Irish names help!

I like many Irish names, @nothingseasy, though not all of them. We called our son Eoin; one Irish name out of three :) I think there is a lot to be said for keeping names as straightforward as possible. While I like Aobhinn, the complexities of the pronunciation would put me off using it. My father-in-law at the time I was expecting, used to say to me, 'just choose something we can pronounce!'

Síofra, Ríona, Clíona, Róisín, Bláithín, Aoife, Éabha are lovely names, I think. And there are others too, I'm sure.

Modern Irish doesn't slenderize for female names in the vocative, I don't know about old Irish. Or are you saying native speakers slenderize in speech, Sean? I can't say I've heard it but I can't say I would have noticed in times I have been in the Gaeltacht, but it's not something I have been listening for iyswim, on R na G either.

B'fhéidir!

I hadn't thought about names changing according to case. Did this fall out of practice? Do we only use the vocative case now, eg 'Tabhair dom é, a Mháire?'

I was thinking of the name Béibhinn recently. Would one say 'Bayvin' or 'Bayveen'? I would go with the latter. It's also a nice name. I must look up the meaning.

An chéad rud do scríobhas, b'é go raibh daoine ag scríobh an tuisil ainmnigh, ach ag rá an tuisil ginidigh nó gairmigh. Ach do scríobhas
"Dia duit a hAoibhinn!"
Tá cearr ansin. Seo mar is ceart é a scríobh:
"Dia duit a Aoibhinn!"

Ní dheirtear an páirteagail "a", cé. Deirtear "Dia duit 'Aoibhinn." B'fhéidir "Dia duit a' Bhinn" fiú? Níl a fhios agam ach má is éa é, titeann an béim go difriúil, agus athraíonn an fuaim. Bíonn an i fada leis an -nn.

Is é an fhoirm ghinideach: "Aoibhne" de réir Woulfe, ach do scríobhas-sa "Aoibhinn" gan scrúdú. Níl foclóir nó leabhair gramadaigh le fáil lena foirmeacha do ainmneacha pearsanta.

Smaoiním, fiú, b'fhéidir "Aeife" an tuiseal ainmneach, agus díochlaonta mar "Éire", anseo sa tSean-Ghaeilge:

Aeife is ainm di. Nominative
Tá áthas ar Aeifinn. accusative/dative
Dia duit a Aeifinn! Vocative
Mac Aeifeann. Genitive

Cosúil le Bricriú, Deirdre, Ériu.

Faoi deireadh, is ainm ea. Ní oibreoidh ainmneach pearsanta mar ghnáth -fhocail.

Deirtear gur ainm Meiriceánach í "Erin" cé nach bhfuil iontu ach Béarlú claontuisil í. Rud éigin mar seo dul ar aghaidh anseo b'fhéidir?

Glad you liked it

That was a very interesting read, Lizzie, thanks.

Yes, I think 'ae' is treated as a broad vowel. It's the same in laethanta and a few more anyway.

I've read that the biggest difference is between the Irish of An Déise and the others. I always feel it should be on teanglann, Lizzie. They must be a tough breed sticking to their language when they weren't as isolated as the other Gaeltachtaí (there's another word that doesn't follow l le l 7 c l c). I'll have a read of that link now, thanks for posting.

It's a bit of a mess all right aplo. It must be difficult remembering who's using which pronunciation!

Regarding the variations in the various types of Munster Irish, Apileofballyhoo, I've read that the biggest difference is between the Irish of An Déise and the others. In general, though, the differences between Munster Irish dialects are less than between the Connacht dialects, I believe. There's useful information given by Jonas in this discussion here.

www.daltai.com/discus/messages/12465/12484.html?1092244906

OP, would www.irishlanguageforum.com be able to help you perhaps? Might it be worth posting? There are native speakers on there who've already contributed to a discussion on Aoibhinn vs Aoibhín, though it was a few years ago now, and the discussion was about spelling, not pronunciation.

@Apileofballyhoo I know- I would instinctively say Ee / í for Aoi so had to learn all of these.
I also teach and Aoibhe (Eva) and Aoibhe (Ava) and have a niece called Éabha (ay- va)

Other people are obviously not as worried as you about getting it right, nothings! It certainly isn't easy!

I wonder if Conchúr is from Cork or Kerry, or Waterford to blow our minds altogether!
The little accompanying location map on Forvo seems to indicate Kerry Apileofballyhoo.

I teach two different girls called Ayveen
One spells it Éimhín and the other Aoibhínn

The í is the important part for me to distinguish between these girls and Aoibhinn (ay-vin) and Aoibheann (ay-van) who I also teach!

Yeah, it's dinnéar, should have said. I don't know if they say all the i words like that or if it's something to do with the double n, like the way nn changes a to an ow sound in ann/crann etc. A really makes a lot of sounds.

'Die-nayer' for 'dinnéir' is it? Never heard of it.

Yes, I remember 'Stair na Teanga' too. I can't remember any of it now, it's too long ago (!).

On Deirdre upthread, I thought of the word geimhreadh, which is an ei pronounced as í too, in Munster anyway. No help re Aoibhinn but it just popped into my head after mentioning it before.

I wonder if there is much variation between Kerry and Cork. I know Mayo is a good bit different from Connemara, but there's variation in quite short distances in Connemara too. Though I can't for the life of me remember any examples now. My ignorance of our language astounds me sometimes. Anyone remember doing Stair na Litríochta in leaving cert?

Must have a listen to Conchúr, Lizzie. With naoi on teanglann I thought yesterday I could hear the i at the end slightly so né-ih nearly. Might have another listen to that too. I wonder if Conchúr is from Cork or Kerry, or Waterford to blow our minds altogether! The one word I remember from there is die-nayer. Maybe they are the ones spreading the Ayveen pronunciation and it's the right way for Waterford.

SeanChailleach
'Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish' Chapter XI(Christian Brothers, 1905, Wikisource) lists the following words where aoi is pronounced é in Munster.
naoi, naoimh, faoi, faoiseamh, caoi, saoi, daoi.
The words were listed as exceptions to the usual rule.

However, as I mentioned upthread, at least some of them may have been spelled differently in Munster too. Faoi was spelled fé I know, but I'm really not sure about the others.

Interestingly, teanglann.ie shows the Munster speaker saying caoi as kwee, but forvo does have a Munster speaker (Conchúr) pronouncing caoi with an ay sound. I'm sorry, links don't seem to be working for me today.

Aoibh is not listed as an exception to the usual rule, OP, in that work at least.

No veens if they don't have a ín at the end, though, Sean! Caol is ay in Munster all right, though it's a broad sound rather than the slender é. Finn seems to be determined to stay as i rather than í.

Cáelfind, Cáelainn: Caoilinn the book says is pronounced ké-lin'

BUT

Cáemfind: Caoimhín pron kív-in'

The listing headed
Aíbinn, Oébfinn, Aébfhinn: Aoibhinn (í-vin') includes those old spellings which would have been é-vin' with an initial broad glide vowel.

So the authors aren't consistent about how to treat ao words that join to -finn.

Yes, let us know how you get on @nothingseasy