Irish Translation Forum

What is the phonetic English for the Irish goddess name Flidais?

I have found about 4 different possible pronunciations, and the vowel order does not seem to follow the rules ("ida").

TIA,
Peter

the spelling Fliadais would probably be more likely,
pronounciation would be along the lines of FLEE-dash

PeterM wrote:What is the phonetic English for the Irish goddess name Flidais?

I have found about 4 different possible pronunciations, and the vowel order does not seem to follow the rules ("ida").

TIA,
Peter

That's "Fliodhais" in modern Irish. Pronounced (I presume from the spelling, I don't think I've ever heard it pronounced): "flyu-ish"

Flidais (aka Foltchain - beautiful hair or fair haired?) --- Celtic goddess of the hunt and lust (possibly also Celtic outcasts), and protector of the forest.

Pronunciation from the web:

Flidais -- FLEE DEE az
Flidais -- FLEE daws
Flidais -- flidish
Flidais -- FLEE da ish or maybe FLEE deesh (me trying by rules)

Now spelled what appears to be more Irish:

Fliadais -- FLEE dash which seems more likely, but "dash"?
Fliodhais -- flyu ish looks even better, but shouldn't the first syllable be accented? How would you pronounce "flyu"?

Any other votes? Looking for a little concensus here.
TIA, Peter

In looking up the name on some Irish name lists, including the first 2 suggested on this site, the name Flidais is missing. Some of these sites are quite extensive, and the omission of Flidais seems quite glaring! Is there some Catholic censorship going on here?

- Pete

I agree with Redwolf. It's not a common baby name, so that's probably why it's not listed on the name websites.

mhwombat wrote:I agree with Redwolf. It's not a common baby name, so that's probably why it's not listed on the name websites.

Besides the Irish baby name sites, I also searched what appears to be fairly comprehensive Irish name sites like Name Nerds (http://www.namenerds.com/irish/humanlist.html) which contain:

Traditional Irish First Names
Anglicizations of Irish names
Modern Irish Names
Irish Surnames Used as First Names
Irish Type Names for Irish Roots
Irish Saints' Names
House Names
Boat Names
Problem Names (names that cannot be traditionally translated)

They advertise as having Irish names "from Obscure to Modern" to "name a baby, pet, house, characters for your novel, D&D/SCA character, whatever". Seems like they should have it pretty well covered. But, they don't list Flidais, which is the eqivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis and the Roman goddess Diana, yet other names of gods and goddesses are listed. By "Googling" Flidais, I come up with a little less than 30,000 web pages. Most of these refer to real people and not the Irish goddess. Maybe not a very common name, but neither is it rare as other names that are listed on Irish name sites.

Rarely (Google-wise), Flidais is also referred to as Fliethas. Different spelling or different name?

If the Seán a'Chóta pronunciation is the consensus (is it?), then how is "flyu-ish" pronounced? I get the "ish" part, but is "flyu" pronounced "fly"+ a long or short "u"? Or, is it pronounced some other way?

Should I use the apparently old spelling Flidais, or the modern Irish spelling Fliodhais as given by Seán a'Chóta?

- Peter

well the old spelling would havin been pronounced flih- dh(as in the there those)ash. In old irish, if memory serves, there was no schwah thus fili and file were pronounced differently and were able to be used as different cases of the same word. for modern irish seán's is perfect.

Riadach wrote:well the old spelling would havin been pronounced flih- dh(as in the there those)ash. In old irish, if memory serves, there was no schwah thus fili and file were pronounced differently and were able to be used as different cases of the same word. for modern irish seán's is perfect.

So, you are saying the ending is "ash", not "ish"?

And the beginning is "flih" is "fli"+"h" as in flip, flit, or flilth?

Isn't the first syllable in a name normally accented?

Put together, are you saying: "FLIH thash"?

I am so confused!

- Peter