Rev. Charles M. Robertson

“ In the southern dialect of Scottish Gaelic there seems to be a tendency to retain such vowels in many cases before words beginning with consonants, and to drop them at other times. In the northern dialect the tendency rather is not only to keep them where they existed already, but to affix them wherever it is possible to do so, e.g., deimhinn, O.Ir. demin, is in West Ross-shire deimhinne, and suilbhir, O.Ir. sulbir, is suilbhire there and in North Argyll. In East Perth and Strathspey, and, to a less extent, in Sutherland, the tendency is to drop a final a or e in all cases and circumstances. ”

“ When one sound gives place to another the displacing sound is generally the easier to enunciate.
Aspiration is not unknown of course in other languages. In English, for example, father shows what we call aspiration in f and th of the original p and t seen in the Latin pater, only th in this as in some other instances has the sound of dh—not that of th as in 'thin'—and is the aspiration of d which took the place of t as seen in the Anglo-Saxon form fæder, Gothic fadar, etc. In our Gaelic athair p as usual has been lost and t has become th now either sounded as h or altogether silent. ”

“ In Irish ao in general gets the sound of u in Ulster, of our Gaelic ì in Connaught, and of our é in Munster, but apparently there are more exceptions and more varieties of sound than in Scottish Gaelic.
e
The vowel e, like o, has an open and a close sound. The open sound, when short, is like that of e in English ‘bed,’ ‘less,’ ‘met,’ and when long is like the same sound lengthened, and is then written è. The close sound is like the vowel in English ‘whey,’ short or long as the case may be, and in the latter case is written é. It rarely stands alone as the vowel of a syllable. ”

“ Sean, old, to take an exceptional instance, occurs in different positions or dialects with three sounds of the liquid. When the word does not stand before its noun n has, as it ought to have etymologically, its aspirated sound and is short. Sometimes it retains this sound before a noun beginning with a vowel if the two words have become one, as in seanair, grandfather, for sean-athair. Generally before a noun n has become unaspirated and has been lengthened at the same time, and accordingly is often written 'seann' in that position. ”

“ Famhair, a giant, in the Book of the Dean of Lismore, fowir, Manx fowar, Irish fomhor, is fohfair rather than fofair in Arran; in MacAlpine, Perth and Lewis it is favair, in Strathspey fawair, in North Inverness and North Argyll fo-air, in West Ross fohair, in East Ross fu-air at least in the place-name Novar ‘Tigh an fhumhair,’ in Skye fu-aire. Possibly fuamhair, quoted in dictionaries from the margin of Genesis, represents the pronunciation fu-air. The Lewis pronunciation may have been adopted from literature; the word seemingly is unfamiliar in Sutherland. ”

“ Silent consonants in this way serve the same purpose as the diæresis mark in English orthography. Other purposes also are served by them. After liquids they indicate that the liquids are sounded long. After a vowel they often indicate that the sound of the vowel differs from what it would be otherwise, as when a and o are changed to ao before dh and gh. The number of instances in which consonants are absolutely silent, however, is by no means great. 'Silent' consonants are not always silent. They may be silent in one dialect and not in another. ”

“ Any distinctions are more local than general. The most prominent of them is that before n as in gràin, thàinig, ainm, gainmheach, raineach the digraph receives the sound of à or a in some districts as ‘grà’n,’ ‘a’nm,’ etc., and that of è or e in others, ‘gr’èn,’ ‘enm.’ Two prominent words that follow this analogy are màthair, ‘mèhir,’ or ‘mèr,’ and Gàidheal ‘G’è-al.’ Perhaps nowhere is e for ai so frequent as in North Argyll and Lochaber. It is more frequent in Strathspey than Badenoch ”

“ Even th at the end of accented syllables in many instances is not silent in Arran, Kintyre, and Islay, or, though with a different pronunciation, in the west of Ross-shire.
Silent consonants owe not only their retention or introduction in many cases to their vowel neighbours. They often owe their silence to those same vowels. They have lost their sounds through aspiration, and aspiration has been caused by the vowels. Aspiration took place whenever a single consonant stood between two vowels in early Gaelic speech. ”

