As I was doing my daily check up on all things sports, I came across this article on the BBC website that acts as a guide to how you phonetically pronounce Louis van Gaal’s name correctly, along with some other Premier League names. It was quite interesting to see how I and many a commentator had been pronouncing some of these names incorrectly over the years.
Being a Glaswegian, I found some of them rather difficult to pronounce, but in fairness, we struggle with basic English never mind obscure Argentinian surnames. When I think about it, we’ve got a whole different command of the English language up here, so I thought it could be interesting to convert these proper pronunciations, and some others, into Glaswegian pronunciations. It could be useful if you ever find yourself in a Glasgow pub, or ‘shop’ as we call them and get sucked into a conversation about football with one of our many (inebriated) football experts.
Note: Names and proper nouns are not exempt from the Glaswegian practise of just making up or using other words, for words we do not know or cannot say.
Stressed syllables shown in upper case, -uh denotes a weak vowel as “a” in “sofa” or “ago”
Manchester united manager Louis van Gaal: loo-ay van GAHL (-ah as in ‘ahh, that hurt!’; also, be sure to put extra emphasis on the G.)
Stoke striker Bojan Krkić: bo-Jan krr…krik…kir…just call him Bojan (again, extra emphasis on the J in Bojan.)
Newcastle striker Facundo Ferreyra: fa-cun-doh fer-err-ah (-cun as in country; -doh as in Homer Simpson)
West Bromwich Albion striker Brown Ideye: brown (easy!) id-aye (-id as in lid; -aye as in ‘is that right aye?’)
Newcastle defender Daryl Janmaat: darr-ull jan-mat (-ull as in Hull City; -jan as in your Auntie Jan; -mat as in door mat)
Newcastle midfielder Rémy Cabella: rem-ay cab-ell-ya (-ay as in hay; -ya as in ‘ya dancer!’)
QPR defender Mauricio Isla: marco eye-lah (-marco as in marco, just because; -eye-lah as in Islay Whisky. We definitely know how to say that)
Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino: marco potch-eh-teen-yo (-marco as in marco, again, just because; -eh as in ‘Eh? Speak up!’)
Arsenal midfielder Mesut Özil: mez-ut oes-eel (-oes as in toes)
Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud: oliver ji-rood (-oliver as in ‘please sir, can I have some more?’; -i as in eye, -rood as in rude.)
Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny: woy-check shezz-nay (-woy as in boy, -check as in cheque)
Chelsea “striker” Fernando Torres: that muppit? (muppet) (always end with an upwards inflection as if it was a question.)
Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney: shrek (-shrek as in, that donkey’s pal)
Manchester City midfielder Yaya Touré: ya-ya ya-ya-yaya ya-ya-yaya ya-ya ya-ya toor-AY! (-ya as in ya; -toor as in moor, -AY! as in HAY!)
Know of any more footballers that would sound good in a Glaswegian accent? Let us know in the comments.
