ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2099 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2099 ************************************ 1 Jun 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for pronunciations of , , and appropriate for the period 1100-1600, and of for the 7th century. This letter is a brief answer to your question. On reviewing our sources, we find that our evidence for the name is unreliable, so we recommend you avoid this choice. The name appears in a variety of early spellings, which may represent the confusion of two different names. For the first century or so of your period, we can recommend , pronounced \AHL~-ayn~\, or , pronounced \AHL~-ayn~-@\, and , pronounced \AHL~-een~-@\ [1, 2]. Later in period, this name was spelled and pronounced \AHL~-een~\ [3]. Throughout this letter, a forward slash in a name represents an acute accent mark on the preceding vowel. In the pronunciations, \@\ represents a schwa, which is the sound of the in or . A tilde after a letter indicates that the consonant is palatalized, i.e. pronounced with the tongue arched to touch the upper palate. The palatalized 'l' is the sound of in the French word and the sound of in Spanish . The palatalized 'n' is the sound of n-tilde in Spanish words like or of the in French words like . The name was very popular in Ireland in the early part of your period [4]. It was spelled the same throughout your period and pronounced \AHL~-eel~\. In the 7th century, would probably have been pronounced \AHL~-@-rahn\. We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 1 June 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Aille/n. [2] O'Brien, M. A., ed., _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976). [3] Woulfe, Patrick, _Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames_ (Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation), s.n. Aili/n. [4] 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