ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2859
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2859
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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


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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.