Talk:Seanchaí

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia has a related page under a different spelling: Seanachai. This other page refers to the same reality (Gaelic bards) but suffers from an incorrect spelling -- the final letter "i" should have a "fada", thus: seanachaí. Many instances within the article have been corrected. Meanwhile from what I can tell, the term "seanachie" is a bit off as well; it seems to be a combination of the Irish and the Anglicized versions. If using the Anglicized form with the "ie" ending I believe that the word should be "shanachie". Thus, either "shanachie" or "seanachaí".

[edit] This page title is misspelled

The page title is misspelled. If you want to write it in Irish then it should be Seanchai which follows the Irish spelling rule of strong with strong, weak with weak. This means that a consonant or consonant cluster must be preceded and followed by a vowel of the same class, either strong or weak. A, O and U are strong. E and I are weak.

In English this word is written Shanachie which reflects the fact that Irish words with a consonant cluster beginning in N often have a slight vowel sound (Schwa) after the N. Of course, there are alternate spellings in English but Google will show that Shanachie is the most popular.

I suggest that the ideal course of action is to name the page Seanchai and have a redirect page named Shanachie.

This page Irish Dictionary (S) shows seanchaidh but there was a spelling reform in Ireland after the revolution which dropped the silent dh. My copy of Collins pocket Irish dictionary ISBN 0-00-470765-6 shows Seanchai with stress on the last syllable (pronounced -ee) and a meaning of story-teller or historian. I suggest that someone with access to a large public/university library verify the spelling in a recent Irish dictionary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.152.136.95 (talk) 20:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

  • I support a rename. I wrote most of the article but the choice of the name was already here. Shanachie I think, is the best choice (even if this spelling is only the most popular because of Shanachie Records or whatever, it is the most popular). "Seanchai" may the proper Irish spelling, but the aricle isn't in Irish and the word has entered the English language (its sort of like a Taoiseach/Taoisigh thing). We must use the most popular English language spelling. House of Scandal 20:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I am the unsigned guy at 81.152.136.95 and I agree with renaming it to the English version as long as there is a correctly spelled Irish version in the text. And if the spelling variations such as seanachai and seanachie are listed, they should be indicated as common misspellings. Seanachai is a common Irish misspelling because of the unwritten schwa that you hear in many dialects. And Seanachie is a common English misspelling because people think they see the name Sean in the word. Also, when the correct spelling, Seanchai is given in the text, it would be nice to have the fada on the last letter i. Fada looks identical to an acute accent.
  • The above statement is accurate, but I'd say you are stating it too gently. The fada on seanchaí is a necessity rather than a luxury. House of Scandal 02:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article moved

Per the above discussion, and a request at WP:RM, I've moved the article to Shanachie, added a disambiguation link at the top, and created redirects from the other listed spellings. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)