Page:Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie Vol. 5.djvu/102

94 in my edition of the poems of Neil Morison. the Pabbay Bard. In N. Inv. one may any day hear (cjɛṛïɑl) for Eng. 'carrier'; Benbecula says Guaile for Guaire. St. Kilda has eł for air 'on' ɑhał for athair 'father' a hłii for a righ 'oh king'. I have heard of a St. Kilda woman saying: Chlētail! calson thug thu dhiot do logai (= chreutair! carson thug thu dhiot do dhosan) mo ghrādh in S. Kilda becomes (mɔ ᵹlhɑɑ) Arran, too, has (elɑn) for aoirean 'a ploughman' (œṛɑn). In Barra I have heard gaoil for gaoir but the change is not carried out far.

(2) l for n is exemplified in the Uist

'Nam biodh an dā theanga agad 's tu bārd a b'fhearr na mise' (= If thou hadst the two tongues thou wert a better bard than I) Said Alex. Macdonald of Ardnamurchan to John Mac Codrum, the N. Uist bard, to which the latter answered quickly: nam biodh an dā chānail 's an aon teanga th'ann, dh'fhoghnadh e = 'were the two languages on the one tongue there is, it would suffice'. Benbecula has l for n e. g. lānail 'married couple'; cantail 'saying'.

(3) A common feature of many dialects is that rl becomes l: phjœœḷa the English language beurla ˑɑh-aḷə heifer atharla.

(4) ḷ final sometimes passes in N. Inv. to łt, lcc ˑu̯-iłt for umhal 'humble', a loan from Latin humilis. The Gaelic pronunciation still shows that l was flanked by a light vowel; the l here sounds either ł or l (the latter being a little more 'forward' than the English sound).

From analogy or through the forward point-tooth consonant we get: feṭɑḷt‘, eṭɑłt‘ Italy cɟɑramɑlt Germany.

Cf. Espaint Spain, colloquially (spɑɑñ).

(5) The sound that does duty for devocalized ḷ has been already noticed. It is now the most marked of the Gairloch dialect. If we take the verb 'go', in Gairloch folbh, it at first