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 <Ma/ire>, the Irish Gaelic form of <Mary>, 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]. <Murchadh> 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 <inghean> "daughter"; and Irish grammar requires some changes in the name. First, it must be put into its genitive (possessive) form <Murchadha> 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 <h> to produce <inghean Mhurchadha>. This phrase was probably pronounced roughly \EEN-yun VUR-(uh)-khoh-wuh\ in the 15th century [3]. \kh\ here stands for the raspy <ch> sound in the Scottish word <loch> or German <Bach>, and \oh\ represents the vowel sound in <more>. The parentheses in (uh) indicate that this syllable is very lightly pronounced. The clan name <O/ hAllmhurain> appears in English-language records around 1600 in the anglicized forms <O Halowrane> and <O Halloraine> [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 <sen~or> and of <gn> in French words like <montagne> "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: <inghean Mhurchadha ui/ Allmhurain>, 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, <Ma/ire> 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 <a> in <about> or <soda>. [3] A more precise pronunciation of <inghean Mhurchadha> is \EEN~-@n VUR-(@)-khoh-w@\. \N~\ stands for a palatalized \n\, which is the sound of n-tilde in Spanish words like <sen~or> and of <gn> in French words like <montagne> "mountain". (@) indicates a lightly pronounced schwa (the <a> sound in <about>). This pronunciation is more than usually speculative, because we don't have clear evidence of the pronunciation of <Mhurchadha> in the 15th century. We know that the change in pronunciation of lenited <d> 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 <O/ Murchadha> as <O Morchowe>, <O Moroghoe>, and, heaven help us, <O Murphy>, and of <Mac Murchadha> as <M'Murroghowe>, <M'Moroghoe>, and <M'Murphewe. And we know, also from Woulfe, that in his day final <-adha> 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 <gh> in the English spellings is probably misleading in suggesting \gh\: the name <O/ Lachlainn> appears in English sources c.1600 as <O Laghlen> and <O Laughlen>, and <O/ Lachtna> appears as <O Laghna> [5]; and there are many other instances in which English <gh> 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.