“ In West Ross the v sound is confined generally to monosyllables. Divergences from the v sound occur mostly where the nearest vowel is slender, and are rarest in the three southernmost dialects, more frequent in North Argyll, and extend to a few words with broad adjacent vowels in West Ross. Baobh, cliabh, dèabh, eubh, gabh, leubh, saobh, sgriobh, sibh, sliabh, with words like balbh, falbh, dealbh, deilbh, seilbh, meanbh, dearbh, garbh, doirbh, soirbh, have v in Arran, Kintyre, Islay, and North Argyll, as have also craobh, taobh in Kintyre and Islay, and dèabh in Islay and North Argyll. ”

“ In Sunart, in North Argyll, it is the unaspirated sound that goes, and the aspirated sound may be heard invariably, e.g. in leanabh, never lleanabh, in leamh, leomhann, leann, léine, leubh (read thou) , leubhaidh (will read) , sleamhuinn, sliabh, buille, maille, seillean, etc. L, that is to say, in such words, is apt always to have the same sound as in baile, town; mile, a thousand. In West Ross and in Sutherland, on the other hand, the unaspirated sound not only maintains its ground, but takes the place of the aspirated sound in initial position. ”

“ Eanruig, Henry; in bainnse, gen. of banais, wedding; coinnseas, conscience; innse, gen. of innis, island; innseadh, telling; oinnseach, foolish woman; sinnsear, ancestor; uinnsean, ash-wood. Puisean (from English ‘poison,’ so Arran, Kintyre, and Perth—puision, Armstrong) —has ui nasalised in many dialects, as North Argyll and West Ross, and consequently, on the analogy of words like uinnseann, is usually written puinsean. Innis, tell, though a vowel stands between nn and s, is usually pronounced ìs (ì nasal) , as is also innis, island, often when forming the first part of a place-name. ”

“ The borrowed word tim, ‘time,’ in Sutherland has become, not tìm, as might be expected on the analogy of im, etc., but tiam, as though the word were tìom, and followed the analogy of sìoman, etc. Féin, self, which is ‘fhìn’ with the first personal pronouns in the Northern Dialect generally—‘Thu fhéin ’s mi fhìn,’ (never in the North ‘mi fhéin’) —is fhèin (è nasal) in the north of Sutherland except Strathy, and fhian in Strathy and the south-east of the county, with first personal pronouns, but with the other persons fhéin (é not nasal) , as in the rest of the Highlands. ”

“ In a few instances such as àmhghair, affliction, aoghaire, shepherd, truaghan, miserable person, etc., gh has its proper sound in most dialects. It is sounded in aghaidh, face, in Arran, Perth, West Ross, and Sutherland, but is silent in Kintyre, North Argyll, and Skye; MacAlpine gives both pronunciations. Foghar, autumn, harvest, Irish fóghmhar, Early Irish fogamur, has gh—faoghar—in Perth, Strathspey, and Sutherland; and bh—fe’bhar (close e) —in Arran, Kintyre, and Islay ”

“ In other dialects liquid changes occur but are not a prominent feature. It may not be amiss, however, to give some of the examples and also a few of the instances of the insertion of liquids.
M
Initially, m sometimes takes the place of b. Binid, calf’s stomach, is minid in Glenlyon and North Argyll. In the latter district moile, impatience, seems to be for boile, madness, rage. Nèarachd, happiness, in Argyll meurachd according to MacAlpine, is miarachd in Skye, (Early Irish, mogenar) ; Is nearachd an duine a smachdaicheas Dia, happy is the man whom God correcteth. ”

“ Final dh receives the sound of gh in monosyllables usually in Kintyre, Islay, North Argyll, Skye, West Ross, and, to some extent, in Strathspey, but not in Perth or in Sutherland. In words of more than one syllable, as cogadh, war, deireadh, end, monadh, hill, osnadh, sigh, and the names Donnchadh and Murchadh, the gh sound is heard in those western districts, except Ross, and also in Badenoch. In West Ross gh is heard sometimes, but is not the usual sound in such nouns and in the parts ending in dh of verbs. ”

