Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/195

182 have been the cause of the change generally of ea into eo in those words. Gheibh also in most dialects is pronounced as if it were gheobh, with bh silent.

Bh is silent with MacAlpine in cubhaidh, cuibhrionn, gheibh, but sounds v in those words in Arran. On the other hand it is v with MacAlpine in inbhir and easbhuidh, but silent in Arran. MacAlpine gives two pronunciations of eanbhruich, inbhe, and taibhse, one with bh as v and one with bh silent, Àbhaist is àvist (àvisht) in Arran, Kintyre, MacAlpine, and Sutherland; àvist, àst, and àist (àsht) in Perth; à-u'rst in North Argyle, and fà-uist in West Ross. Éubh (in Kintyre Èubh) is rendered by MacAlpine ‘Eve, first woman; aspen tree'; Eabha, Eve, and eabhadh, aspen tree, are given in O’Reilly’s Irish Dictionary. Shaw has Eabha for both. In Scottish Gaelic the aspen is eibheadh and eadha and Eve in Arran Gaelic is Eobha or Eodha ‘yo-a,’ a dialect form of eadha. Clearly the Gaelic for Eve has somehow been influenced by the name for the aspen tree.

The pronunciations, as far as known, of cathadh, drift, point to cabhadh as being the correct form of the word, viz., cavfadh, with MacAlpine; cawa, Perth; ca-udh, North Argyll; cahudh, Skye; cahug, West Ross; ca-u, Sutherland; cafa, Lewis. Armstrong has cathadh and cathamh; the latter occurring also in Eng.-Gael. is evidently his own form. The regular verb cabh, ‘kavf,’ is given by MacAlpine, and is in use in Perthshire. In Arran the word is càthadh, like the Irish cáthadh, and either has been influenced by, or is identical with càthadh, winnowing.

Words like deilbh, seilbh, mairbh, tairbh are in Perthshire deli, seli, maori, taori (East Perth, mari, tari in Rannoch). In Rannoch dealbh is ‘deala-ah,’ meanbh ‘meana-ah,’ dearbh ‘deara-ah.’ In some dialects deala-u, deara-u, etc., may be heard. In East Perth this glide a may be heard sometimes after the u sound, which is then apt to become w, as balbh, balua, or balwa. The Dean of Lismore writes dalwyth