Dónal versus Dónall

Seasan wrote: »

Is it the same story with Iasón and Iasan??

Both pronounced similarly-i.e. "EEaSun".
I use both spellings,as I have seen it written both ways,so I hope I am correct.

Can I ask when the Irish version of Jason first appeared in the Irish language. Reason I ask is that my Christain name is Jason and when I was in school many years ago I was never given an Irish varitaion of the name Jason.

Thats not to say the Irish version has always been around and I was just never told it as a young boy!!!

Edit.

Sorry not trying to steal the thread, just that this made me curious, ta

An File wrote: »

Nach mbíonn sé fós mar sin i nGaeilge Uladh? (i. tógann an tuiseal tabharthach séimhiú, agus tógann aidiacht séimhiú leis?)

Bíonn, ach n'fheadar an ndéarfí "ó Shéamas Mhac Mhathúna" fós, is é sin: An mbaintear úsáid as an séimhiú ins an tabharthach le hainmneacha pearsanta?

dubhthach wrote: »

There is a poem in the Book of Leinster (which dates to about 1160) called:

Luid Iason ina luing lóir ('Jason went in his spacious ship') which is ascribed to Flann Mainistrech who died in 1056.
see:
http://books.google.ie/books?id=ShymTTEkH2sC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=translation+of+jason+and+the+argonauts+into+irish&source=bl&ots=NQfaiy30_U&sig=k6n84x0TfUjEQCyalwTSqyuMD8s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LKhGVKuVGs6S7AbOv4CgDg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=jason&f=false

As mentioned in the above book Jason's mother is introduced in Togail Troí ('The Destruction of Troy') which is an adaptation of Historia de excidio Troiae (6th century) into Middle Irish (original material was in Latin).

Sin é an chèad uair a chonaic mé Iason i nGaeilge gan an síneadh fada.

Sa leabhar "Ainmneacha Dílse An Nua-Thiomna",tá Iasón scríoftha ann,agus sa bhíobla naofa chomh maith.Mar sin,is cinnte go bhfuil Iasón an leagan Gaeilge bíobalta ar Jason.

Agus maidir le Iasan,tá an leagan seo ar cúpla liosta eile,ar an idirlíon agus chomh fada le mo bharúil,i gcúpla leabhair freisin.Usàideann an iar-imreoir Jason Sherlock a ainm Iasan Scorlóg i nGaeilge,mar shampla.

Seasan wrote: »

Sin é an chèad uair a chonaic mé Iason i nGaeilge gan an síneadh fada.

Sa leabhar "Ainmneacha Dílse An Nua-Thiomna",tá Iasón scríoftha ann,agus sa bhíobla naofa chomh maith.Mar sin,is cinnte go bhfuil Iasón an leagan Gaeilge bíobalta ar Jason.

Agus maidir le Iasan,tá an leagan seo ar cúpla liosta eile,ar an idirlíon agus chomh fada le mo bharúil,i gcúpla leabhair freisin.Usàideann an iar-imreoir Jason Sherlock a ainm Iasan Scorlóg i nGaeilge,mar shampla.

Bhuel tá Iason i nGaoidhealg (Middle Irish) tá an dán sin ón 11ú haois

When you think bout it the distant in time between Middle Irish and modern Irish is greater then between the works of Chaucer and say modern English!!

dubhthach wrote: »

As mentioned in the above book Jason's mother is introduced in Togail Troí ('The Destruction of Troy') which is an adaptation of Historia de excidio Troiae (6th century) into Middle Irish (original material was in Latin).

Just to say Togail Troí is a copy of a mid-10th century work that is no longer extant and that work would have contained Iasón, which is where I got the ~950.

AnLonDubh wrote: »

Just to say Togail Troí is a copy of a mid-10th century work that is no longer extant and that work would have contained Iasón, which is where I got the ~950.

Sure indeed generally give the wear and tear on manuscripts there's very few that predate the 11th century (when it comes to age of their vellum) but content as you mention is often alot earlier.

