The pronunciation of Whisky names

When words are not pronounced the same way they are spelled

The art of distilling Whisky was brought to Scotland via Ireland by the Celtic migration. Due to migration, the language spoken by the Celts was divided into many small sub-languages. Despite all efforts, the number of people speaking Gaelic is declining and UNESCO classifies these languages as threatened. Only 2.5 million people are still proficient in Gaelic, mainly in Ireland and Wales.

Scottish Gaelic is only spoken by about 60,000 people. The majority are in Scotland, 1500 in Canada, 1600 in the USA, 800 in Australia and 600 in New Zealand.

Despite the disappearance of this language, the Gaelic words have remained in the Whiskies of the Scots. The world's best-selling Scottish Single Malt Whisky is called Glenfiddich. 'Glen' means valley and 'Fiddich' is the stag. So Glenfiddich stands for the 'Valley of the Deer'. The first position among the best-selling Single Malt Whiskies was taken over by Glenlivet for a short time in the past. And again 'Glen' is valley and 'Livet' is the name of the river Livet, which is a tributary of the river Spey.

A second easy to learn Gaelic word is 'Ben'. 'Ben' stands for 'mountain'. The distillery Ben Nevis stands at the foot of the 1345m highest Scottish mountain Ben Nevis. And analogously the Whisky distillery Benrinnes stands at the foot of the 840m high Ben Rinnes.

But these two words Ben and Glen are already the end of the simplicity of the translations of the Whisky names. 'Aber' (Aberfeldy, Aberlour, Aberagrie) for the mouth of a river may be worth mentioning. And 'inch' which can stand for the measuring unit but also for 'long' (Inchmurrin, Inchfad, InchDairnie).

Allt-á-Bhainne, Auchentoshan, Bunnahabhain, Dailuaine, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Strathisla and a few dozen more are tongue twisters whose pronunciation is often hard to remember. Therefore, Whisky.com has included audio files with the usual pronunciations to the majority of Whiskies since 1998. Recently we have renewed these audio files and added new distilleries.

However, the pronunciation of Whisky brands is not always clear. With the many Gaelic dialects there is more than one correct pronunciation, depending on who is speaking. That becomes quite clear with the Gaelic 'ch'-sound. If it stands at the end of a word, some people leave out the 'h' and speaks the end more like a 'k'. Thus, one hears both 'Glenfiddi-k' and 'Glenfiddi-ch' pronounced in Scotland. What is right? Well, in the end it doesn't have to be that exact. Everyone will understand it. This 'ch'- and 'k'-displacement also exists in the German region Bavaria, from where the Celts were expelled by the Romans.

What else is there to know to be able to pronounce Whisky brands better without having to memorize individual names? The Gaelic distillery names are almost always stressed on the second syllable, as in Glen'morangie or Glen'fiddich. Only Talisker distillery is stressed on the first syllable. However, that has a different meaning: Talisker does not come from the Gaelic but from the Nordic language. This is where the Vikings left their mark.

The English spoken in Scotland today has mixed with Gaelic over the millennia. In particular, the tone, which constitutes a dialect, was strongly influenced by Gaelic. For instance, the 'a'-sound is pronounced differently in Scotland. There are also important differences in the 'r'-sound.

Of course, there are absolute tongue twisters like Té Bheag (Djsche Waek) or Abhainn Dearg (Awaen Jscheraek), but their pronunciation is not easy to understand. We have therefore made a great effort and tried to use the most near-native pronunciations for every distillery in our database. The names were recited and linked on our homepage next to the distillery name in a small play button symbol. So you have the possibility to listen to the articulation of a Whisky at any time.

We are looking forward to your 'language training' in our database.