ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2921 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2921 ************************************ 2 Oct 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked our help constructing a late 7th century name for an Irish woman named Lerthan, whose father was Cormacc and grandfather Morgan (or something similar). Here is what we have found. was not a common name. We have one example, an abbess mentioned in the Annals in 768 and 773 [1]. It is not unlikely that the name was also available at the end of the previous century, but we can't say for sure. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the name was probably pronounced roughly \LEHR-thahn\ [2], with the \ah\ short in duration. The earliest example we have of is from 762 [3]. is not a native Irish name, but we do have an example of an Irishman who died in 663 who was known as "Tuathal son of Morgand" [4, 5]. Putting it all together, is a fine late 8th century century Irish name. Since we do not have earlier examples of and , we can't recommend them without reservations for the late 7th century, but the name is not implausible for the earlier period. The word means "daughter". is the genitive (possessive) form of , which was the early form of the word for "son" [6]. The names of your father and grandfather are in their genitive forms, indicated in these two names by the added in the last syllable (analogous in effect to the <'s> in English ). The addition in indicates a softening of the sound of the initial consonant that it required by Irish grammar in some circumstances. The name as a whole was pronounced in your period \LEHR-thahn EEN-yun KHOHR-mahk vahk^ MHOR-gahn^d^\. The last syllable might also have been \ghan^d^\. The symbol \k^\ represents a palatalized \k\, which is the blend of \k\ and \y\ that's at the beginning of the word . \n^\ and \d^\ are also palatalized consonants: \n^\ is the sound of the in French "mountain" or Italian , and \d^\ the sound at the beginning of the British pronunciation of . \MH\ stands for a sound similar to \v\ pronounced with the lips vibrating against one another with some sound coming out through the nose. \gh\ stands for a sound not used in English; it is the voiced version of the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . 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 Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, and Mari neyn Brian. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 2 Oct 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2002), s.n. Lerthan. http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/ http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/Lerthan.shtml [2] More precisely, the name was probably \L^EHR-th@n\. The symbol \L^\ represents a palatalized \L\, which is the sound of in the French word or the in Italian "of the". \th\ is unvoiced, as in ; and \@\ represents the schwa sound of the in . Note that we are assuming that the pronunciation of late 7th century Old Irish was roughly the same as a couple centuries later. [3] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, op cit, s.n. Cormacc http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Masculine/Cormacc.shtml [4] 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 U663.4. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100001A [5] We have found an earlier example in an Irish genealogy, , but it appear to be part of a listing of kings of Alba (Scotland). O'Brien, M. A., ed., _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976), 162 e 6. [6] Royal Irish Academy, _Dictionary of the Irish Language: based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials_ (Dublin : Royal Irish Academy, 1983), s.vv. ingen, mac(c).