Two really good examples of such content is:

Baile Chuinn Cétchathaigh (Baile = Buile in modern Irish)
Baile in Scáil (in = an)

The first one is basically the oldest known Kinglist written in Irish, though it's wrapped in allegory of saga. It dates from about 700AD however it only survives today in the form of two 16th century manuscripts into which it was copied into. ("23 N 10" and "Egerton 88")

Both "Saga's" are about the bould Conn Cétchathach (Conn of the Hundred battles) the titular ancestor of both the three Connachta and the Uí Néill. His descendants been the Dál Cuinn or earlier Moccu Cuinn

deirdremf wrote: »

In Scotland, or at least in some dialects of Gaelic, Domhnall is pronounced Domhnallt, I'd say this is where the final "d" in Donald comes from.

...just to add that on the isle of Lewis, they don't pronounce the 'n' in Dòmhnall.

Imagine calling your son "Deasmhumhain", it be like saying
--
Come here to me now "Cork and South Kerry", ye dinner is ready!
---

I wouldn't mind I'm leaving out waterford and South Tipp!

dubhthach wrote: »

Sure indeed generally give the wear and tear on manuscripts there's very few that predate the 11th century (when it comes to age of their vellum) but content as you mention is often alot earlier.

The textual history of any piece of Irish literature is very complicated.

We have to remember that the Book of Leinster*, Leabhar na hUidre and other such texts are closer to what we might call a vanity library than books as we understand them today.

These books are a rather bizarre, at first seemingly random, collection of texts. They might begin with a bit of the Book of Invasions, then a bit from the massive Brehon legal texts, some Finnian material, a bit of epic saga material (the Táin maybe or other sagas), a few poems taken from the Bardic compendiums**.

This was simply to compile the family/monasteries library as a statement of "Hey, look, here is a selection of the stuff we have!"
In many cases we do not have a genuine copy of the actual original book that these fragments come from, so the material in the Book of Lecan, e.t.c. is all we have.

However one must remember that the people who did this transcribing into these vanity compendiums were highly trained individuals with a creative spark of their own. Quite often they were not content with just copying material, but rewrote it in their own style. This is why we get different versions of several stories or texts, like the Táin and the Leabhar Gabhála. So one can often be left wondering which version is the canonical original version that the scribes were drawing on (or at least which is closest to it).

*The Book of Leinster is in fact not the Book of Leinster! Several manuscripts make reference to "The Book of Leinster", but in the 19th century the volume we today call "The Book of Leinster" was misidentified as this text. What we call the Book of Leinster is actually "The book of Noughaval". The real book of Leinster was discovered during the 20th century.

**The Bards kept huge collections of lines from poems or complete poems for themselves as references, like a C++ manual for a coder today. They were broken down into sections with a poem illustrating and being a canonical example of each poetic technique a Bard might use.

The best book on Ireland's books (in my opinion) is Michael Slavin: The Ancient Books of Ireland, unfortunately the publisher has closed (at least that is what they told me), but this book is still available from Kenny's bookshop in Galway or from Michael's bookshop in Tara (Agus tá an Ghaelainn ag Mícheál, fear macánta, lách deis-bhéalach 'sea é.)

There are often different spellings and pronunciations of names in many languages.

Iason looks to me like it's been taken from the original Greek: Ἰάσων

Regarding the question of equating English and Irish names because they sound similar, or for some other inexplicable reason, even though they are not otherwise related - well that is a long established tradition going back hundreds of years so I think it is somewhat pedantic to dismiss it out of hand.

Dómhnall / Dónal = Daniel

Diarmuid = Jeremiah

Síle = Julia

Cathal = Charles

Those names have been used interchangeably for a long time on this island.

A lot of English names not traditionally used here have become popular of late and the convention nowadays is to leave them in their English form when writing or speaking Irish. Of course there's no reason why they couldn't be gaelicised if the owner wished.

Any suggestions for Zöe, Chloe, Wayne?