Re: Olav vs Onlaf

Also MacAulay, MaCauley...

"A conflation of two different names, now hopelessly confused and
not to be distinguished on linguistic evidence alone." (David
Dorward: Scottish Surnames).

1. Amhalghadh. An Irish personal name.
2. Amhlaobh, Amhladh < ON Anlafr, Anleifr.

> One of the things you stated went right to the heart of my

questions about the name. You said, "I couldn't find any forms
with 'n' in the Rundata database, but runic spelling has a
convention of missing out 'n'

> before a dental consonant, so even if it was still there is

might not show up." Our family name appears in Scotland in 1498
as "McOnleif" and in 1502 without the "n" as McOlleif". So it
appears that the "n" is dropping out because of nasalisation of
the "o".

What I meant there is that runic spelling isn't a good guide to
whether /n/ was still pronounced at the time of the inscription,
because they thought it fair game just not to write it
before /d/, /t/ or /s/, even in words where it was never lost, and
also in the time before any /n/'s were lost (in those words where it
was lost). The spelling variation between <n> and <m> in English
and Irish sources suggests that there was a nasalised vowel in
Viking Age Norse. Was the <m> in Old Irish Amlaib a nasal labio-
dental fricative? If so, it must have sounded pretty close to the
Norse pronunciation. But I wonder whether the variation between
McOnleif and McOlleif is due to variants that existed in Old Norse,
or to later developments in Gaelic, or in English?

There's a Gaelic word 'ollamh' "poet". Maybe a coincidence...

Dunollie < Gaelic Dún Ollaich "Fort of Ollach". A native Gaelic
name as far as I've been able to find out, but I don't have any
etymology for it. I see there's also a name Follach in Irish
sources, which I'm guessing might be a variant of this. Initial /f/
is easily lost or gained in Gaelic for morphological reasons. An
example relevent to Norse Course:

Scots Gael. uinneag
Irish fuinneog
English window

< ON vindauga (lit. "wind-eye")

A variant like "Doun Oldyf" may just show the scope for confusion in
taking a name from one language (Gaelic) into another (English).
But I'm just guessing there. I don't know much about sound changes
in Gaelic and how the chronology of those would match up with sound
changes in Norse.

LN

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Patricia"
<originalpatricia@...> wrote:

>
> I have seen it spelt also as McAuliffe if that is of any use
> Patricia
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: rlivingston1488
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 7:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [norse_course] Re: Olav vs Onlaf
>
>
> Thank you Lama for the very thorough explanation. One of the

things you stated went right to the heart of my questions about the
name. You said, "I couldn't find any forms with 'n' in the Rundata
database, but runic spelling has a convention of missing out 'n'

> before a dental consonant, so even if it was still there is

might not show up." Our family name appears in Scotland in 1498
as "McOnleif" and in 1502 without the "n" as McOlleif". So it
appears that the "n" is dropping out because of nasalisation of
the "o".

>
> Something very parallel to this is happening to a placename very

close to where my ancestors lived in Aryll, Scotland. And I'm
thinking that the placename may relate to the personal name "Olav",
even though the placename appears in Scotland before the arrival of
the Vikings in 794 AD. The place is present-day "Dunollie", a
castle fortess now occupied by the MacDougalls. According to the
Irish Annals of Ulster, in 686 AD, "Duin Ollaig" was burned. In
698, it was burned again, but this time it is spelled "Duin Onlaig",
with the "n". In 701, "Duin Onlaig" was destroyed by Selbach
(again, with the "n"), then in he rebuilt it again in 714 (without
the "n). The place is mentioned once again in 734 as "Arcem
Ollaig". You'll notice that there is no final "b" or "v" sound in
this placename, I speculate because the name is presented in the
genitive case and the "b" is voiceless. The final "v" sound does
make an appearace on a 16th century map of the region where the
place is spelled "Doun Oldyf".

>
> This place also appears in the 12th century Irish Tale of "The

Cattle Raid of Cooly", where it is described as "Duin Ollaig meic
Briuin", giving us a reassurance that the place is named for a
person. But the question arises, what is a Scandinavian name doing
in Argyll in the late 7th century when the Vikings were not supposed
to have arrived until the latter part of the 8th century? Was there
a much earlier Scandinavian presence there? Or am I reading too
much into this?

>
> Thanks for all your time Lama!
>
> Rob
>
>
>
> I couldn't find any forms with 'n' in the Rundata
> database, but runic spelling has a convention of missing

out 'n'

> before a dental consonant, so even if it was still there is

might

> not show up. I wonder if it's attested in continental sources

from

> the Viking period.
>
> Pronunciation changed over time. To avoid (and increase!)

confusion

> I'll use the X-Sampa system to show the sounds [
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xsampa ]. This might seem

complicated,

> but there are non-English sounds involved here, and English

spelling

> is very irregular, and people have different accents. The

simple

> answer is Old Norse <leif> would be most like English <lave>.
>
> Brackets and other symbols:
>
> // = phonemic spelling. Just represents the differences that

are

> significant to native speakers, without specifying exactly how
> sounds are realised in a particular environment. E.g.
> English /spit/ and /pit/ have the same phoneme /p/, but on the
> latter word it sounds a little different with a puff of airt

after

> it [p_hit], as against [spit].
>
> [] phonetic transcription. The exact sound.
>
> <> how something is spelt in native orthography.
>
> * in etymology, used before a hypothetical form that has been
> reconstructed my modern scholars, but isn't actually recorded

> this form in the historical language.
>
> " main stress
>
> % secondary stress. E.g. the English word <gas-leak>, ["gas%

li:k].

