Quote:
Originally Posted by lch
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrelloid
Ok, this one is really bugging me. Baen Sidhe, not 'bean'. For those of you not up on the intricacies of gaelic pronunciation, 'Bean Sidhe' ~= bawnshee, whereas the (presumed) intended banshee = Baen Sidhe.
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As much as I like your analysis of the gaelic language, and I'd like you to be right, I don't think that's true. It seems like it's really spelled correctly. Google for "Bean Sidhe site:.ie" for hints that support this. |
So, first of all, every time i've seen it spelled in the gaelic mode before now, its always been 'baen sidhe'. That said, i did some googling and some dictionary etymology checking.
Baen sidhe is more popular than bean sidhe, but its close (25000 vs. 16000 google hits) - the bean sidhe hits are higher quality though and include wikipedia (which actually favors bean si - apparently there's a more modern mode of rendering gaelic...).
Etymology supports Bean Sidhe. Even stranger, pronunciation guidelines (from the dictionaries) have banshee as 'bahn-shee' a reasonable fraction of the time, which is close to the 'bawn-shee' suggested by 'bean sidhe'. I don't think i've ever actually heard anyone say that, but its certainly what the gaelic looks like...
So apparently I'm confused, but it looks like 'baen sidhe' is a phonetic reconstruction back into gaelic from 'ban-shee' as it is commonly pronounced in english-speaking countries (certainly the US), and a popular one at that, which means I'm confused for a good reason.
I withdraw my objection, although it still looks weird to my apparently addled brain. Also, most people pronounce it wrong - who knew?