Tuesday, March 14, 2023

"Mo Ghile Mear" revisited

ChatGPT gave me the phonetic rendering for "Mo Ghile Mear," but when I tried to listen to a version of the song while reading the lyrics, very little seemed to match up. This could be for a number of reasons:

1. The lyrics given are flat-out wrong.

2. There are multiple versions of the song.

3. I'm simply not hearing the lyrics correctly.

Once again, here's the phonetic rendition:

Muh yil-uh mahr 's un vir-uh vee in AY-rin,
Muh yil-uh mahr 's nee VOOR-ish fayn ay'n chayn,
Oh KOO-uh in gayn muh yil-uh mahr.
Verse 1:
BEEM-suh boon er boort gakh loh,
Uhg kee guh khroo-uh s uhg toor nuh nyohr,
Mar skwee-luh oom un BOO-uh-khul byoh,
Snee MAR-hee uh kay-luh may na yee-uhkh.
Verse 2:
SHAY muh lee-uhk muh yil-uh mahr,
SHAY muh hair, muh ven er tore;
AIR-uh guh layr, s faw WEL-kum roh-var
SLOO-uh-teh os guhkh AYN-yuh os kyuhn muh ghoh-ig.
Verse 3:
Uh VEE leh REE nuh VART guh VEK-uhm,
MUH-ruh meh-uhm byoh in-uh gyn-uhkh uhk shak-tahn;
GRAHN-ya MAWL eg TAH-kt hahr SAHL-yeh,
Oh-glee ur-muh lay mee-uhr gahr-duh.
Verse 4:
SHAY un tay uh TEES-luh gakh AYN duyn,
TAH GAY-vuhn byoh noh BAHS er booy-luh;
GAY-uhl ee-ud fayn duh khur i gkyel,
Snee AH-gaw-fee shee-ud guh dti ray-r gur chayl-uhd er fud nuh TEE-ruh.

And here's a version of the song:

Am I not hearing the song correctly? Is this a different version of the song?

Note: I don't know Gaelic, but I think "Ghille" might be a misspelling, with "Ghile" being the correct spelling. When I searched for the song title, most of the results came up "Ghile." Google Translate doesn't have a "Gaelic" option; the closest is "Irish," but this renders "Mo Ghile Mear" in English as "my quick wit" instead of "my gallant hero," which is the usual translation for the song's title. Wikipedia doesn't make things easier because Gaelic can apparently also be called Irish. (Gaelic can also refer generically to a whole language family. Curiouser and curiouser. Down the rabbit hole we go.)



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