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 As the reduction of ö̤꞉ we get o̤ in o̤lkuw, ‘to bury’, M.Ir. adlacaim < adnacim; No̤nu꞉r, ‘set of nine’, O.Ir. nónbor (also Nïnu꞉r through associ&shy;ation with dʹin̥ʹu꞉r); ro̤d, ‘thing’, O.Ir. rét, the depalatal&shy;isation of initial *Rʹ caused é to become ö̤꞉ (v. § ) and when the word was used en&shy;clitical&shy;ly ö̤꞉ was reduced to o̤, it is the enclitic form of the word which has survived; similarly o̤rəd, ‘amount’, αχ o̤rəd, ‘at all’, O.Ir. airet, eret. Di. writes oiread, Macbain uiread but also Sc. G. urad, cp. Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition vol. iii p. 43, Finck erʹəd, erʹid, so that the depalatal&shy;isation is peculiar. Craig usually writes urad, ach urad (Derry People 30 iv ’04 p. 3 col. 4). Perhaps the r is due to associ&shy;ation with ro̤d.

In a few words o̤ has taken the place of other vowels. This is the case in ko̤rsαn, ‘wheezing’, Di. cársán, Macbain carrasan; kro̤puw, ‘to shrink’, Meyer crapaim but also crúpán; Lo̤g, ‘weak’, M.Ir. lac perhaps in&shy;fluenced by bo̤g, ‘soft’; to̤məL(t) beside tαməL(t), ‘a while’, Di. tamall; sro̤n̥uw, ‘to scatter, spread’, Di. sreath&shy;uighim, srath&shy;uighim, srath&shy;nuighim. o̤ occurs ex&shy;ceptional&shy;ly before r < *Rʹ in o̤rdʹə, ‘height’, Wi. arde, airde, cp. Manx yrjey but in phrases we find α꞉rdʹə, as in erʹ kɔs ə Nα꞉rdʹə, ‘galloping’, Di. cos i n‑áirde; also α꞉rdʹ, ‘point of the sky’, M.Ir. aird but the com&shy;parative of α꞉rd, ‘high’ is o̤rdʹə (the inflected forms of α꞉rd follow the nomi&shy;native, gen. sing. fem. α꞉rdʹə). Further o̤rdʹ, nom. plur. of ɔ꞉rd, ‘sledge-hammer’, M.Ir. ord.

10. ⅄꞉. This symbol is here used to denote the peculiar sound given to the digraph ao, which appears to be similar to the cor&shy;respond&shy;ing sound in Scotch Gaelic and on Aran, though I cannot say whether they are identical. The Donegal sound is the unrounded form of close u꞉ in German ‘gut’ and is therefore high-back-narrow. ⅄꞉ is always long except when shorten&shy;ing occurs before h < th, as in s⅄hər, ‘labour’, O.Ir. sáithar and in r⅄h, ‘run’, O.Ir. rith, where ⅄ is due to the depalatal&shy;isation of *Rʹ. The younger people as a general rule have not got this sound and sub&shy;stitute for it i꞉ and y꞉, cp. Craig’s statement (Grammar² p. 4) “ao is pro&shy;nounced like ee in heel”. High-front articula&shy;tion has also taken the place of high-back in some dialects of Scotch Gaelic, cp. Henderson, ZCP. iv 100. That this pronunci&shy;ation of ao has been pretty general in Ulster may be gathered from notes by J. H. Lloyd in the Gaelic Journal, e.g.