ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1735 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1735 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 1 Jun 1999 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked about forming a fifth-century Irish name and descriptive byname for your seven-year-old son Benjamin. You thought it best that the name resemble his real one and suggested the Old Irish <Bran>, <Ba/eta/n>, and <Brine> as possibilities. For the byname you were hoping to find something meaning 'like a young bull', 'the young bull', 'the bull', or the like. As you know from earlier correspondence, finding a 5th century precursor to an Old Irish name is a matter of good fortune, and constructing one hypothetically is a pretty speculative endeavor. In the event we decided to adopt a somewhat different approach; it is still more than a bit speculative, but we think that we may have come even closer to what you wanted. [1] The Old Irish masculine name <Banba/n> is etymologically a diminutive of the word <banb> 'pig', essentially equivalent to English 'piglet'. The diminutive suffix <-a/n> is known to come from an earlier <-agnos> that is seen (in the genitive case as <-agni>) in many Ogham inscriptions. The root <banb-> is thought to be the same as that seen in the Gaulish name <Banuus>, probably from the late 2nd century. [3, 4] From this we may fairly safely reconstruct an Oghamic predecessor to <Banba/n> in the form <Banbagnas>. Any reconstruction of pronunciation is necessarily even more speculative than the reconstruction of the written form. If we make the reasonable assumption that the actual 5th century pronunciation was intermediate between the pronunciations represented by the conservative Oghamic and later Old Irish written forms, we arrive at something like \BAHN-vah-ny@s\. [5] We thought that since the stressed syllable here is very similar to <Ben>, this might be a good choice for a seven-year-old. As one might expect from later Irish practice, patronymics are by far the most common sort of byname in the Oghamic inscriptions. We did find one example of a byname meaning 'son of the tribe of Dovinias' and another meaning 'prince'. [6] The latter shows that bynames indicating a personal characteristic rather than a relationship others were not unknown, though it's still quite a step from bynames of rank to nicknames on the order of 'the young bull'. Our safest suggestion is based on the Old Irish word <dam> 'ox; stag; hero, champion'. The common noun <dam> and its diminutive <dama/n> 'calf; fawn' gave rise to the masculine names <Dam> and <Dama/n>, respectively. [7] Moreover, according to the traditional genealogies, the diminutive <dama/n> was borne as a sobriquet by <A/ed Dama/n>, a king of West Munster who died in 633. [8] If we assume that an ancestral form of this nickname was possible a century and a half earlier, we need only regress it to the appropriate stage of the language. Fortunately, this turns out to be not just possible but quite straightforward. Comparative evidence from the other Celtic languages shows that the Proto-Celtic root must have been <*dam->, and the diminutive <-a/n> is the same as before. [9] Putting the pieces together, we may reasonably reconstruct <Damagnas> as an Oghamic precursor to <Dama/n>; its pronunciation was probably something like \DAH-v~@-ny@s\. [10] So far as we can tell, <Banbagnas Damagnas> is a plausible Oghamic precursor to an Old Irish <Banba/n Dama/n> 'Banba/n (the) Calf'. It is also possible to construct a nickname based on Old Irish <tarb> 'bull'. The Proto-Celtic root appears to be <*tarv->, and the hypothetical Oghamic diminutive is therefore <Tarbagnas>, pronounced something like \TAR-v@-ny@s\. [11, 5] This is semantically a little closer to what you had in mind. However, we found no evidence for early Irish names or nicknames based on this root, so we consider this a much shakier re-creation. We mention it because the root does seem to have given rise to some personal names in the related Gaulish language. We do not, however, consider that to be sufficient justification for reconstructing a related name in Oghamic Irish: while there are large overlaps between Gaulish and Irish naming practices, there are also significant differences. Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Arval Benicoeur, and Teceangl Bach also contributed to this letter. We hope that in our efforts to find a historically plausible name we haven't strayed too far from what a seven-year-old can readily manage. Please don't hesitate to write if anything is not clear; though the Academy is on vacation for a few months, we do expect to handle the odd follow-up question during that period. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 30 May 1999 ===== References and Notes: [1] For instance, the Oghamic precursor to <Ba/eta/n> was <Baidagnas>, which isn't really very close to <Ben(jamin)>. [2] [2] McManus, Damian. A Guide to Ogam (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1991). [3] Thurneysen, Rudolf. A Grammar of Old Irish. Trans. by D.A. Binchy & Osborn Bergin (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975); p.173f. [4] Evans, D. Ellis. Gaulish Personal Names: a Study of some Continental Celtic Formations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967); p.149. [5] This requires a few words of explanation. The \@\ stands for the schwa vowel spelled <a> in <sofa> and <about>. The \v\ should probably be like the Spanish <b> in <Habana> 'Havana' and <lobo> 'wolf'. The normal English \v\ sound is made by expelling air between the upper teeth and the lower lip while the vocal cords are vibrating; for the Spanish sound the air is expelled between the upper and lower lips, rather as if one were blowing out a candle and humming at the same time. Finally, the \ny\ is really a single sound, not a sequence of \n\ and the \y\ of <yes>. This is the sound spelled n-tilde in Spanish <can~on> 'canyon' and <gn> in French <montagne> 'mountain'. Your son may well find it simpler just to say \BAHN-v@-ny@s\. [6] Jackson, Kenneth. Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh: The University Press, 1953). [7] Royal Irish Academy. Dictionary of the Irish Language: based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials (Dublin : Royal Irish Academy, 1983); s.vv. <dam>, <Dam>, <dama/n>, <Dama/n>. [8] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire. Irish Names (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990); s.n. <Dama/n>. [9] Macbain, Alexander. Etymological Dictionary of Scottish-Gaelic. 2nd ed. (Orig. publ 1907(?); reprint New York: Hippocrene, 1998); s.v. <damh>. [10] The \@\ and \ny\ have the same significance as before. The sequence \v~\ stands for the nasalized version of the Spanish \v\ sound described in note [5]: pronounce that sound while keeping your nasal passage open, so that air escapes through the nose as well as between the lips. Alternatively, pronounce \m\, but instead of keeping your lips closed, let some air escape between them instead of through your nose. Your son may find it much simpler just to say \DAH-m@-ny@s\. [11] Macbain, op.cit. s.v. <tarbh>. [12] Evans, op. cit., p.261ff.