Page:Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie Vol. 5.djvu/463

 THE GAELIC DIALECTS. (Continuation.)

V. The Pronoun. Personal Pronouns.

(1) thu = uu (thou) and sibh = ſii (you) are used like the German du and Sie: thu is applied to the Divine Being, to equals, and also by parents to children; sibh is used by children in addressing parents, always in addressing superiors and elders and generally as a mark of courtesy. It is nowhere now-a-days applied to the Divine Being. But in the Fernaig Ms. chiefly in the poems by MacCulloch of Park, near Dingwall, it is applied to God (e.g. bho’s fiosrach sibh mar a ta), v. Leabhar nan Gleann 208, 8; 206,8 where the latter instance might be due to exigencies of metre but I can see none such in the former:

Righ na paise! feuch do ghrāsan Orm-san is mi’n cās gach tīm Bho na naimhdean ta ga m’leanmhuin Bho taim anfhuinn sibh mo dhīon.

In some parts of Uist sibh is applied in addressing little children and infants. Mac Alpine (Dict. XXVII n) remarks that