Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/126

 deuchainn and feucn in Creich and Kildonan, reul (‘rialt’ or more frequently ‘rialtag’) in Kildonan, and crè (‘criaodhach’) in Kildonan and Strathy. Ceutach and ceutadh apparently are diphthongised by some speakers and not by others (‘cèutach’ and ‘cèutu’) in the Strathy district.

The southern è of beul, neul, and sgeul is changed in Sutherland, not into ia, but into à, so that the words would be written respectively, beàl, neàl, and sgeàl, and are pronounced byàl, nyàl, sgyàl. Cial, brim of a vessel, is also changed to ceàl in Sutherland. Though this resembles in the result the change in Arran of brèagh, cè (cream), crè, gèadh, and sè, respectively into breàgh (brè or bryà, Macalpine), ceà, creà, geàdh, seà (br’à, cyà, cr’à, gyà, shà), it is no doubt to be compared rather with the transference in Gaelic generally, of the pronunciation from e to a in such words as geal, ‘gyal,’ seal, ‘shal,’ etc.

A substitution of other sounds for è sometimes occurs. 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. In N. Argyll, Skye, N. Inverness, W. Ross, and Lewis, seud, when it means jewel, is ‘séud,’ but when it means hero it is ‘siad.’ The word is everywhere in those districts familiar in the latter sense. As ‘séud,’ jewel, it is not at all so frequently used, and may have been adopted from literature. Meud is undiphthongised throughout Sutherland, except in the phrase ‘co miad’ (how much). The phrase is ‘ce mìod’ in Skye and Lewis, while the word otherwise is both ‘mìod’ and ‘miad’ in Lewis, and ‘miadachd’ in Skye, and also in N. Argyll. MacAlpine gives ‘mèud’ and