Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/186

Rh f

In a few cases mh has taken the sound of f. Naturally it has done so most readily where the tendency to keep the v sound is strongest in the most southern dialects. Mac Mhuirich, Englished Currie, is Mac Fuirigh or Ac Fuirigh, and Mac Mhurchaidh, Englished Macmurchy and Murchie, Mac Furchaidh both in Kintyre and at Shiskine in Arran; at the south end of Arran Mac uirigh and Mac urchaidh. So in Kintyre Mac Mhaoilein, MacMillan, is Mac Faoileinn.

Medially f takes the place of mh in Mac Creamhain, ‘Crawford,’ in Arran, and both there and in Kintyre in fomhair for famhair. MacAlpine pronounces aimheal, Irish aithmheal, effal or evval (e nasal), where the lost th may be held to have induced the f (ff) from v (vv); in other words he gives vf, as amhach, neck, ‘avfach,’ so amhaidh, sour, raw (of weather), amhain, entanglement by the neck. etc.

Famhair, a giant, in the Book of the Dean of Lismore, fowir, Manx fowar, Irish fomhor, is fohfair rather than fofair in Arran; in MacAlpine, Perth and Lewis it is favair, in Strathspey fawair, in North Inverness and North Argyll fo-air, in West Ross fohair, in East Ross fu-air at least in the place-name Novar ‘Tigh an fhumhair,’ in Skye fu-aire. Possibly fuamhair, quoted in dictionaries from the margin of Genesis, represents the pronunciation fu-air. The Lewis pronunciation may have been adopted from literature; the word seemingly is unfamiliar in Sutherland. The vowels are nasalised in all the pronunciations.

In final position f is heard in caomh and naomh in Arran, and in amh, nèamh, and samh in West Ross.

u

This sound is heard medially mostly where it has coloured or superseded a following a. In North Argyll amhach, neck, is ‘e-uch,’ and so amhaltach, amharc, amharus, deamhan, glamhas for glomhas, cleft, and glamhadh for sglamhadh, a snap, snatch, and also diamhair, gamhainn, namhaid, reamhar.