Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/89



Ng is very variable in most dialects. Perhaps in the greater number of instances it tends to disappear between vowels in the extreme south—Arran and Kintyre—and north—Sutherland. In North Argyll—mainland and islands—it becomes very generally ng-g both medially and finally. Ionga, a finger nail, for example, is iong-ga, i.e. has the sound of ng with a g added. So in other instances, as seangan, sreang. The sound is like that of ng in such English words as 'anger,' 'finger.' Indeed natives of the district in question often carry this peculiarity into their English pronunciation, and may be heard to say, for instance, 'hang-g' for hang, and 'king-g' for king.

Final ng in words of two syllables is variously ng, nn, and g when broad, and nn and g when slender. A preference for nn appears in Arran and Kintyre, and for g in Northern Gaelic, e.g. in cumhang (narrow), tarrang (a nail), aisling (vision), bodhaig (bothy), eislinn (stretcher), cudainn (cuddy fish), faoileann (sea-gull), etc.

Verbs borrowed recently from English appear to carry with them as a rule the present participle ending, and end in ig, as robaig, rob; ropaig, roup, sell by auction. (A sale by auction is ropainn!) At Lochtayside, or at least in one part of that district, such verbs uniformly end in inn, e.g. ùisig, to use, is there 'ùisinn,' and cuipig, to whip, 'cuipinn.'

The four sounds of r should be heard, for example, in earrach, fearr, mearachd, fear, mirr, éirich, cèir. Often only two sounds are recognised. These are a plain and an aspirated r, the distinction of broad and slender being then unobserved. Generally, however, the two aspirated sounds can be differentiated, but so much cannot be said of the unaspirated sounds. Duplicate forms like nàraich and nàirich, to shame, an uraidh and an ùiridh, last year, are due  immediately not to failure to distinguish the different sounds,