Hello there. Just registered here and I wanted to ask for advice on the pronunciation of some names in their OLD IRISH forms. I'm writing a historical novel and I need to get a good sense of how some of these names are pronounced at the time it takes place on. I'm not an Irish speaker, but I know that phonology and pronunciation has changed from Old Irish to current Irish. I'm particularly interested in these three: Sadb, Sétna and Óengus (some of the others I think I know how to pronounce). I've read a variety of different pronunciations online, but I have the suspicion the forms you find online are more modern ones. Sadb, for instance, seems to be pronounced as "Sive", and Sétna seems to be "Shay-nah", but I've no clue if these are valid for Old Irish. If anyone here knows about Old Irish pronunciation, I'd really appreciate some help.

"sive" is the Munster pronunciation of the modern form of the name ie. Sadhbh.
The Old Irish pronunciation has nothing to do with it, it was "Sathv", roughly ("th" as in "this" in BBC English pronunciation)



it's wrong...

Sétna was pronounced "shay-dnah", roughly.
Óengus was pronounced roughly "oyn-ghooss" (gh is a kind of gargling sound that doesn't exist in English).

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Well, that's why I came here, because I knew it was most likely wrong (jeez...)

Thanks for the quick reply though! I may come back with a few more if they come up.

sorry if you felt offended by my abrupt answer, I'm not an English native speaker, sometimes I forget that I shouldn't answer in this way to native English speakers... (while it's perfectly ok in my 1st language, ie. French).

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Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Don't worry! That's understandable. For what it's worth, I'm not a native English speaker myself actually, I'm from Chile. Saludos amigo!

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Ok! I have a few more:

Tadg
Sláine
Nechtan
Eochaid

I've heard many variations of these. I would assume many if not all are local/modern. Any help on some Old Irish pronunciation would be godsend!

Tadg > Tathgh (th as in "this" and "gh" is that garling sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative you can listen to it by clicking on the link on the right side)

Sláine > slaan-eh (roughly)

Nechtan >nyekh-tuhn (kh is that throaty sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative )

Eochaid > EH-oo-khuhth (the "th" sound is as in "this" but palatalised... hard to explain since it doesn't exist in English)

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Thank you so much. I have two questions though:

The a in your spelling "Slaa-eh" is the same as in "van" or does it have the "ay" sound as in "day"?

The u in "nyekh-tuhn" and "Eh-oo-khuhth" is that of the word "number" or "slum" or that of "huge" or "music"?

Thanks again for the help!

it's a long ah-sound. The OI sound doesn't really exist in English.



I use "uh" to transcribe the "a" sound as in "alone", for example. It's complicated to transcribe Irish pronunciation (Modern as well as Old Irish) with an English-like transcription, since the sounds of English and of Irish are sooo different. But almost nobody can read the International Phonetic Alphabet so I have to do this way...

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne