ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3105 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3105 ************************************ 15 Dec 2005 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for an Irish man living in the 9th century. Here is the information we have found. Even though you are interested in the 9th century, by which time the language in use was Old Irish, we'd like to give you some information about the languages in use prior to your period, because it will help in our discussions of the name elements you've chosen. 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. [4] is an Old Irish rendering of the Oghamic name , which was relatively common name in the very early part of Irish history. [1,5,10] However, the latest examples that we have found are all substantially before your period: [2,6,7,8] = five generations before a man who died in 548-549 = 13 generations before a man who lived in the 7th C = 15 generations before a man who died in 1014 = the father of a man mentioned in a record for the year 226 = 13 generations before a man mentioned in a record for the year 600 Even if we estimate only 20 years to an average generation, this puts the last latest instance that we know of around the year 700, and if an average generation is 30 years [9], our latest example is from the middle of the 6th century. Based on this, we cannot recommend as a good choice for your given name unless you shift your period back to the Oghamic era, when it would have been spelled . If you are interested, we can recommend a somwhat similar name that was used in the 8th and 9th centuries: . [7,8] is a fine choice for your father's name; it was relatively common in the early period, and we found a king who died in the 9th century and a grandfather of a man who lived in 782, both named . [2,3] A byname meaning 'son of Tadc' is a fine choice for your period; it would be . We've also found evidence that (in some form) was used as early as the 2nd century. [8] It appears to be a cognate with the Gaulish name , from the root . Celtic became Old Irish ; we're not certain when this change occurred but we believe that it happened either before or during the Oghamic period, and hence we can speculate that is a possible Oghamic spelling of . An Oghamic byname meaning 'son of Tadgas' would then be . In sum, we can recommend for a 9th century Irish man, or for a man between the 2nd and 7th centuries. In the 8th-9th centuries, would have been pronounced roughly \AHN-(@)M-kh@dh mahk TAHDHG\, where \@\ represents the sound of in or , \kh\ is the sound of in Scottish or German , and \dh\ is the sound of in . The in was apparently a separate syllable, but it's likely that in practice a bit of a true vowel usually crept in; we've used \(@)\ to indicate this possibility, since the vowel would have been similar to the \@\ already described. The pronunciation of varies substantially depending on the period of use. We can offer the following rough approximations: - 4th c.: \IM-bih-kah-toos MAH-kwahs TAHD-gee\, with secondary stress on \kah\ - early 6th c.: \IM-beh-khahth mahk TAHDHG\ - late 6th c. and 7th c.: \IMB-khahth mahk TAHDHG\ The 5th century was a period of great change in the Irish language, and we cannot offer a pronunciation for this period without further knowledge. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Mari neyn Brian, Eleyne de Comnocke, Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, Juliana de Luna, and Gunnvor silfraharr. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 15 December 2005 -- References: [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). s.nn. Anmchad, Imchad, Tadc [2] Genealogies from Rawlinson B 502, compiled by Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CURIA Project. 1. First draft, revised and corrected. Proof corrections by Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, Dara Mac Domhnaill. (CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, College Road, Cork, Ireland, 1997). http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G105003/index.html [3] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, ed., "Annals of Inisfallen" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 2000) http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100004/ [4] 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. [5] Heather Rose Jones (Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn) "Some Masculine Ogham Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1999-2001). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/tangwystyl/ogham/ [6] Genealogies from Rawlinson B 502, compiled by Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CURIA Project. 1. First draft, revised and corrected. Proof corrections by Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, Dara Mac Domhnaill. (CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, College Road, Cork, Ireland, 1997). http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G105003/index.html [7] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, "The Annals of Ulster" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997) http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100001/ [8] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & 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 to M902.7. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100005A/. [9] Tremblay, Marc and He/le\ne Ve/zina. "New Estimates of Intergenerational Time Intervals for the Calculation of Age and Origins of Mutations". Am. J. Hum. Genet 66 (2000) pp. 651–658. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v66n2/991229/991229.web.pdf [10] Jackson, Kenneth, _Language and history in early Britain; a chronological survey of the Brittonic languages, first to twelfth century A.D._ (Edinburgh, University Press, 1953), p. 173