Bouey knife (Bowie knife) (Jan. 25, 1836)

[Wilson Gray]

Yes, I know about Irish, Jim, especially the Munster dialect, which
was that of my teacher, Séan Ó Coileáin. However, I know only enough
about Scots Gaelic to know that it's not easy to predict Scots Gaelic
on the basis of the Munster dialect of Irish Gaelic. IAC, the problem
is how to get the spelling "Bowie" out of _Buidhe_, however it may be
pronounced in Scots Gaelic. I'd expect "Buwie," following your
analysis.

Now, if someone would just figure out how to get "Dublin" out of
_Baile Átha Cliath_! ;-)

I'm reminded of a friend's story of how her grandfather, a Rumanian,
got the surname "Wagner," His accent struck the Ellis Island official
as being German. So, he said, "You sound like a German, so I'll just
give you a German name." And that was that.

-Wilson

On 6/23/07, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      Re: Bouey knife (Bowie knife) (Jan. 25, 1836)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >"Buidhe" indicates that the vowel is [u]. But where does the English
> >spelling, "Bowie," which has plausibly led to the spelling
> >pronunciation with [o], come from?
>
> "Buidhe" doesn't necessarily make the main vowel
> "u" -- in fact, I would normally read it as
> [bwij@]: "broad" b (Irish has "broad" and
> "narrow" consonants, and many of the written
> vowels are just there to indicate the consonant
> quality), meaning put a superscript w after it,
> followed by [ij@] ("narrow" dh is a palatal
> glide, same as "narrow" gh). Depending on
> dialect, you could get [bij@] or [bwij@] or, I
> suppose, [buij@]. The main vowel should be [i],
> and the u is an on-glide. To get to "Bowie" from
> it, just make that on-glide a little longer --
> take it up to a full syllable of its own -- but
> keep the rest the same, and from that, lower the
> vowel in the first syllable a bit. A lot of the
> Anglicizations of Irish names mutate them
> somewhat. Those with an interest in that
> particular subject might find Brian Friel's play
> _Translations_ of some interest -- it has a bit
> with English surveyors coming up with versions of
> Irish place names: "báile beag", which means
> "little town" or "village" and would be something
> on the order of [balj@ bj at g] but with the j
> superscript, becomes "Ballybeg", for instance.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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