ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1926 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1926 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 25 Apr 2000 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! Here's the information that we found on , which you wanted to use as a Scottish Gaelic woman's name for the period after 1100. is a modern English name. We can suggest a period Gaelic name built from related elements, but it looks and sounds rather different. Gaelic is one of several important languages spoken in Scotland during your period. It changed significantly between 1100 and 1600, so we've suggested early and late Gaelic forms; the early form would be appropriate until 1200 or a bit later, and the late form after that. In the 12th and 13th centuries there were many languages in the area that is Scotland today. The major ones were Norse, English, Gaelic, and Norman French. During the 14th century Norse became much rarer and Norman French fell out of use. At the same time Scottish English began to be identified as a separate language called Scots. Most Scottish records were written by Scots-speaking scribes who used Scots spelling rules, which are very different from Gaelic rules. These Scots forms developed into the familiar forms of most Gaelic names such as . The original Gaelic forms have very different spellings. We are only going to address the Gaelic form of your name, which is what you would probably use in your own community. Your name might also have been recorded in Scots or Latin, depending on when you lived, but we have not dealt with those forms in this letter. If you're interested in more information, please let us know. We found a Gaelic record of the name from the 12th century. [1] (Throughout this letter a slash stands for an acute accent over the previous letter.) The letters and were used interchangeably at that time, so the same name might have been written . However, was not normally used in Gaelic; the same sound was represented by between vowels, so the more Gaelic spelling was eventually substituted. This later became the modern ; we recommend using this spelling after the early 13th century. [2] The name is a modern English form of a Gaelic man's byname that means 'Muiredach's son'. (A byname is an extra name, usually descriptive in some way, that is used in addition to the given name.) It was understood literally and therefore could not have been used by a woman. (This is still true in modern Gaelic.) A similar byname for a woman must mean 'Muiredach's daughter'. The Gaelic word for 'daughter' was or . The form was common until about 1200; after that time, the form was more common. is the usual early form of a Gaelic name that was in use in Ireland by the late 7th century. [3] In Scotland it appears in a 12th century Gaelic text as . [4] A transcription of a Gaelic manuscript from 1467 shows a variety of spellings, including: [5, 6] Muireachach Muirecac Murechach Muredag Your father's name could have been spelled early in your period and in any of these other four ways in the 15th century. By the end of the SCA period we might expect to see it spelled . In any period, however, it undergoes grammatical changes when you use it to form a byname meaning 'Muiredach's daughter'. First, you need to use the genitive (possessive) form of the name. This is like adding <'s> to an English name. In the 12th century the genitive is attested in the form , and a name meaning 'Eva daughter of Muiredach' might have been written or . [4] Both of these are pronounced appoximately \AY-v@ EEN-y@n VUR-@-dhee\, where \@\ stands for the sound of the in and , and \dh\ stands for the sound of in (*not* the sound in ). The indicated pronunciation of the in as \V\ is correct. It is the result of a grammatical feature of Gaelic called 'lenition', whereby the first consonant of a word is 'softened' in certain contexts. In particular, lenition occurs after the noun 'daughter', and \m\ is softened to \v\. Later in your period matters get a bit more complicated. In the 15th century the genitive of appears in a variety of spellings, including , , and . [5] The first of these is very old-fashioned for the 15th century, while the last quite closely approximates , a spelling that we might expect to see at the end of the SCA period. Clearly, then -- as you would probably expect -- medieval Scottish Gaelic spelling wasn't perfectly consistent. We are going to recommend forms that we think are compatible with those that careful writers of Scottish Gaelic might have used at different times. Starting in the 13th century or so such writers indicated lenition ('softening') of consonants by writing an after them. This and other spelling changes turned the early into . In the 13th century this was still pronounced \AY-v@ EEN-y@n VUR-@-dhee\, but toward the end of the 13th century the pronunciation of changed from \dh\, the sound of in , to a sound not used in English that we denote by \gh\. (This is the change mentioned in note [6].) This sound is the voiced version of the rasping \kh\ sound of in Scottish and German ; to make it, say \kh\ while vibrating your vocal cords. From the late 13th century to the late 15th century the name was pronounced roughly \AY-v@ EEN-y@n VUR-@-ghee\. Toward the end of that period the pronunciation of 'daughter' changed to \NEE-y@n\, so that from the late 15th century on the name could be pronounced \AY-v@ NEE-y@n VUR-@-dhee\. Finally, it appears that during the 16th century the pronunciation of was simplified, at least in some dialects, to \VUR-ee\, so that in the later 16th century the name might also have been pronounced \AY-v@ NEE-y@n VUR-ee\. To sum up, a Gaelic name meaning 'Eva daughter of Muiredach' is possible throughout your period of interest. For the first century or so it would most likely have been spelled or ; thereafter we recommend the spelling , though in fact many intermediate forms are known. The pronunciation changed considerably over your period, however, as outlined in the following table: 12th and 13th centuries: \AY-v@ EEN-y@n VUR-@-dhee\ late 13th - late 15th centuries: \AY-v@ EEN-y@n VUR-@-ghee\ late 15th and 16th centuries: \AY-v@ NEE-y@n VUR-@-ghee\ later 16th century: \AY-v@ NEE-y@n VUR-ee\ Effric neyn Kenyeoch, Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, Juliana de Luna, Blaise de Cormeilles, Walraven van Nijmegen, Barak Raz, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Arval Benicoeur also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been helpful and apologize for the length of time it has been in preparation; if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to write again. For the Academy, Alan Fairfax and Talan Gwynek 24 April 2000 ===== References and Notes: [1] Arval Benicoeur. 'Some Scottish Gaelic Feminine Names' (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998) http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/scotgaelfem/ [2] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire. Irish Names (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990); s.n. E/va. [3] Ibid. s.n. Muiredach. [4] Krossa, Sharon L. (Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte). 'A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names' (WWW: Privately published, 18 June 1997). http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.shtml [5] O/ Baoill, Colm. 'Scotticisms in a Manuscript of 1467', Scottish Gaelic Studies XV, no. Spring 1988 (1988): 122-139. [6] The first three spellings, with and where has a , may seem rather unlikely, but they are explained by a change in Gaelic pronunciation discussed later in this letter; and were apparently attempts to spell \gh\, the new pronunciation of the , more phonetically. (The notation \gh\ is also explained later in the letter, with a reference to this note.)