ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3385 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3385 ************************************ 4 Jan 2010 From: Gunnvor Silfraharr Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us to evaluate the authenticity of the name as that of an Irish woman living in Ireland between 900 and 1250 C.E. First, we'd like to apologize for the time this letter has taken; we hope the information is still of use to you. We believe is a misspelling of , which appears as a feminine given name in the Irish annals in five entries for years during your period, the earliest being 1048. [1] The proposed would be a patronymic byname (a byname referring to the bearer's father). appears as a masculine given name in the annals, in entries for the years 1050 and 1178. [1] You could reasonably use this as the name of your father, and construct a patronymic byname from it. But the form you've suggested is not quite right. We would expect to see . is, therefore, a plausible name for a woman living around the year 1200. We believe this would be pronounced roughly \SAHDHBH EEN-y@n YIL-l@ BH~AR-t@n^\. Here \AH\ represents the sound of in , \@\ the sound of in , \DH\ the sound of in , and \n^\ the sound of in . \BH\ is the voiced bilabial fricative used in Spanish 'wolf' and 'grape', which is made by positioning your lips to say a \b\, but relaxing them slightly so that the air steadily escapes between them to make a sound rather like \v\. \BH~\ is the same sound, but with some of the air allowed to escape through your nose instead of between your lips. The combination \DHBH\ is rather difficult; if it proves too awkward for regular use, a reasonable compromise would be \SEYBH\, where \EY\ has the sound of the word : it's possible that by the end of your period some people were starting to use a pronunciation something like this. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. We were assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, Ursula Georges, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Coblaith Muimneach and Gunnvor silfraharr ------------------------------------------------------ Reference: [1] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). http://www.medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/