ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2859 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2859 ************************************ 20 Mar 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked our help putting together an Irish Gaelic name meaning "Maire daughter of Murchadh of the O hAllmhurain clan" that is appropriate for the 1400s. Here is what we have found. The earliest examples we've found of a real person using , the Irish Gaelic form of , is at the end of the 14th century, in 1396 [1]. The slash represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. It's a fine choice for the 1400s. It was pronounced roughly \MAHR-yuh\ [2]. is also a fine choice: It was in continuous use from the early Middle Ages through your period [1]. In your name, your father's name follows the word "daughter"; and Irish grammar requires some changes in the name. First, it must be put into its genitive (possessive) form so that the phrase will mean "daughter _of_ Murchadh". Second, the initial consonant softens from \M\ to \V\, a change indicated in spelling by adding an to produce . This phrase was probably pronounced roughly \EEN-yun VUR-(uh)-khoh-wuh\ in the 15th century [3]. \kh\ here stands for the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German , and \oh\ represents the vowel sound in . The parentheses in (uh) indicate that this syllable is very lightly pronounced. The clan name appears in English-language records around 1600 in the anglicized forms and [5, 7]. We aren't really sure how this clan name was pronounced in your period, but based on the English rendering of the name mentioned earlier, our best guess is \oh HAHL-wo-rahn~\. \n~\ stands the sound of n-tilde in Spanish words like and of in French words like "mountain". In your name, since you are described as "daughter of Murchadh O/ hAllmhurain", the clan byname also needs to be in the genitive (possessive) form: , pronounced \EEN-yun VUR-(uh)-khoh-wuh ee AHL-wo-rahn~\. 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, Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 20 Mar 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2002). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/ [2] More precisely, was pronounced \MAH-r~@\, where \r~\ represents a palatalized \r\, i.e. \r\ pronounced with your tongue arched to touch the roof of your mouth. \@\ stands for the sound of the in or . [3] A more precise pronunciation of is \EEN~-@n VUR-(@)-khoh-w@\. \N~\ stands for a palatalized \n\, which is the sound of n-tilde in Spanish words like and of in French words like "mountain". (@) indicates a lightly pronounced schwa (the sound in ). This pronunciation is more than usually speculative, because we don't have clear evidence of the pronunciation of in the 15th century. We know that the change in pronunciation of lenited from \dh\ to \gh\ is first noted at the end of the 11th c. and must have been completed by the 13th c [4]. We have ca.1600 Englishings of as , , and, heaven help us, , and of as , , and in surnames was pronounced \oo\ [5]. We'd guess at something like \VUR-kh@-gh@\ ca.1300, but evidence for the development from there to \VUR-(@)-khoo\ is pretty sketchy. The fairly consistent in the English spellings is probably misleading in suggesting \gh\: the name appears in English sources c.1600 as and , and appears as [5]; and there are many other instances in which English apparently represents \kh\. It looks, then, as if ca.1600 the pronunciation was already something like \VUR-@-khoo\, or perhaps \VUR-@-khoe\; here the \@\ appears to be an epenthetic vowel introduced to break up the \rkh\ cluster, and the \gh\ has apparently undergone a development similar to that of OE \gh\ after back vowels (OE [A:GEn], ME [O:U@n] 'own'; OE [bOGA], ME [bO:U@] 'bow'). The epenthetic vowel in this environment is now found in all Irish dialects [6], so our best guess is that it goes back a ways, at least as a fairly common feature of normal pronunciation. Our recommendation is thus a guess at a likely intermediate between the ca.1300 and ca.1600 pronunciations. [4] Thurneysen, Rudolf, _A Grammar of Old Irish_, trans. by D.A. Binchy & Osborn Bergin (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975). [5] Woulfe, Patrick, _Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames_ (Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation), s.nn. O/ Murchadha, Mac Murchadha, O/ Lachlainn, O/ Lachtna, O/ hAllmhurain. [6] O/ Siadhail, Mi/chea/l, _Learning Irish_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). [7] Maclysaght, Edward, _The Surnames of Ireland_ (Dublin: Irish Academic Press Ltd., 1985), s.n. (O) Halloran.