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Mobyrne
Member Username: Mobyrne
Post Number: 1 Registered: 09-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 11:50 am: |
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I am new at this forum, but long in tooth. My mother's family was Cadden (sometimes Carden) from County Mayo [where they raise sheep without the help of God] and my father's people were from Roscommon [where they stole the Saint's horse]. I am first generation American and also have Irish citizenship. But I digress.... I recently joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and was asked to choose a name from my area of interest. The name had to have been in use during the time period I portray (6th century Ireland). I remember many evenings spent at the Dunguaire Castle in County Clair and that the castle was named after a King named Guaire. (Dun=castle) I believe the name is pronounced Goory. After reading a bit, I found that there was a "King" Guaire who came from an area named Aidhne and in the 6th century he was a minor personage who was defeated in a battle over a cow. Anyway, I digress again. Combining the two into Guaire Aidhne, I found a name I could use. However, I can only pronounce the first name with any confidence. Can anyone help me to confirm the pronunciation of the first name and determine the pronunciation of the last? Thanks. |
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Lughaidh
Member Username: Lughaidh
Post Number: 813 Registered: 01-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 01:03 pm: |
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Guaire /gu:ər´ə/ (goo-uh-r'ih -- r' is a one-tap palatalised r, hard to explain, but anyway not the English r) Aidhne /ajn'ə/ = " I-nih"(Munster & Connemara?) or /e:N'ə/ = ay-nyih (Donegal). |
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Dennis
Member Username: Dennis
Post Number: 351 Registered: 02-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 02:56 pm: |
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quote:Combining the two into Guaire Aidhne, I found a name I could use. You realize that you're not actually making up a new name? There was a Gúaire Aidne (to use the Old Irish spelling) who was famous in literarture for his hospitality and generosity -- so much so that the name "Gúaire" was a by-word for open-handedness. His dates were ca. 620-662. Does SCA allow you to assume the role of an actual personage? BTW, Lughaidh's pronunciations are for the modern language. It sounded somewhat different in the 7th cent. But first, are you going to stick with that name? |
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Lughaidh
Member Username: Lughaidh
Post Number: 814 Registered: 01-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 03:52 pm: |
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Old Irish /gu:ər'ə/ and /aðn'ə/, i'd say (correct me if i'm wrong, a Dhonncha). But has he asked for the old pronounciations? |
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Dennis
Member Username: Dennis
Post Number: 353 Registered: 02-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 04:26 pm: |
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I'm just assuming using an old pronunciation is part of getting into character. In 7th cent. Irish, the final -e in both Gúaire and Aidne was still pronounced as /e/. Going back to the "newspaper style" phonetic version, I'd change the first to GOO-uh-reh. (Níl a fhios agam conas an 'r' caol a chur in iúl sa chóras sin!) The second is even harder to express that way. Perhaps round-aboutly: say ADD-neh, but replace the DD with the TH in "bathe". |
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Mobyrne
Member Username: Mobyrne
Post Number: 2 Registered: 09-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 06:11 pm: |
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I am truly impressed with the responses -- and the speed of reply. Thank you all. True, Dennis, SCA asks that we not use actual names and I thought I was being clever by adding the place (Connaught and Munster) to the name, Gúaire. I didn't realize I had reinvented old Gúaire's real monicker. I suppose I'll have to modify it now to avoid any issue unless the presence of the "h" in Aidhne makes a substantive difference. I suppose not. Since I am a bit old to play the fighter role, I have chosen a scholarly mode, such as one might find in 6th century Ireland -- essentially a Druid elder. Perhaps there is a name combination that means Gúaire Aidhne's Druid? And yes, I would prefer the old pronounciation. You guys are super. Thanks for the help so far and I'd be grateful for anything else you might suggest. |
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Lughaidh
Member Username: Lughaidh
Post Number: 815 Registered: 01-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 06:13 pm: |
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In Old Irish, Aidne doesn't take any h, I think, and Gúaire has a long stroke on the u: so: Modern Irish: Guaire Aidhne Old Irish: Gúaire Aidne. |
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Dennis
Member Username: Dennis
Post Number: 354 Registered: 02-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 07:24 pm: |