“ As tualaig, loosen, which is nasalised in Perth, is tuainig or tuanaig in other dialects, the word may be properly tuanlaig. Adhlac, to agree with its pronunciation, as has been said (p. 224) , should be annlac, nn being assimilated to l. The first vowel of òran, song, is nasalised in Perth, though not in Arran, Kintyre, or Islay, where it is óran, or in North Argyll or Skye, where it is òran, but in Strathspey, Ross, Sutherland and Lewis, and in Ireland, the word is amhran, in Middle Irish ambrán. ”

“ T is formed with the point of the tongue pressed against the gum, and is more explosive than in English. In contact with slender vowels it is sounded with sh after it—tsh—, and resembles, except for the difference between Gaelic t and English t, the pronunciation of tch in English ‘etch,' ‘witch,’ or that of ch in ‘chief,’ ‘rich.’ D, often popularly described as being like English t, would be better designated a voiceless or surd d. ”

“ Anart, linen, is a’ard in Perth and Strathspey; and arad (first a nasal in both) in Sutherland; in Arran, North Argyll, Skye and West Ross n is kept.
Mh is sometimes written for nn, e.g. by MacAlpine in comhlach for connlach or conlach (which he calls ‘Irish pronunciation of comhlach’) , coimhseas for coinnseas, comhsaich for connsaich, contend, and comhspaid for connspaid, a quarrel. In Northern Gaelic where a and o become au and ou before long nn, mh, which often has the sound of u after a or o, is liable to be written for nn where the letter has been assimilated in pronunciation. ”

“ Of all the tests employed to distinguish different dialects of our Gaelic, none is more generally applicable, or gives more definite results, than the treatment of short vowels before long liquids. The long sounds of the liquids are important in this connection. In words like dall, cam, bonn, the vowel, though marked long by the authorities in some words of the kind, was not long originally and is not long now; it is the liquid that is long. ”

“ MacAlpine gives two pronunciations of eanbhruich, inbhe, and taibhse, one with bh as v and one with bh silent, Àbhaist is àvist (àvisht) in Arran, Kintyre, MacAlpine, and Sutherland; àvist, àst, and àist (àsht) in Perth; à-u'rst in North Argyle, and fà-uist in West Ross. Éubh (in Kintyre Èubh) is rendered by MacAlpine ‘Eve, first woman; aspen tree'; Eabha, Eve, and eabhadh, aspen tree, are given in O’Reilly’s Irish Dictionary. Shaw has Eabha for both. In Scottish Gaelic the aspen is eibheadh and eadha and Eve in Arran Gaelic is Eobha or Eodha ‘yo-a,’ a dialect form of eadha. ”

“ Group I. contains words that are diphthongised in the South; all have ia (or iao) in Perthshire, all but the last in Islay, and all but the three last in Arran. MacAlpine gives ‘a chéud’ or ‘a chiad.’ The diphthong is ia in all the instances in Arran, and in Glenlyon in Perthshire; in East Perthshire and in the North generally in those words, with the exception of brèagh, it is iao, i.e. the second constituent of the diphthong is not a, but the Gaelic ao sound. Ceudna varies; ‘ciaodna,’ North Argyll; ‘cianda,’ North Inverness, West Ross, Sutherland; ‘ciaont,’ Lewis ”

“ The difference indeed needs but to be pointed out, to be recognised in pronunciation. A long liquid can also be distinguished generally, though not so unerringly, by position. It is found only after the vowel of an accented syllable, and must be supported, if a syllable follows, by another liquid or by one of certain consonants. Long l and long n are usually written double, as is also long r except when followed by a supporting liquid or consonant. ”

“ Lèabag is leóbag (‘lyóbag’) in N. Inverness, W. Ross, Lewis, and Sutherland, feusag is feòsag (‘fyòsag’) in Sutherland, and rèapach is reòpach in N. Inverness. Teuchdaidh viscid, in N. Inverness tiachaidh, is teaochaidh in Creich, and beurla is beaorla in Strathspey, and in parts of Skye and of Lewis. The name for the landrail—trèan-ri-trèan—is traon in Lewis and, according to MacAlpine, in Skye; in Irish it is traona.
It is not an unknown thing that a word should come to have two pronunciations accompanied by some differentiation in meaning or usage. ”