ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2304 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2304 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 16 May 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked if we could provide a name suitable for a man in 4th century Ireland that is equivalent to . (The slash in the name represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter.) Here is what we have found. As we explained in previous correspondance, the earliest surviving written form of Irish dates from around the 4th century. It was 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", "Ogam 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, is called Old Irish. Constructing a name appropriate for 4th century Ireland is tricky since the available evidence is limited. Determining the Oghamic precursor to an Old Irish name is even trickier, and we often have to make assumptions that may be incorrect. Our best guess at an Oghamic name that corresponds to is [1, 2, 3]. means "son" and is the genitive (possessive) form of your father's name, . Thus, this name means "Branas son of Cuagnas". In your period, we would expect it to have been pronounced \BRAH-nahs MAHK-kwahs KOO-ang-nee\ [4]. 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 Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 8 May 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] The genitive form appears in an inscription, and the composition vowel is illustrated by . The expected nominative form, therefore, is . McManus, Damian, _A Guide to Ogam_ (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1991), section 6.11 inscription 116 and section 6.6 inscription v. [2] The Old Irish name is a compound of a root identical to the word for dog , and the common name deuterotheme <-a/n>. The latter occurs commonly in Ogham inscriptions as <-agn->, most commonly found in the genitive form <-agni> (McManus, section 6.12). (The genitive is required in your name; the nominative form would be expected to be <-agnas>.) The prototheme would normally be expected to use the full stem (more rarely ) (McManus, section 6.3), and the more grammatically typical compound of these elements (Cunagnas) produced Old Irish . The Ogham nominative (shorter) stem would be expected to be . Assuming that the Old Irish name isn't an innovation of some form, we can assume an Oghamic stem (genitive ), although there are no direct examples of this grammatical form in the surviving material. Since may be a later construction, a more conservative re-creation would prefer the closely-related, documented name (genitive ). [3] The most conservative form of the element meaning "son" occurs in the genitive as (McManus, section 6.27) which corresponds to a nominative . [4] Since your period is fairly early in the Oghamic period, the pronunciation of your name corresponds fairly well to the written form. Since we find a written distinction between and , it is reasonable to believe that the latter still had some labialization at this period (i.e., more of a \kw\ sound). We're not certain of the pronunciation of <-gn->. The loss of the \g\ sound in this combination seems to have occurred earlier than many of the other sound changes (there's one possible written example of <-ani> before syncope shows up in the written forms, but no examples of <-agn> with the retained after final syllables cease to be written). So it's _possible_ that the <-gn-> in this name may have been pronounced in your period somewhat like the later French treatment of this combination, roughly like \ng-n\. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Addendum, Tangwystyl, 21 Aug 2001: I discovered that at least one scholar considers that the in CIIC inscription #41 represents a genitive of the precursor to OIr [Ziegler, 1994, as reported by the Celtic Inscribed Stones Project: Michael Gahan, ed., http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/ (accessed 17 Aug 2001)]. We therefore would now recommend as the Oghamic precursor to , pronounced \BRAH-nahs MAHK-kwahs KOH-vang-nee\.