My source for the phonetics is Irish Names by Donnchadh Ó Corráin and
Fidelma Maguire, he the excellent early medieval scholar at UC Cork
and she an historian as well (at Coláiste a Spioraid Naoimh, Cork).
Pronunciations certainly vary in time and place and, as Ó Corráin and
Maguire note, "The pronunciation of Old Irish is uncertain anyway and
Irish medieval scribes, it may be added, treated the forms (and
pronunciations) of names with great freedom."
As far as the relation between Adam and Adomnán (re: Jonathan
Gilbert's question), Ó Corráin and Maguire don't indicate any
similarity between the two names, Adam being a borrowed biblical name
and Adomnán a native name meaning "timorous one." A Latin note to
the Félire Óengusso claims Adomnán is a diminutive of Adam; -án can
be a diminutive ending, but according to Ó Corráin and Maguire the
diminutive of Adam is Adducc (ad-ag). For Adam, Ó Corráin and Maguire
give two pronunciations, long a followed by v, or long a long u, but
for Adomnán they offer only u-nan (both the u and the a are long),
which helps to explain the anglicisation. Other anglicised forms
aren't as straightforward, as the many who have butchered my name
(nearly all of those have English as their first language) have
demonstrated.
Maeve
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