ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1834 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1834 ************************************ 26 Oct 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked our help constructing a name for an Irishman living between 400 and 1000, with as your given name and as your father's name. This letter is a brief answer to your question. The earliest surviving written form of Irish dates from around the 4th century and is written on stone in the alphabet called "Ogham." When this writing tradition developed, the Irish language was very different from the medieval form -- about as different as Latin is from French. This stage of the language is variously called "Primitive Irish," "Ogham Irish," or "Oghamic Irish." This writing system continued in active use into the 7th century, and while it was in active use, its users tended to write a conservative form of the language corresponding to what was spoken when the system was developed. The spoken language, however, was undergoing considerable change. When a new writing system using Roman letters was developed in the 6th century, its users broke with tradition and wrote a language much closer to what was actually being spoken. This stage of the language, as recorded from the late 7th century to the mid-10th century the language, is called Old Irish. The problem with reconstructing names used before the Old Irish period is that the only written examples are the Oghamic forms in the Primitive Irish language; and yet we also know that this written Primitive Irish must have been quite different from the spoken language. It takes a good deal of specialized knowledge to put the pieces together and come up with a likely reconstruction of both the written name and its pronunciation; and even then, the best result may be very speculative. If you are particularly interested in a name from earlier than the late 7th century, we can try to help you choose one; but the names you chose, and , are Old Irish names, so we're going to focus on that period. We should note that Oghamic names looked very different from Old Irish names. For example, the Oghamic precursor of is [1]. and were both common names in Ireland in the last centuries of your period [2]. Conall son of Cormac would have been known as , pronounced \KOHN-@l mahk KOR-mahk\. \@\ represents a schwa, the sound of the in . is the genitive (possessive) form of , i.e. it means "Cormac's". We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 26 Oct 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] McManus, Damian, _A Guide to Ogam_ (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1991). [2] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/irish100