ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2058 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2058 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 30 May 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a late 13th or early 14th century Irishman. You asked what spellings are most appropriate and what surname your daughter would have used. Here is what we have found. Your name is a fine choice; it would most often have been spelled in your period. Each slash represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. Your given name was quite common in Ireland in your period. It was pronounced just like the first syllable of . It was spelled in various ways, but was the most common spelling in your period [1]. It is true that spelling was not standardized in medieval languages, but it wasn't random, either. A word was spelled to reflect its pronunciation, and that pronunciation was encoded according to fairly consistent rules for the sound-value of each letter. Those rules changed from one culture to another, from one time to another, and from one language to another; but spelling generally tended to be fairly stable and conservative. The clan name was also used in your period [3]. It was pronounced \o KUL-y@-nahn~\. The symbol \@\ represents a schwa, the sound of the letter in . \n~\ represents the sound of the n-tilde in the Spanish word or the in the French . Your daughter might have been identified in several ways. Let us assume her name was . She might have been called "Mo/r daughter of Tadhg". You'll notice that the spelling of your name changed when it was incorporated into hers. There are actually two changes, both required by Gaelic grammar. is the possessive (genitive) form of . It is analogous to in English. The phrase was pronounced \EEN-y@n TAYG\. The girl might also be known as "Mo/r daughter of O/ Cuileanna/in". This is the standard feminine form of a Gaelic clan name; it was understood to mean "female member of clan O/ Cuileanna/in". The becomes to reflect a softening in the pronunciation of that letter that happens in Gaelic in some circumstances. The phrase was pronounced \EEN-y@n ee KHULL-y@-nahn~\ in your period. \KH\ represents the raspy sound of the in the Scottish word or the German . In very formal circumstances, the child might have been identified with both bynames: "Mo/r daughter of Tadhg O/ Cuileanna/in". We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek and Mari neyn Bryan. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 30 May 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Tadc. The spellings and were typical spellings before 1200 or so, and still show up in the 14th century in some documents that use conservative spelling [2], but most documents from your period used . [2] Cournane, Mavis, Vibeke Dijkman, Ivonne Tummers, ed., "Anna/la Connacht" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland., 1997). http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100011/ [3] Woulfe, Patrick, _Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames_ (Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation), s.n. O/ Cuileanna/in. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, 26 Oct 2001, Arval: After a word ending in 'n', like , the letters 'D' and 'T' do not lenite.