Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/125

 Spleuc, teuchdadh, lèabag, and trèan-ri-trèan (‘trianaidhtrian’) in Skye.

Beurla (‘biaorla’ or ‘biaolla,’ so Lochbroom also), eud (‘iad’ in Barra also), m’fheudail, gleus, and teuchdadh, in Lewis.

‘Piata,’ a puny child, North Inverness and West Ross, has been explained by Dr. Henderson as a by-form of ‘peata,’ English ‘pet’; in Lewis ‘piatan’ used affectionately of one craving for a drink.

Eud in the North generally means zeal, while jealousy is ‘iadach’ (in Glenlyon ‘eudach’).

Diphthongisation of the vowel è thus appears to be most prevalent in the central Highlands, and somewhat less so in North Argyll and Lewis. It has extended strongly into Rannoch, which breaks away from the rest of Perthshire in this respect, and is sharply distinguished from Glenlyon and the parish of Blair-Atholl, bounding it respectively on the south and east, and is in full force in Badenoch and Strathdearn, its eastern limits. On the other hand, Strathspey which means in local usage the part of the valley of the Spey below Rothiemurchus, and lies in an angle between Badenoch on the south-west, and Strathdearn on the north-west, differs from both districts, and agrees closely with the South. Far north Sutherlandshire also, with the exception perhaps of the Assynt quarter of the county, claims to stand with Strathspey and the south in this matter. The words in which ia has been found in Strathspey are:—

Ceud, ceud, ceudna, Di-ceudaoin, deug, sgreuch, brèagh, sè, ceutach, seun.

With the exception of the two last, those words are diphthongised in Sutherlandshire—Creich, Kildonan, and Strathy—and, with the following list, they exhaust the known instances of that vowel change in the south-east and in the north of that county:—

Deuchainn, feuch, feusgan, cia meud, reul, crè.

Beul, neul, sgeul, ‘cial.’

Ceutach and feusgan have the diphthong in Creich,