Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/192

Rh of you, and so on, and in brisibh, break ye, dèanaibh, do ye, ithibh, eat ye, òlaibh, drink ye, togaibh, lift ye, etc. In Arran ‘shu’ is heard, but more rarely than ‘shiv,’ for sibh, and has not afected the forms in question. In Perth and Badenoch bh is simply silent in sibh, and so also in all the forms. In Sutherland sibh is ‘shu,’ and correspondingly the others are agu, annu, brisu, deanu, etc. In West Ross, though bh is silent in sibh, it is sounded as b in the related forms annaib, ichib (eat ye), òlaib. Probably this has arisen from the pronunciation there of sibh fhéin frequently (not always) as sip fhéin (si péin?), though it has to be observed that sip fhéin in Skye and siu pé, which is heard in Arran and in Sutherland, have not had such an effect in those districts.

MacAlpine writes comhstri, but pronounces it comhstriobh, Stri, strive, strife, he calls a ‘corruption of striobh, which is used in Knapdale and Sutherlandshire,’ and he writes strìobh and strì. In Arran strìobh is heard, but more frequently strì.

In several instances u or w in borrowed words has become v in the most southern dialects. MacAlpine not only writes bh, which was, of course, the correct thing to do, but pronounces it as v in cabhsaidh, cosy, cabhsair, causeway, cabhtair, cauter, fabhd, Scot. faut, fault, gabhd, Scot. gaud, a trick, sàbh, saw, and sàbhadair, sawyer, sabhs, sauce, sabhsair, sausage, tobha, ‘tow,’ rope. Cabhsair is ‘cavasa’r’ in Arran. Sàbh, saw, is ‘sàv’ in Arran, North Argyll, and Skye. The noun is sàbha, ‘s’èva' in Arran; in West Ross it is ‘sàv,' but the verb is sàbhaig, pronounced sàwaig. In Rannoch both sàv and àu or sàw are heard.

f

Initially bh is f with MacAlpine and in Skye, etc., in bharr for a bharr, from off, used prepositionally, and in West Ross, etc., in bho, from, and bhos, on this side. The latter, however, is for a(n) bh—fos. A height at Little Loch Broom, with a few boulders that look from a distance like men standing or