bro.
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Hold up, no it's fucking not.

It's pronounced Kill-i-an/ Kill-ee-an
(I'm not sure which is easier to read for you)

Or Kill-yin depending on how local Irish accent or lazyness of voice.

The second one being the lazy version.
 
Etrian Oddity

Etrian Oddity

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Oct 26, 2017
3,429
I can learn tonal differences like Viet, Thai, and Chinese dialects; but find Celtic languages incomprehensible. Like, their pronunciations make no sense to me lol.
 
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