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quote:I am truly impressed with the responses -- and the speed of reply. Hey, we're like those good ol' boys with a pick-up truck and a winch who purely live to hoist someone out of a ditch. Only we do it with words! Now, if you're really focused on Gúaire's time and place, but can't be him, you might slip past the censors as his brother, a druid-like figure named Marbán, or Marbhán in modern spelling, roughly MARV-on (like Marvin, only with a different preposition at the end). When the poets of Ireland were all free-loading on the ever-generous Gúaire, his brother lost patience and deprived the poets of their poetic powers. They'd only get them back if they could relate to Marbán the Táin, which was at that time a lost tale. So the poets had to decamp and go out searching for the lost tale. Marbán, by the way, means "dead man", an unusual name. |
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Dennis
Member Username: Dennis
Post Number: 356 Registered: 02-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 07:30 pm: |
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Marbán was also a "muccaid" or swineherd, which may not sound like much, but was apparently something of a magical occupation in the old tales. |
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Mobyrne
Member Username: Mobyrne
Post Number: 3 Registered: 09-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 09:01 pm: |
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In the sixth century, a national poet called Senchan Torpeist, visited the court of King Guaire. He brought his whole entourage with him, which proceded to eat poor Guaire out of castle and home. Of course, he didn't dare to ask him to leave, for fear of the dreaded satire that would be forthcoming. The king's brother, the holy hermit Marban, rescued him by sending the poet and his followers on a literary mission, to find the lost manuscript of 'The Tain Bo Cuailgne", the Ulster cycle of Irish legends, "which promised to take years, if not eternity, for its fulfilment." Here is Senchen's final ode to Guaire: "We depart from thee, O stainless Guaire! We leave with thee our blessing; A year, a quarter, and a month, Have we sojourned with thee, O high-king! Three times fifty poets, -good and smooth,- Three times fifty students in the poetic art, Each with his servent and dog; They were all fed in one great house. Each man had his separate meal; Each man had his separate bed; We never arose at early morning, With contentions without calming. I declare to thee, O God Who canst the promise verify, That should we return to our own land, We shall visit thee again, O Guaire, though now we depart." Is that the Marban you were referring to? |
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Dennis
Member Username: Dennis
Post Number: 357 Registered: 02-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 09:41 pm: |
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An fear céanna. One and the same. But note that he's situated in the seventh century, not the sixth. For example, the Annals place his big defeat in the year 649. |
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Robert Unregistered guest Posted From:
| Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 08:40 am: |
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"Hey, we're like those good ol' boys with a pick-up truck and a winch who purely live to hoist someone out of a ditch" Well so long as yer not not like that lad in 'Wolf Creek'! Anyway, I digress... "muccaid" how does one pronounce gemminated consonants i tsean-ghaeilge? How would they be ritten in IPA? |
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Dennis
Member Username: Dennis
Post Number: 361 Registered: 02-2005
| Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 12:30 pm: |
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In Classical Old Irish, the doubling of letters was probably only a graphic convention used to distinguish voiceless and voiced stops in non-initial position: óc = óg /o:g/ macc = mac /mak/ |
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Robert Unregistered guest Posted From:
| Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 04:15 am: |
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Thurneysen seems to suggest that gemmination was at one time a feature, but even by the period he covers it was almost gone. In a way that book could be a medicine for perfectionists, as even 1200 years ago the cases were not in their full spectrum, the vocative having lost it'd dual, some nominative and accustive forms already fallen together, and so on. Oh, and that would be i sean-ghaeilge... |
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Lughaidh
Member Username: Lughaidh
Post Number: 820 Registered: 01-2005
| Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 07:59 am: |
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Gemination is a kind of initial mutation., like lenition and eclipsis, but gemination doesn't exist in Modern Irish any more. OI inna lláma = MI na lámha OI la mmnaí = MI le mnaoi (bean), etc Writing "mucc", "macc", "átt" isn't a gemination (it isn't an initial mutation), it's just the way the Old Irish people used to write the unvoiced consonants (here /k/ and /t/) in the middle or the end of a word. They could have written it in another way, the sound is the same. |
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