66
AN GAOḊAL
NOTES.
Bean Ḋóiġtí. — In County Donegal
they say bean ḋuḃ, bean ṫinn, tá bun
ḃualaḋ aír mo ċois ḋeis, tá súil ḋuḃ
aicí, &c., contrary to “College Irish
Grammar,” page 213, § 242.
Póstaí — The suffix of the Past
Participle, -tí and -taí, is always
pronounced long in Connaught and
in Ulster, in order to distinguish it
from the Genitive Case of the Infi¬
nitive, which is formed by -te and
-ta short, and means a purpose or
an occupation. There is a differ¬
ence in meaning between fear bual-
tí and fear buailte (i, coirce) : fear
deantaí (i. fear a d'éiriġ saiḋḃir) and
fear deantali (i. bróg); bean ċaointi and
bean ċaointe; bean scuabṫaí and bean
scuabṫa. The old Connaught scho¬
lars were right, when they wrote
it, -tiḋ and -taiḋ. Notice also, that
there is no contraction, or elision,
when the next word begins with a
vowel. Does not this show that it
is long and not short, as written
by some modern scholars ?
Air, prep, on, upon. So do I
write it, to distinguish it from the
Poss. Pronoun, ar, our. Neither
spelling gives the pronunciation
The former is er, and the latter, ur
Fearr, — There is no necessity of
writing this word feárr. The dou¬
ble "r' shows already that the pre¬
ceding a is long. Indeed, I do not
see any other reason for the doub¬
ling of the "r.' I could never dis¬
tinguish any difference, in articu¬
lation, between "rr' and 'r'. I
think it would be better to write a
single "r" and to make the a long ;
thus, feár We can see the necess¬
ity of writing it single, when the
preceding vowel becomes short:
because if we then write the 'r'
double the reader may think that
the a is long when it is not. gearr
níos, giorra; barr, barra, would be
written more simple; geár, níos
giora, bár, bana Some give as a
reason that it is so written in the
old manuscripts, but this should be
also a reason for the double s, &c.
Béarfaiḋ. — I prefer writing éa to
eu, because Ulster speakers, in a
good many words, pronounce the
diphthong short. Then it is easier
for them to overlook the long mark
than to learn that eu must be pro¬
nounced short. It would do if they
made all eus short, but they do not.
It is also easier to remember that
a becomes i in attenuation, than
that ea becomes éi; example, béal,
béil, béilín
The f of the Future Tense and
Conditional Mood, is pronounced
as a strong h in Conaught and in
Ulster. It seems to me that f and
h are almost identical Those who
cannot very well articulate h, sub¬
stitute the f You will hear "ó ṁai¬
din go h-oiḋ'," and "ó ṁaidin go f-oiḋ,"
in the same locality; féin is héin
nearly everywhere, but féin is said
generally by those who want to let
the people know that they are clas¬
sical. Tríd is pronounced hríd in
Connaught and fríd in Ulster.
With some verbs, I have heard, t
instead of h This is the rea¬
son that some scholars write t in¬
stead of f, supposing that the f,
that is h. is t aspirate; but may
not the t in these instances, come
from the verbal stem, instead of
being the future or conditional suf¬
fix? Double n is equal to nt and is
so written in old manuscripts ; s
very often takes after it a euphon¬
ic t; as, grasa, grásta : arís, aríst;
buailemuis, -muist. This may exp¬
lain the origin of the t found in a
few instances. This f or strong h
has a peculiar influence upon the
preceding consonant of the verbal
stem. It changes sonant conson¬
ants into surds and the silent con¬
sonant (consain báiḋte) into ċ whillst
(To be continued)
