ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2568 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2568 ************************************ 22 Aug 2002 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a Scottish Gaelic woman living between 1000 and 1400. Here is what we have found. Before we start, we would like to apologize for the time it's taken us to answer your question. Your research was very good, and the name you've constructed is nearly correct. We will suggest a few minor corrections in spelling and grammar. Choosing an appropriate spelling depends in part on what period you want to re-create: Gaelic spelling underwent a significant change around 1200, so you'll want different spellings before and after 1200. Since you used pre-1200 spellings in your question, we'll focus on that period. If you want a name suitable for a later period, let us know and we'll try to help. The feminine name appears in the Gaelic notes to the 12th century Book of Deer [1]. However, this is the only example of this Gaelic name that we've found, so we're not sure exactly what name it represents or when it was in use other than this one time in history. For the best re-creation, we suggest you focus on the 12th century, when this name was actually recorded in use. , with an acute accent mark on the 'e', is a normalized spelling [2] of , which is how the genitive (possessive) form of actually appears in the Book of Deer. is the normalized genitive of , which appears in the Book of Deer in the Latin form . You've basically put these three names together correctly, following the pattern of the one masculine three-generation name in this source, , and you've correctly changed to in your father's name to show lenition. However, the in would also have changed to for lenition, and so the name in 12th century spelling should be [1]. Because we aren't sure what name represents, we can't be sure how it was pronounced. If is an etymologically correct early spelling, then the later spelling might have been , and the name would have been pronounced \AY-d~@\. \AY\ rhymes with . \d~\ represents a palatalized \d\, i.e. a \d\ pronounced with the tongue arched to touch the upper palate. The result is roughly halfway between the first sounds of the words and . \@\ stands for the sound of the in and . On the other hand, might represent a name -- identical to a Gaelic word meaning "wing, pinion, quill" [3] -- with a later spelling of and a pronunciation of \AT-t~@\. \t~\ is the sound halfway between the initial sounds of and . The vowel combination is rather rare in Gaelic, so again we're not quite sure how was pronounced. Our best guess is that it is roughly \KHOO-l~ay@n~\ or \KHOO-l~ayn~\. \KH\ represents the raspy sounds in the Scottish word or German . As above, the tilde \~\ indicates a palatalized consonant. \l~\ is the sound of the in the French word and the in Italian . \n~\ is the sound of n-tilde in Spanish or the in French and Italian . is silent, so our best guess at the pronunciation of the full name is \AY-d~@ EE-n~@n KHOO-l~ay@n~ vek AIR-DOAV-neech\ [4]. The final \ch\ stands for the sound of in the German word . If you're not familiar with that, you can simply pronounce the \ee\ ending as if you were about to say . 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, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Laurensa de Chambord. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 22 Aug 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] 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. [2] Gaelic orthography had fairly fixed rules; accordingly, we can construct a spelling which we have not actually found in period records. This is called a normalized spelling, which can be thought of as the theoretically correct spelling according to the rules for the period under consideration rather than the most common spellings actually found. [3] Royal Irish Academy, _Dictionary of the Irish Language: based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials_ (Dublin : Royal Irish Academy, 1983). [4] The \V\ here should more accurately be \BH\, the voiced bilabial fricative that is the sound of the Spanish . That is to say, you make it like a \v\ but with your lips vibrating together rather than with your lower lip vibrating against your upper teeth.