AN American fantasy author has been criticised for incorrectly pronouncing Gaelic words contained within her bestselling book.
Rebecca Yarros’s novel Fourth Wing follows the life of 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail as she attempts to become a dragon rider at an elite college in the kingdom of Navarre.
Published earlier this year Yarros's book has spent 25 weeks on the New York Times' Bestseller list and has become a must-read for fans of the fantasy genre.
Throughout the book Yarros employed Gaelic words to name dragons and the college attended by Sorrengail, although the story itself is not inspired by Gaelic folklore.
However, while appearing at New York Comic Con, Yarros was interviewed by the culture website Popverse.
During the interview she was asked how to correctly pronounce the Gaelic words used in the book.
“Seeing as you are the author, you are the source, I just want to know if we can set the record straight on like maybe this is how you pronounce them,” said interviewer Veronica Valencia.
@ceartguleabhar #stitch with @Popverse rebecca yarros please hire an actual gaelic speaker for ur next book bc this is a joke babes xxx srsly tho im not saying no one can use gaelic but at least do a lil research!! so many american authors are guilty of this - fourth wing isnt even inspired by scotland or its folklore so why is there gaelic in it??? bc shes relying on a minority language to add depth to her story. at least pronounce the words right if u insist on writing a book using a language you cannot speak lol #fourthwing #gaelic #gàidhlig #scottishgaelic ♬ original sound - muireann 🤍📖🫶🏻🐈🫧
But according to one book reviewer and native Gaelic speaker Muireann (@ceartguleabhar), Yarros’s attempts to pronounce the words fall well wide of the mark.
Indeed, when telling Valencia that her pronunciation of the college’s name, Basgiath, is “a more Gaelic pronunciation”, Yarros uses the English pronunciation for Irish Gaelic (gay-lik) as opposed to the correct pronunciation for Scots Gaelic (gaa-lik).
“After seeing that video I have personal beef with Rebecca Yarros,” said Muireann on TikTok.
“Because Rebecca I truly cannot believe that you wrote a book with Gaelic (gaa-lik) words in it and you are on an interview calling them Gaelic (‘gay-lik’.)
“Gaelic (gay-lik’) is a different language. You did not use Gaelic (‘gay-lik’) in your book. You used Gaelic ('gaa-lik'), babes.
“She goes on to wildly mispronounce all of the Gaelic words that she used.”
Muireann proceeds to correct Yarros’s mispronunciations and articulate her frustration at the use of Gaelic by Yarros “to add depth to her story”.
“It’s genuinely laughable to me that American fantasy authors can get away with this," she said.
“They can use minority languages in such a disrespectful way. They’re just pronouncing them like English speakers.
“She’s just sprinkling Gaelic words in there to add a bit of spice to a fantasy book.
“I am so sick of Americans using Celtic languages because they can’t come up with their own names for things. It’s incredibly lazy.”
Muireann's video has more than 900,000 views on TikTok. She has also posted a series of videos showing fans of the novel how to correctly pronounce the Gaelic words within it.
It comes after the rights to Fourth Wing were purchased by Amazon and Michael B Jordan’s production company Outlier Society, with a potential TV series set to stream on Amazon Prime.
Rebecca Yarros has been contacted for comment.
