AN GAOḊAL
83
NOTES on an t-Sean Ḃean Dóiġtí,
Continued from page 66.
the vowel that has been lengthened in
compensation for the silent consonant
becomes short ; as, fág, fágfaiḋ and d'
ḟágfaḋ, pronounced fac-hui and fác¬
hú; druid, druidfiḋ and ḋruidfeaḋ,
pronounced druid-huí and ḋruiḋ-huí;
lúb, lúbfaiḋ and lúbfaḋ, pronounced
lúp-huí and lúp-hú; luiġ, luiġfiḋ and
luiġfeaḋ, pronounced luiċ-hí and luiċ¬
huí ; glaoiḋ, glaoiḋfiḋ and ġlaoiġfeaḋ,
pronounced gluiċ-hí and ġluiċ-hiú. This
shows that verbal stems written -aoiḋ
or -aoiġ, would be better written -uiḋ
or -uiġ. Dr. Hyde is a little mistaken
when he writes that the f in the fu¬
ture of regular verbs is quiescent, ("Be¬
side the fire,” page 197). It is true
that when the verbal stem ends in an
aspirate, or a letter that hides the f
(h), then one may think that it is si¬
lent; but he should not omit it in wri¬
ting. You don’t leave the letters in
English that are hidden by the stron¬
ger letters. Ex. raċfaiḋ, croċfaiḋ,
brisfiḋ. I may also remark, in this
place, that ṫ in the suffix of the Past
Participle of the Genitive Singular
and Nom. Plural of some nouns, has
the same effect upon the preceding
consonant and in some words upon
the stem vowel also.
A great many Irish roots are made
up of groups of two and of three con¬
sonants respectively, the last conson¬
ant being the silent guttural with the
preceding vowel lengthened. For this
silent guttural, we find in the Irish
dialects, ċ, ḃ, ṁ, ṫ, f, a long vowel, or
a diphthong, and in the Aryan Lang¬
uage, almost any consonant, a long
vowel, or diphthong. The Irish has
no special character for this conson¬
ant. The old scholars wrote for it ḋ,
and less frequently ġ; not because
they considered it had any relation to
those letters, but because they found
that d and g affected by some particle
in the beginning of a word, came near¬
est to its power. The ḋ does very well
as long as we do not forget that it is
not a d, and that it is a guttural and
not a lingual. Very likely it was ori¬
ginally pronounced, in all instances,
as a guttural y, for so it is yet in some
words, especially in the north of Co.
Donegal. Some, omit the d of do and
de, and the g of ġaċ which shows the
tendency to omit this guttural sound,
a t-ór 's a' t-airgiod. When the ar¬
ticle an comes between consonants its
n is omitted in the spoken language;
or it is pronounced only when the pre¬
ceding word ends in a vowel or a vow¬
el sound ; or when the following word
begins with a vowel or a vowel sound,
excepting, however, in the last instance
the cases wherein t must be prefixed
to the following word. It is very re¬
markable that the Welsh article yr
follows almost the same usage. So o¬
mitting in writing is just as sensible
as writing it.
Aosta — I prefer writing sc, st, sp,
and ċt to sg, sd, sb and sd, because s
being a surd, that is a modulation of
the breath, cannot be immediately fol¬
lowed by a sonant, that is a modula¬
tion of the voice. You cannot be using
the breath and the voice at the same
instant. How is it that in the old Irish
manuscripts, s is always followed by a
surd. So is it, for the most part, in the
phonetic catechisms that have been
printed in the Roman Character for
the use of the children. I also find that
"The Dean of Lismore," in his book,
written phonetically, almost invaria¬
bly, writes sk, st, sp, cht, yet the
Scotch text on the opposite page, has
these combinations changed, into sg,
sd, sp and chd, just as if The Dean
did not know what he was doing
where he so wrote. Was it not the
real intention of the editor's to make
the text, as well as all Scotch Gaelic,
look as different as possible from Irish
Gaelic, or rather did not imitate those
who had that intention?
(To be continued.)
ṁ
speaking
