Page 121 of Macalister's "Lebor Gabála Érenn" verse 1 and 2:


(1)
The select vivacious language
which Gaedel the pure and cunning improved,
few of the seed of rough Gaedel
are the men who may know its real name

(2)
"Gaedelg-- they call it so,
people who are ignorant and have no knowledge:
no nearer to cunning gaedel
than to any conspicuous notable"


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This is translated from Middle Irish. How is Gaedel pronounced? What about Gaedelg? These verses make me think that perhaps we shouldn't be calling it Gaelic?

On page 120, volime 2 of Macalisters Lebor Gabála Érenn, the following names appear:

1. Gaedel
2. Gaedil
3. Gaedelg
4. Gaedhel

The first 3 have a "bar" above the 'a', but I don't know how to type that...

I know these names as written here were either old Irish or Middle Irish... I'm pretty sure they are Middle Irish.

Can somebody tell me how to pronounce them? Is there any chance that the word "Gaelic" descends from Gaedelg?

Every chance that they closely related.
As far as modern Irish goes (old spelling, new or phonetic spelling, pronunciation, meaning)-
Gaedheal: Gael /ɡeːl̪ˠ/ 'Gael'.
Gaedhealg: (Connacht) Gaeilge /ˈɡeːlʲɟɪ/, (Munster) Gaelainn /ˈɡɰeːl̪ˠɪɲ/, (Ulster) Gaeilic /ˈɡeːlʲɪc/ '(the) Irish language'.

Interesting! I didn’t realize the different regional pronunciations could vary that much. Makes the connection to “Gaelic” clearer

This seems more like early modern Irish to me. The Middle Irish for these two words that you provided are Goídel and Goídelc. I wonder if the words were innacurately transcribed/translated, I'm wondering why there is no h following the d's. Maybe the translator saw the punc séimhithe and didn't realise it was meant to signify a different letter? In any case, in early modern Irish it would have been pronounced something like /ge:ɣ´əl(g)/. As for the other example you gave (Gaedil): /ge:ɣ´əl´/. Historically this d(h) would have been pronounced dentally, but by the time of early modern Irish it would have evolved into a gutteral sound. I'm still confused, however, about the conflation between early modern Irish and middle Irish, i.e. early modern Irish words spelt as if they were middle Irish, which is what the book was translated from. Maybe at the time that the book was written Middle Irish had already started to converge far on the path of Early Modern Irish, giving more modern forms as you have provided. If that is so than I would assume that these words would instead be pronounced /ge:ð´əl(g)/ and /ge:ð´əl´/. And as for your other question, 'Gaelic' does indeed derive from Gaedhealg. Gaedhealg was the most traditional word for the language, and all other dialects have adapted separate forms. In fact, the standard Gaeilge is really only used in Connacht, and derives from the genitive of Gaedhealg (i.e. Gaeidhilge, as it indeed used to be spelled). My assumption is that the English word 'Gaelic' derives from the Ulster form of the word, that is Gaeilic (or Gaeilg), derived from the historical dative form of the language (i.e. Gaeidhilg), as this is quite similar to the English pronunciation. Another possibility is that it derives from the Scottish word, Gàidhlig, which is quite similar.

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I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar

What do you mean it was pronounced "dentally"?? Do you mean like "th" as in this or that?

Yes, with, of course, the broad/slender distinction. I would like to correct my previous statement however here:



I assume that at the time of Middle Irish, these traditionally dental sounds would have already diverged into guttural sounds (i.e. /ð/ (i.e. in this or dh --> /ɣ/, and /θ/ (i.e. in think) or th --> /h/). I assume this, because all three modern Goidelic languages, Irish, Scottish (Gaelic), and Manx*, which all diverged from the Middle Irish language, have guttural fricatives in the contexts of dental ones in Old Irish.

* Manx actually does have dental fricatives, but these have evolved seperately and in different contexts of historically lenited d/t, and therefor are not related to Old Irish-style dental fricatives as far as I know, though I don't know much about Manx and hope to do more studying in future.

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I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar