ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2628 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2628 ************************************ 6 Mar 2003 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether or are appropriate names for a woman from Ireland in the mid-7th century or, if that doesn't work, the 10th century. Here is what we have found. 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. The problem with reconstructing names used before the Old Irish period is that the only written forms that we know are the Oghamic forms in the Primitive Irish language, and yet we also know that by the 6th century this written Primitive Irish must have been quite different from the way the language was actually spoken. It takes a good deal of specialized knowledge to put the pieces together and come up with a likely reconstruction of both the written name and its pronunciation. We can attempt it for the names that interest you, but for now we'll focus on the Old Irish forms of the names, which were used from the late 7th century on. The masculine and feminine given name was used rarely but occasionally in early medieval Ireland. The slash in the name represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. We have identified both a man and woman of this name who lived in the 8th century [1, 2]. The name was pronounced \AY-r@-nahkh\, where \@\ represents the sound of the in or ; and \kh\ stands for the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . The earliest certain examples we've found of and its early spelling are from 790, 807, and 954 [3, 4, 5]. We recommend the spelling ; the <-nn> spelling first appeared around 800 but supplanted <-nd> at the ends of the words quite slowly [7]. We found somewhat earlier, in 785 and 833 [6]. When used in a Gaelic woman's patronymic byname, her father's name has to be put into the correct grammatical form, the genitive (possessive) case. The initial consonant may also soften in pronunciation in a grammatical change called "lenition". The genitive form of is the same as the nominative form, and lenition does not apply, so is correct; it is pronounced \AY-r@-nahkh EEN-y@n ROO-@dh-ree\. \dh\ here stands for the sound of the in . If you want your father's name to be , then your name becomes , pronounced \AIR-ahn-AY-r@-nahkh EEN-y@n KHOON~\. is the genitive form of , and the extra 'h' indicates the softening of the initial \K\ sound to \KH\. \n~\ stands for the sound of the in French "mountain" or Italian . 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 Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, and Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 6 Mar 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n Erennach. [2] O/ Corra/in and Maguire mention E/rennach, daughter of Murchad, king of Meath. According to quite a number of websites, Murchad Midi, king of Meath, lived in the early 8th century. For example: http://www.geocities.com/bpstratton/gedcom/d0007/g0000014.html [3] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, "The Annals of Ulster" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997), entry U954.3. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100001/ [4] Mavis Cournane, "Annals of the Four Masters, vol. 1", six volumes (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997-98), entries M790.8 , M807.18 . http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005A. [5] We found a possible example of even earlier. A man said to have lived in 563 is recorded as in one Annal, in another. His father's name might have been an early form of . However, it's important to note that these names appear in forms appropriate only many centuries after the attributed dates. Annals of Ulster, entry U563.1. O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, ed., "Annals of Tigernach" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1996), entry T563.2. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100002/ [6] Annals of Ulster, U785.1, U833.2. [7] Thurneysen, Rudolf, _A Grammar of Old Irish_, trans. by D.A. Binchy & Osborn Bergin (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975), p.93.