Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/82

Rh SCOTTISH GAELIC DIALECTS

Charles M. Robertson

(Continued from vol. iii. p. 332)

The mutual action and interaction of vowels and consonants upon one another are exceptionally prominent in the pronunciation of Gaelic, and show themselves very insistently in the orthography of the language. The silent vowels that form a part of that orthography have their explanation in most cases in the history of the language, but practically they owe their retention, or their presence, in the modern spelling to the adjacent consonants. Cois, the dative of cas, foot, for example, derived the i from a retraction of the ending of coxi, the prehistoric form of the dative of the word, but phonetically the preservation of the i is due to the fact that s has its slender or narrow sound or the distinctive sound that it has when in contact with either of the slender vowels e and i. On the other hand the retention and sometimes even the introduction of silent consonants are often due to adjoining vowels. One general use of such consonants in the modern language is to show that the vowels on either side of the consonant are to be sounded apart, or that, in other words, they belong to different syllables. Accordingly such consonants are introduced when required for that purpose in inflection and word formation. As Munro has it in his Grammar: 'In the course of inflecting a primitive word, or combining a termination or compositive syllable therewith, if two vowels belonging to distinct syllables meet together, they must be separated by a silent dh, gh, or th,' and he gives amongst other examples ceò, mist; but ceòthar, misty. Silent consonants in this way serve the same purpose as the diæresis mark in English orthography. Other purposes also are served by them. After liquids they indicate that the liquids are sounded long. After a vowel they often indicate that the sound of the vowel differs from what it