all well and good, but the name Conan still comes from old irish and even if the form of conor which we have does come from an anglicization (nor is this theory certain), conn and conall are pronounced the very same way as conor and they are for certain NOT the product of any anglicization.
so anglicization is irrelevant to my previous presentation- however, that being said, anglicization IS relevant to REH since he read the those old irish stories in english. in other words REH did not speak old irish, but the name still came from there, and he did not read those old irish stories in the original language, but rather read english versions of the stories. one simply needs to ascertain if REH was interested in the authentic pronounciation of the name... FACTS that are certain; conn and conall are still old irish names, still pronounced with accent on the first syllable as in connery, and conor is pronounced exactly the same as the old irish names conn and conall- and by the way this name and the word 'con' in old irish comes form the word for head 'cen' or 'ceann' (same as in the name kennedy)- (a caveat, in welsh the word is pen BECAUSE OLD IRISH HAS NO LETTER 'P' and old welsh words which were cognate with irish began with 'p' instead of 'c'- so if conan would have existed in old welsh/goidellic is would have had a form beginning with Pen as in pendragon of authrian myth or pendarvys- my mother's maiden name- but i digress...) but the word for head- as in the 'head' of the people here from the standard (Rev, P.S. Dineen's) Irish-English dictionary used by modern gaelic teachers: conn, g. cuinn- 1. sense, reason 2. an adult, a head, a chief so guys with the name 'conn' were heads of their people every county of ireland has it's own dialect, BUT we cannot pretend that we can say with certainty exactly when such a state of affairs came into being- since gaelic was nearly extinct in the 19th century and was revived. so it could be that reviving the language and influences from foreign languages being spoken in ireland (latin, norse, english in that order) had something to do with the current situation. as to general claims- I made specific claims, not general claims- and I have personally studied old irish and read those stories in the original language, and the pronunciation which i learned from my professor (who wrote a textbook on old irish) for conchobor was CON- co- bwer. and your britannic cynnan would be pronounced more closer to CUHN-an as to your government translations- well and good, but completely and totally irrelevant unless your specialty is old irish, and something tells me it's not. JB Austin, TX > Thanks for the reply. Here are some things to think >about. > Being a goverment translator, I have found it very >dangerous business making broad claims about >languages, and being from a Welsh/Irish background, I >believe making claims about Goidelic languages, like >Old Irish is doubly so. > Citing the name 'Conor' as being an indicator of >vowel pronounciation is misleading in that, strictly >speaking, 'Conor' is an Anglicization of the Old Irish >name 'Conchobar'. > Dr. James MacKillop (President of the American >Conference for Irish Studies, and one of the world's >leading Celtic scholors) writes in his Dictionary of >Celtic Mythology the following: > > "...Irish pronunciation in particular is not >standardized. The name of the often-mentioned Ulster >king Conchobar mac Nessa, for example, may be >pronounced (roughly) 'KUN-khuh-var', 'KUNNA-khoor', or >'KRU-hoor', in different periods or places. >Complicating matters further, the many variant >spellings given at different entries, especially when >they are in Classical or Modern Irish call for >different pronounciations" > > Following this, if one looks up the name 'Conan' in >Dr. MacKillop's dictionary, the following can be >found: my comments are within [these brackets] > > " Conan, a name found with differing associations >in three Celtic lands. In Ireland it is:Conan [accent >on the 'a'] (hound, wolf)...In Wales it is: Conan >[Howard's spelling] (to grumble, to mutter?) In >Brittany Conan is the name for Cynnan, the British >invader of the country...Despite much conjecture, >there does not seem to be a link between any of the >Celtic figures named Conan and the Conan of the pulp >adventure fiction series of Robert E. Howard (d.1936)" > > In Welsh, 'o' is more frequently sounded as in >the word 'more', though also as in the word 'knot'. > > Jesse > >______________________________________________________________________ >Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
