It’s actually the original Irish form of my family name (which is now down to 5 letters, only a couple of which are in the original form). The name is
Duibhdhiormaigh
Another form of the name is Diarmada, which I am told is pronounced, very roughly, chah-ROM-a-tah, the most common evolution of which is Dermott.
Is there anybody here who can field a guess as to the pronunciation of the first one or the accuracy of the second one’s pronunciation?
Even more proof to me that Gaelic is the most fucked-up language on the planet. Sorry I can’t help you, but DAMN, that’s fucked up.
I think Diarmada would be pronouced jar-MOT-a.
I am not sure on Duibhdhiormaigh, but my guess would be duv-yor-ma.
I may be wrong, but I think the “ui” and “io” diphthongs are both pronounced as a short “i”, and “aigh” at the word end is either “-ee” or “-uh”
So I’d read it more like “Div-jir-mee”. We need an Irish speaker though…
I’m pretty sure that Duibhdhiormaigh is pronounced Bill.
Oh, come on!
It’s pronounced “Throatwarbler Mangrove”.
To be serious, how about pronouncing it “FuamatuMaafala”. (hint: not serious)
And for those interested in more brain torture : Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch
That is an odd coincidence. I am writing a song, for the Welsh market called *Meet Me In Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogochIn * but unfortunately I remain stuck on the first line:
Meet Me In Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogochIn
…
The rhyming dictionary is no help at all.
According to the highly unscientific method I learned while traveling Ireland and staring in disbelief at road signs while natives told me that the road I was looking for was the road I was standing on, and then went away and laughed at their witty prank while I staggered on in blind faith, you pronounce the first letter, ignore the middle and make a swallowing r noise or lightly trill an r/l sound instead (substitute a sloshy spit bubble sound for Welsh) and pronounce the last syllable with an accent.
Which makes your name, roughly, “Darma”. But if you want to get the lilt right, say “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Darma!” in your best Broadway Irish brogue.
Which is probably totally wrong. But at least I’ve bumped the thread like an errant volleyball.
How about “Please please please don’t say no-no-no”. Add pleases to fit.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is in Gwynedd, pronounced as in “Paltrow.” But even better (though not so long) is Llantwit Major. 
Diarmada is pronounced “Djeermuda” anytime I hear it. Cah-ROM-a-tah is a Klingon moon I believe.
The other one is trickier, something like “doogormee” or “doovegormee”. IANAGaeilgoir however.
Alternatively maybe ask this guy.
As in the hit Irish sitcom Duibhdhiormaigh and Gyllriaghrmainreg [pronounced “Darma and Greg”]?
Seriously, why is Gaelic written absolutely nothing akin to the way it’s pronounced? You’d think they’d have noticed this over the past few centuries and fixed it. I’m still working over how Samhain rhymes with “now then”.
Yeah. And people complain about Chinese romanization being inscrutable. :rolleyes:
Dude. Are you sitting down? I have bad news for you. They have fixed it already.
It is written how it’s pronounced. They just have assigned different phonetic values to the letters than English has.
An example from another language I know, Spanish: V and B make the same sounds as each other, but the particular sound they make depends on what letters come before and after. B/V at the beginning of a word sound like English B, but between vowels, the sound they make doesn’t occur in English. Also, Spanish single R is rolled at the front of words, but makes a sound that most English-speakers would say sounds like D if it’s in the middle or at the end of the word.
Or in German: CH doesn’t sound anything like the sound that English uses CH for. Neither do J, V, Z, or a couple of other letters.
From what I understand, Gaelic is at least more phonetically written than English, what with our rough, through, bough, cough and other such oddities.
Between the two of you, I think you’re getting warm. I don’t know the language either, so until a real Irish speaker (preferably one familiar with the pre-reform orthography) shows up to enlighten us, I got out an Irish dictionary which gives IPA phonetic renderings. The pieces of this name found in there may give some clue.
Duibhe ‘blackness, darkness, gloom’ is pronounced approximately DIV-yuh.
Diorma ‘band, troop, detachment’ is pronounced even more approximately DYEER-muh or DJEER-muh. Not sure what this has to do with the name Diarmaid, but that name is the source of the Anglicized spelling Dermot, as you noted.
However–this part exhibits lenition, as shown by the change of d > dh. Note that the d is “slender” because it’s followed by i. Lenition of slender dh- sounds like “y.”
And according to Irish_orthography the final -maigh would be pronounced “mee.”
So the best educated guess I can come up with is div-yeer-mee.
The distinction between “broad” and “slender” consonants is important in Irish phonology. Consonant quality is affected by neighboring vowels: a, o, and u are broad, while e and i are slender. That’s what a lot of the seemingly extraneous vowels are for: they show when a consonant is pronounced broad when next to a slender vowel, or vice versa. For example, the name Seán is written with two vowels, but has only one actual vowel sound. The broad vowel á would make for a broad s in front of it–but the slender “sh” sound is indicated by inserting the slender -e- in between. The accent mark always tells you which vowel gets actually pronounced.
Is that often? By which I mean, is it still a name one hears in Ireland?
I only ever really hear it as part of MacDiarmada as in the guy whose myspace I posted above. It’s not entirely uncommon. I could be wrong but I believe its the genitive case of Diarmuid.