Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/239

 word-formation a vowel comes to stand immediately after it and au then becomes a again; as ann (in) and annta (in them), both with long nn, and so respectively ‘aunn’ and ‘aunnta’ in the north, but annam (in me), annad (in thee), etc., all with short nn and so have not au. In the words affected a always becomes au in northern Gaelic but never in southern. The dividing line between the two dialects has been described as running up Loch Linnhe to the opening of Loch Leven and then following the county march between Inverness on the one side and Argyll and Perth on the other. The change to au, however, found to north of this line before all three long liquids, is found to the south of it before the two ll and nn as far as the middle of Argyllshire and eastwards to the middle of Perthshire. Thus in Argyllshire there is the complete absence of the change to au in the southern half of the county; there is the occurrence of it before two of the liquids from the middle of the county to Loch Linnhe, and there is the full development before the three liquids in the part beyond Loch Linnhe. It is not at all unlikely that the change to au before long r prevailing in Glenlyon and Rannoch may extend also into the Black Mount district and that so a fourth though somewhat irregular stage may be found in the same county. It should be noted that in such words as Alba, calpa, balbh, balg, calma, farmad, etc., though the liquid is long au does not appear.

A strange-looking instance of this diphthongisation is in the word adhlac (burial). The terminal variations of the word in different dialects, viz., adhlacadh, adhlaic, adhlaiceadh, may be disregarded here. It is pronounced ‘àllac’ in the south and ‘aullac’ in the north with à and au nasalised, and, if written according to the analogy of words similarly pronounced, as annlan, connlach, innleachd, it would be annlac. In Manx it is anlaky and oanluckey and in old Irish adnacul and adnocul. What has happened in Scottish Gaelic in this instance is that spelling and pronunciation have followed different courses. Our spelling retains a trace of d and none of n while the reverse is the case with our pronunciation; it