Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/118

 intervening small vowel, as in ard, ‘aurd,’ ord, ‘ourd,’ ort, ‘ourt,’ goirt, ‘gou’rt,’ cairdean, ‘cau’rdean.’ In Rannoch it occurs also in words like carn, ‘caurn,’ dorn, ‘dourn’; in words like bearn, cearn, in which the a sound is changed to o, ‘byourn,’ ‘cyourn’; in words like ceard, feaird, feart, and the name of the county town Peairt, ‘Pyau’rt.’

Both those vowel changes depend vitally upon the length of the liquids. The liability of the long liquids to shortening when unsupported has been referred to already. Such shortening, whenever it takes place, undoes the change, if any, undergone by the vowel. The lengthened vowel of àrd continues long in àrdan, and that of còrr in còrlach or còrrlach, but that of bàrr is shortened in barrach, and that of tòrr in torran. So in the north mill is ‘mìll,’ and milltear, ‘mìlltear,’ but millidh is not ‘mìllidh,’ and while seinn is ‘sìnn,’ seinnidh is not ‘sìnnidh,’ but ‘sinnidh.’ Again, beann is ‘byaunn’ or ‘beunn,’ and beanntan, ‘byaunntan’ or ‘beunntan,’ but though cam is ‘caum,’ caman is not ‘cauman,’ nor camas ‘caumas,’ and though Gall is ‘Gaull’ and Gallda ‘Gaullda, Galllach is not ‘Gaullach.’

A long liquid is thus found mostly in monosyllables. If the word comes, through grammatical inflection or word-formation, to have more than one syllable, the long liquid becomes short except when it is followed either in the original word or in the extended form, by a supporting liquid or consonant, and, when the liquid becomes short, the preceding vowel, if it has been either lengthened or diphthongised, reverts to its original short undiphthongised form.

This u after a and o, besides being of less frequent occurrence near the southern borders of its area than it is farther north, seems also to be less distinct and pronounced, or less fully developed. It is, however, of old standing. The Dean of Lismore has it before l and n as dawle for dall, Cown for Conn, just as in west Perth and Lorne at the present day.

The treatment of those vowels in like positions in Manx and in Irish is to some extent analogous. In Munster a and o are lengthened before long r and diphthongised before other