A crash course in Gaelic pronounciation:
Niall na Naoi nGiallaibh, Neil of the Nine Hostages, is
pronounced (idiot phonetics):
NyEE-al nuh NuEE NGEE-al-av
(approximately, and in Munster dialect!)
Thus it contains at least 3
(possibly 4) distinct n sounds, completely unfamiliar to native English
speakers, unless they have experience of Russian or Arabic, for exmaple!
-
Ny is "slender n" and sounds like "sliding n" in the Russian 'Nyet'.
NyEE slides smoothly into the a and the word has two syllables.
-
NuEE (nine) is "broad n" and is even more difficult to emulate, but follows
a similar "sliding" sound to the above. The n of "na" (of-the) is not as
pronouncedly broad as NuEE because there are no vowels following the a.
-
The sound approximated by NG is a nasalised G sound. Here the word Giallaibh
is "eclipsed" by n, following the rules of Gaelic grammar, which more often
than not allow words to flow into one another, rather as in Arabic.
The nasalised G sound is not to be
confused with Italian gn or Spanish ñ, which is in fact a bit like
"slender n" above (although, not exactly, I would hold).
I recommend you pronounce this phrase several times until you feel you
have mastered the four distinct sounds. At the end of that I think you'll
find yourself laughing spontaneously. This sort of tongue twister is common
in ancient Irish literature, something that to me suggests
that the title of this semi-legendary figure may have been modified to form a
mnemonic rather than accurately describe his achievements.
The "hostages" (Giallaibh) refer to the nine territories/tribes that Niall is
credited with subjugating (including parts of Britain and Gaul).
By the way, the Gaelic form of Mahon, Mathghumhain or Mathuin/Mahuin in
modernised spelling, is pronounced mah-KHOO-wine or (simplified) ma-HOO-in.
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