What is the correct pronunciation of Lerwick ?

Beever, Annick Lucca? Not sure about the last one!

I once heard a speaker on the radio pronounce Ballachulish as Baa latch ulish instead of Balla hoolish.

Relating to Shrewsbury, I am a proud Salopian going back for many generations, I never heard any member of my family refer to our county town as anything other than Shroesbury. There is a theory that the Shrew pronunciation came into usage when the local football team were nicknamed the Shrews.

Local to me is Knaresborough. An American visitor once asked a student of mine if kanaresberg was worth a visit.

Grannmarie

In our area, Lanarkshire, we have Dalziel Estate, the historic Dalziel House, Dalziel High School..
Local pronunciation is DL, dee ell, like the names of the capital letters.

Irrelevant but my ex went to dalziel high school......
Belvoir castle ? Alnwick ? Ulgham ?

My own personal favourite is Sauchiehall Street (in Glasgow) have heard a fair few interesting attempts at that one ?

Our Sat Nav speaks place names literally. For example Witham is "with 'am" when it's pronounced "Witem". We really need to take her to Scotland!!

NotAGran55

I am listening to an audiobook book by Ann Cleeves set in Shetland narrated by Kenny Blyth .

He is alternating between ‘Lerrick ‘ and ‘ Lurwick ‘ which is rather odd .

My Grandmother was a "Shetlander" - she and her friend who migrated to Australia before WW1 both insisted it was pronounced LerWick...they both grew up there. I visited myself in the late 60s and it was definitely LerWick then too.

Living 12 miles away from it, I have always said Mullguy with a Glasgow accent!
Pronouncing it as Milngavie would raise a smile with the locals.

By the way, it has great charity shops!

Sorry MawB, you're quite right and my brain was obviously not in gear . I meant that others pronounce it Ler-wick, with the w sounded. I shall go and lie down quietly now!

Lerick

To add further confusion,
Shrewsbury was pronounced as it sounds (As in Taming of the Shrew...) or referred to as Salop, by the locals. Even found on some of the road signs, back in the 50s and 60s.
In Herefordshire, Leominster was and is pronounced Lemster, and Weobley as Webbly.
Farcet, outside Peterborough is Facet

I would say Mullguy With the emphasis on “guy”- what do others think?
Always used to laugh at “alien” pronunciation of Dumfries and actually we often referred to it as Dumb- fries as a joke!

I suppose in this country we should try to pronounce place names like the locals do.

Strathaven = Straven

Milnigavie = Millguy

Kirkudbright= Kirkubrie

I'm sure there are many others

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WheniwasyourageTue 05-May-20 11:17:57
I think natives pronounce it Lerrick and others pronounce it to rhyme with Berwick

Erm, Lerrick does rhyme with Berwick (Berrick )

Not a spoilerElegran - I’m about to start Book 6!

Varian Paree/Paris, well obviously, given that they speak French and we don’t . I think Lerook is a fair phonetic approximation of * Lerrick*
If we’re going to get on to foreign language versions of cities (Londres/London, Roma/Rome etc etc ) we could be here all night

Locals say "Lerrick" but most English speakers say "Lerwick"

Parisian locals refer to their city as "Paree" but most English spakers say "Paris"

Sorry for the spoiler, MawB! but it was obvious that it was going to go somewhere, eventually.

MawB I really like Marsali Taylor's books, not least because the "love interest" develops so slowly (over at least four books!) So many detective stories have a "wham bam, thank you ma'am" encounter between a (male) detective and a different woman in each book of a series.

Elegran thank you so much for recommending the book of Marsali Taylor! I am hooked.
Incidentally the glossary at the back gives the pronunciation of Lerwick as Lerook
So that answers OP’s question.

Avon is Q-Celtic (Irish and Scottish Gaelic) for abhainn which means a large stream. Or from the p-Celtic(Welsh) afon.
Other river names are from the Q-Celtic uisge which means water, and has also given its name to the water of life= whisky.
The River Usk and Esk are uisge names.

The old peoples did not like to do away with original old river names as rivers were inhabited by spirits that might take their revenge on people who tried to interfere with them too much.

Afon or Avon! Autocorrect should be put down.

Like Avon or Avon meaning river. So Shakespeare's Stratford is on the River River.

There is a hill somewhere (I forget where now, but the present name incorporates elements like Dun, Pen, and so on.) which was named and renamed by successive waves of inhabitants, who each took the previous name in the previous language and incorporated it with their own word for "hill". As the first name just meant "the hill", the next became "hill hill", the following one translated as "hill-hill hill" and eventually it was "hill-hill-hill hill"

Arguably