ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1669 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1669 ************************************ 28 Apr 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for an Celtic woman living between 500 and 950, perhaps around 600. This letter is a brief answer to your question. We assume that by "Celtic" you mean Irish [1]. is a mis-spelling of , a rare Old Irish feminine name borne by an early saint [2]. The slash in the name represents an accent on the previous letter. It would be a reasonable choice for an Irish woman's name from the late 7th century to the 12th, when it would have been pronounced \ROO-@dh-n@tch\. The symbol \@\ is a schwa, the sound of the in or . \dh\ represents the sound of the in . Unfortunately, it is not an appropriate choice for c.600, which is before Old Irish existed. This period is a difficult one for accurate historical re-creation of names. The earliest surviving written form of Irish dates from around the 4th century and is written on stone in the alphabet called "Ogham". When this writing tradition developed, the Irish language was very different from the medieval form -- about as different as Latin is from French. This stage of the language is variously called "Primitive Irish", "Ogam Irish", or "Oghamic Irish". This writing system continued in active use into the 7th century, and while it was in active use, its users tended to write a conservative form of the language corresponding to what was spoken when the system was developed. The spoken language, however, was undergoing considerable change. When a new writing system using Roman letters was developed in the 6th century, its users broke with tradition and wrote a language much closer to what was actually being spoken. This stage of the language, as recorded from the late 7th century to the mid-10th century, is called Old Irish. The problem with reconstructing names used before the Old Irish period is that the only written forms that we know are the Oghamic forms in the Primitive Irish language, and yet we also know that by the 6th century this written Primitive Irish must have been quite different from the way the language was actually spoken. It takes a good deal of specialized knowledge to put the pieces together and come up with a likely reconstruction of both the written name and its pronunciation. We can try to reconstruct a precursor to which might have been used at the beginning of the 7th century, but it is a difficult and speculative task, and we might not be able to do it at all; so we'll hold off on it in case you're happy with a later-period name. If you'd like us to take a shot at it, please let us know. In the last couple centuries of your period, 700-950, is a reasonably likely name. In this period, an Irishwoman would most often have been identified as her father's daughter. Ru/adnat the daughter of Colma/n mac Diarmata would have been called , which simply means "Ru/adnat daughter of Colma/n". The changes in the spelling of the father's name are required by Gaelic grammar and correspond to changes in pronunciation. You can find an explanation of the grammar in these articles on the web: Quick and Easy Gaelic Bynames http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/ Feminine Names from the Index to O'Brien's 'Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae' http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html You can find a list of good choices for your father's name in another article: 100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/irish100 We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek and Tangywstyl verch Morgant Glasvryn. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 28 Apr 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] The word describes a group of languages or cultures, including the Irish and Scottish Gaels, but also including the Welsh, Cornish, Manx, and Bretons. All these nations considered themselves quite separate in our period; no one thought of herself as a Celt. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "Celt" first appeared in the English language in 1607, "Celtic" in 1656. _The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973). [2] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990).