Samhain Pronunciation Rant
A friend of mine who speaks gaelic treated me to a rant about the pronunciation of Samhain. Apparently saying it like "sam-hayn," "sow-wen" or "sow-een" is completely and utterly wrong, and it gives him the willies to hear it.
According to my friend (who has studied the matter intensely) Samhain should be pronounced as shavnah (if you’re male) or havnah (if you’re female). However, he says that most gaelic-speaking people, male or female, simply pronounce it shavnah nowadays.
He continued to rant about the people who vehemently insist that it must be pronounced "sow-wen," declaring that if they had ever bothered to open an Irish Gaelic dictionary they would see for themselves that they were sadly mistaken. He went on to blame Gerald Gardiner for this, claiming that he mispronounced it and his worshipful followers (these are his words, not mine - please don't hurt me) were afraid to correct him and so it's remained sow-wen ever since.
I promised to pass on the correct information, so remember, it's shavnah.
Have a Happy Samhain, however you want to pronounce it.
According to my friend (who has studied the matter intensely) Samhain should be pronounced as shavnah (if you’re male) or havnah (if you’re female). However, he says that most gaelic-speaking people, male or female, simply pronounce it shavnah nowadays.
He continued to rant about the people who vehemently insist that it must be pronounced "sow-wen," declaring that if they had ever bothered to open an Irish Gaelic dictionary they would see for themselves that they were sadly mistaken. He went on to blame Gerald Gardiner for this, claiming that he mispronounced it and his worshipful followers (these are his words, not mine - please don't hurt me) were afraid to correct him and so it's remained sow-wen ever since.
I promised to pass on the correct information, so remember, it's shavnah.
Have a Happy Samhain, however you want to pronounce it.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by peace lily on -
I would like to say it's a silly thing to rant about BUT, nothing irritates me more than mis-pronuncitations and mis-spelling, it's just a *thing*, I have , LOL. Happy Samhain to you as well! :)
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Permalink Reply by DragonWulf on -
Interesting...
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Permalink Reply by Coyote Morningstar on -
Hmm. I call it Hallows. As for Samhain, I have never heard it pronounced 'shavnah' before. That's a new one. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, just that I've never heard it that way before. I understand the willies, I get them when people pronounce it 'sam-hain'.
Does your friend speak Scots Gaelic or one of the Irish dialects of Gaelic? The little bit I studied was Ulster Gaelic and the 'mh' is a 'w' sound when flanked by broad vowels like 'a', 'o', or 'u'. It makes a 'v' sound when flanked by slender vowels, 'i' or 'e'. Just wondering. I know there are a lot of exceptions to that rule, maybe Samhain is one of those exceptions, I don't know.
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Permalink Reply by Spiralle on -
I believe he's talking about Irish Gaelic, but I'd have to ask him and he's out of the country right now.
From what I understand though, he's also familiar with Scots Gaelic so the pronunciation could be Scots. I'll find out and get back to you.
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Permalink Reply by Lily on -
I found this on Wikipedia: In modern Ireland and Scotland, the name by which Halloween is known in the Gaelic language is still Oíche/Oidhche Shamhna. It is still the custom in some areas to set a place for the dead at the Samhain feast, and to tell tales of the ancestors on that night. It seems that would make more sense to be pronounced shavnah.
But the wiccan Samhain is a little bit more mixed in its origins: (also from wikipedia):
The Irish word Samhain is derived from the Old Irish samain, samuin, or samfuin, all referring to 1 November (latha na samna: 'samhain day'), and the festival and royal assembly held on that date in medieval Ireland (oenaig na samna: 'samhain assembly'). Its meaning is glossed as 'summer's end', and the frequent spelling with f suggests analysis by popular etymology as sam ('summer') and fuin ('sunset', 'end'). The Old Irish sam ('summer') is from Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) *semo-; cognates are Welsh haf, Breton hañv, English summer and Old Norse language sumar, all meaning 'summer', and the Sanskrit sáma ("season"). (Pokorny, IEW (1959), s.v. "sem-3", p. 905)
Whitley Stokes in KZ 40:245 (1907) suggests an etymology from Proto-Celtic *samani ('assembly'), cognate to Sanskrit sámana, and the Gothic samana. J. Vendryes in Lexique Étymologique de l'Irlandais Ancien (1959) concludes that these words containing *semo- ('summer') are unrelated to samain, remarking that furthermore the Celtic 'end of summer' was in July, not November, as evidenced by Welsh gorffennaf ('July'). We would therefore be dealing with an Insular Celtic word for 'assembly', *samani or *samoni, and a word for 'summer', saminos (derived from *samo-: 'summer') alongside samrad, *samo-roto-. The Irish samain would be etymologically unrelated to 'summer', and derive from 'assembly'. But note that the name of the month is of Proto-Celtic age, cf. Gaulish SAMON[IOS] from the Coligny calendar, and the association with 'summer' by popular etymology may therefore in principle date to even pre-Insular Celtic times.
Confusingly, Gaulish Samonios (October/November lunation) corresponds to GIAMONIOS, the seventh month (the April/May lunation) and the beginning of the summer season. Giamonios, the beginning of the summer season, is clearly related to the word for winter, Proto-Indo-European *g'hei-men- (Latin hiems, Slavic zima, Greek kheimon, Hittite gimmanza), cf. Old Irish gem-adaig ('winter's night'). It appears, therefore, that in Proto-Celtic the first month of the summer season was named 'wintry', and the first month of the winter half-year 'summery', possibly by ellipsis, '[month at the end] of summer/winter', so that samfuin would be a restitution of the original meaning. This interpretation would either invalidate the 'assembly' explanation given above, or push back the time of the re-interpretation by popular etymology to very early times indeed. Bealtaine, Lúnasa and Samhain are still today the names of the months of May, August and November in the Irish language. Similarly, an Lùnasdal and an t-Samhain are the modern Scottish Gaelic names for August and November.
Anyways, in my opinion, "sow-wen" is the correct Irish pronunciation for Samhain, our Sabbat. Shavnah is the correct pronunciation for Oíche/Oidhche Shamhna. Shamhna is Halloween, the cowan holiday in Ireland and Scotland.
Samhain Blessings,
Lily
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Permalink Reply by Coyote Morningstar on
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AH! That's it! Shamhna is modern Gaelic and Samhain is Old Gaelic. That makes sense. However, I thought that whenever there was an 'H' in Gaelic, it wasn't a letter to be pronounced, per se, but indicated an aspirated consonant. Sort of like 'th' in English. The 'sh' sound comes from 'si' or 'se'. The slender vowels changing the sound of the 's'.
This topic inspires me to study more. Thank you.
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Permalink Reply by Todd on -
A technical note from Wikipedia:
"(in English pronounced /ˈsaʊn/, /ˈsaʊɪn/ or /ˈsawɪn/,[1] from Irish samhain /ˈsˠaunʲ/, Scottish samhuinn /ˈsavɯɲ/, Old Irish samain /samanʲ/)...1 ^OED"
In other words, "sow-wen" is probably the closest, but there are a variety of ways to pronounce it. My suspicion is, though, that "shavnah" is actually a mispronunciation of the genitive/possessive form, spelled Shamhna, but correctly pronounced "havnah" or "hownah", regerdless of whether the speaker is male or female. However, the genitive/possessive form is never used as the subject of a sentence, so in fact, something along the lines of "sow-wen" will do nicely when using the word in English. (Sea, sea, tá beagánín Gaeilge agam./"Yes, yes, I have a little [Irish] Gaelic.")
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