>
> : previous symbol to be pronounced long
>
> _~ previous vowel nasalised, as in French <on>
>
> Back in the 4th century or so, this name would have had the

form:

> *Anulaibaz (as it might have been spelt by a clever runemaster

on a

> good day). Main stress on the first syllable, secondary

stress

> on /laib/, with /ai/ probably like the vowel in English 'eye',
> the /b/ probably pronunced [B] as in Spanish (with the lips

not

> quite touching). The /z/ was probably somewhere between a

rolled

> [r] and the <s> in English 'measure'. Some people in Scotland

make

> this sound when saying the combination <rs> at the end of a

word.

> Some people in southern England make a similar noise when they

say

> the <r> in <drink>. Unfortunatley I'm not so familar with

accents

> in different parts of America. Here's a possible X-sampa
> transcription of what I mean ["anu%laiBaZ_r].
>
> As far as I know, the name isn't recorded anywhere this early,

but

> we can tell it had this form, or something very similar, by

later

> sound changes. Of course, no one can be exactly sure of the
> pronuciation at any given time. The situation is complicated

by the

> fact that two different versions of the name appeared. The

one I'll

> describe first became the normal form in Icelandic prose in

the

> middle ages, while the other survived is recorded in poetry.

Or at

> least that's where I've met it.
>
> (1) Spelt Óláfr in standardised Old Norse. The first vowel of
> *Anulaibaz was raised and rounded by the /u/ in the next

syllable,

> then nasalised by the /n/ (like in French <on> but in this

case with

> the tongue slightly higher). /u/ and /n/ and the final /a/

were

> dropped causing the initial vowel to be lengthened to a nasal
> [o:_~]. [ai] under secondary stress was reduced to [a:]. The

final

> consonant became a rolled [r], at different times in different

parts

> of Scandinavia, but I think the change was complete by the

time

> manuscripts were being written after Christianity was
> introduced/imposed. Nasalisation had probably disappeared in
> Iceland by 1200. Around this time, [a:] was raised and

rounded to

> [O:_~], as in (British) English <saw>. A possible Viking Age
> pronunciation ["o:_%~la:BZ_r]. 13th c. Iceland (when a lot of

the

> famous sagas were written) Óláfr ["o:%lO:vr]. Modern

Icelandic has

> a slightly different form again, from a version with even more
> reduced stress on the second element: Ólafur ["ou:la.vYr_0],

the

> second vowel being half-long, the final <r> voiceless, the

first

> vowel quite like <o> in English <Olaf>. The spelling Olav

comes

> from the modern languages of mainland Scandinavia and matches

the

> Modern Icelandic form.
>
> (2) Spelt Áleifr in medieval Iceland. As above, except that

the

> second element of the compound was originally given a stronger
> stress, which allowed the diphthong /ei/ to survive as it

would

> normally in a stressed syllable. This also caused the /u/ to

> lost earlier, before it had a chance to mutate the initial

[a:] to

> [o:]. A possible Viking Age pronunciation ["a:_~%lEiBZ_r],

with the

> first vowel like <a> in English <car>, but nasalised like a

long

> version of French <en>, and the second vowel like <a> in

English

> <lave>. 12th c. Icelandic ["a:_~%lEiBr]. 13th c. Icelandic

["O:%

> lEivr].
>
> At some point in 12th or 13th century Iceland (I'd be

interested to

> know when), [B] is supposed to have become [v], as in English

<hive>.

>
> > My understanding is that it is from "Áleifr",
> > derived from Old Norse "anu + leifr" = "ancestor descendant".
>
> Maybe with a suggestion of "inheritor" in the second element.

Think

> of the English verb "leave", in the sense of leaving something

> someone in a will. I don't know any English cognate for the

first

> part, but German has Ahn "ancestor".
>
> Lama Nom
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Rob Livingston"
> <rlivingston1488@> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> > I have some question about the name Olaf - its historical

use and

> > pronunciation. My curiosity arises because my family's old
> surname
> > in Scotland was "MacOnlea" (pronounced "mak-ohn-lay",

possibly

> > derived from "son of Onlaf".
> >
> > First, does anybody know the earliest documented

Scandinavian

> > reference to the name? My understanding is that it is
> from "Áleifr",
> > derived from Old Norse "anu + leifr" = "ancestor

descendant". The

> > earliest reference I can find is from the Irish Annals of

Ulster,

> > when in 853 AD, "Amlaíb, the son of the king of Laithlinn"

came to

> > Ireland to demand tribute. "Amlaíb" is the Irish equivalent

> > Olaf. Are there any earlier Scandinavian citations for this

name?

> >
> > Later references to the name are found in the Anglo-Saxon
> Chronicles
> > beginning in 911 AD with "Anlaf the Swarthy". There was a

stone

> > cross erected in memory of "Cuni Onlaf" (King Olaf) at the
> Cathedral
> > of Leeds, England sometime about 937. Then there are coins

from

> the
> > early to late 10th century bearing the names "Onlaf Rex Nor"
> > and "Anlaf Rex Tod", the first presumed to have been minted

> > Norway. Again, what is the earliest documented citation for

the

> name
> > Olaf in Scandinavia? Is it referenced in any of the Norse

Sagas?

> >
> > My second question has to do with the pronunciation

of "Áleifr",

> > which I presume is the proper way of spelling it, even in

Modern

> > Norse? Or is it now spelled Olav or Olaf? If it did change,

when

> did
> > it change? Is the "leifr" part of it "layfr" or "leefr"?

And is

> > the "f" pronounced like the "f" in "leaf", or the "v"

in "leave"?

> >
> > I very much appreciate anybody's input.
> >
> > Rob Livingston
> > Placerville, California
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
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