Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/355

 a thuilleid air sin. Thigeadh would come, would become, befit or suit, has taken further the special meaning of ought to, with the form of thigead. The form and use were recalled to mind when an old friend, lamenting the indifference to Gaelic, spoke of that tongue as ‘A’ chainnt a thigead bhi anns an dùthaich,’ the language that ought to be in the land. John M‘Gregor, a native of the county, uses the form in this sense in his songs (p. 190):—

Perhaps the d in this instance has shifted back from the prepositional pronouns domh, etc., before which the word is oftenest used in this sense as ‘thigead duit, or thigeadh duit a dheanamh,’ it would be becoming of you to do it, you ought to do it.

Broad dh has the same sound as broad gh, always in initial position, and in most dialects medially in a few words, such as diadhaidh, pious, with diadhair, a divine, etc., eadhon, namely, fiadhain, wild, fiodhag, bird-cherry, fiodhan, cheese-vat, and iodhal, idol. So also feadhainn, people in west Ross. Bàbhun, bulwark, enclosure for cattle, bàbhuinn, towers in Ezekiel xxvi. 4; bàbhuin, bulwarks, in metrical Psalm xlviii. 13, is in Sutherland, bàdhan, a burying-ground, with dh sounded as gh; the Irish bábhún, Middle Irish bódhún, is written badhbhdhún by Dinneen, and pronounced nearly bàwan by Quiggin. Baun, in the parish of Kilberry, opposite Kintyre, is in Gaelic am Bàbhun (with bh silent).

Final dh receives the sound of gh in monosyllables usually in Kintyre, Islay, North Argyll, Skye, West Ross, and, to some extent, in Strathspey, but not in Perth or in Sutherland. In words of more than one syllable, as cogadh, war, deireadh, end, monadh, hill, osnadh, sigh, and the names Donnchadh and Murchadh, the gh sound is heard in those western districts, except Ross, and also in Badenoch. In West Ross gh is heard sometimes, but is not the usual sound