ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3385
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3385
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4 Jan 2010
From: Gunnvor Silfraharr 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked us to evaluate the authenticity of the name <Sadh ingen
Gilla Mahartain> 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 <Sadh> is a misspelling of <Sadb>, 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 <ingen Gilla Mahartain> would be a patronymic byname
(a byname referring to the bearer's father).  <Gilla Martain> 
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 <ingen Gilla Martain>.

<Sadb ingen Gilla Martain> 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 <a> in <father>, \@\ the sound of 
<a> in <soda>, \DH\ the sound of <th> in <bathe>, and \n^\ the 
sound of <ny> in <nyah-nyah>.  \BH\ is the voiced bilabial 
fricative used in Spanish <lobo> 'wolf' and <uva> '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 <eye>: 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

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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/