Dear Paul, I have an answer to the question of the Icelandic pronunciation of Muirchertach/Myrkjartan from an Icelandic Celticist and Genealogist, Dr. Elin I. Eyjolfsdottir: "As I mentioned in my last letter (no. 3), this was done to follow the Icelandic noun system of gender and cases, the -an suffix is gender specific to masc. nouns. This was conciously done and shows that Icelanders of old were familiar with early Irish enough to manipulate it to suit their own language. This is very prevalent throughout the Icelandic literature and not exclusive to early Irish, but also Old/Middle English etc. The -ach is not a sound which you would find as a final sound in Icelandic words, which means they would have had to adapt it. (You would find 'ach' like sound in the Icelandic word 'sagt' (said), where the -ag- would be pronounced somewhat like 'ach', or 'saga' (to saw), something would have had to be added after Muirchertach-a(n), but that would just not have been considered a good Icelandic) As a good friend of mine would say it is because to syncope." Syncope: the loss of one or more sounds or letters in the interior of a word (as in fo'c'sle for forecastle) I can trace my ancestry to Muirchertach/Myrkjartan, King of Ailech, of the Ui Niall, through his daughter Melkorka and her son, Olaf (the Peacock) Hoskuldson who married Thorbjorg (the stout) Egilsdottir. I have now accumulated several other branches that go back to people who are prominent in the Landnamabok and some Sagas: Egil Skalligrimson (Egil's Saga); Aud (Unn) the Deep-Minded; Helgi the thin Eivindarson (who has an, as yet, undefined lineage from Irish kings). Of very practical interest, I have three lines that span the 600 year time period between about 835 and 1434. The generation times for these three different lines are 27.27, 29.23 and 28.45 years for an average of 28.32 years per generation. I still have to calculate the generation time for the 500 years from 1435 to 1937 (when I was born). By contrast, the average generation time for my MacLennan line back to 1776 and Ian MacLennan's line back to 1776 (birth of our MRCA) is 33.5 years per generation. All for now, David On 2013-11-08 5:25 PM, "Paul Conroy" <[email protected]> wrote: >David, > >Sure, if Nouns change ending depending on gender in Norse, then that >certainly makes sense. > >In Slavic languages - Polish for instance - you will have a guy called >Sikorski, but his daughter will be called Sikorska. > >Cheers, >Paul