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RE: Fifty Tastes of Whisky: Bunnahabhain Ceòbanach
Voted from a fellow whisky drinker. A point of interest, is Isaly really pronounced eye-luh? I thought it was more eye-la!
Voted from a fellow whisky drinker. A point of interest, is Isaly really pronounced eye-luh? I thought it was more eye-la!
Excellent question. I was on the fence about including that bit talking about how to say Islay! But I am happy I did. When you say eye-la , I assume you mean a long a, as heard in the word lay. I typically hear it being spoken with a soft uh sound (much the a in soda), and less typically I hear it spoken with a soft "ah" sound (much like the sound in blah) . Either way, the soft sounds I describe are very similar to each other, and might even be used interchangeably. I am quite confident that the long a sound is not used by locals (and Scots in general) when uttering Islay.
All of that, and I ignored the first syllable altogether!!! What I was going to say is that the EYE sound in Islay is just an approximation -- not quite spot on if being spoken by a Scot. In practice, it would be more like the i sound in kite.
Oh aye, I an good with the first syllable!!
Yes I agree with the soda sounding one and you are right it's definitely not the long aigh as in lay. That would be contemptible!! :0)