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Scottish Gaelic Dialects (Continued) Author(S): Charles M Scottish Gaelic Dialects (Continued) Author(s): Charles M. Robertson Source: The Celtic Review, Vol. 4, No. 13 (Jul., 1907), pp. 69-80 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30069921 Accessed: 27-06-2016 11:00 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Celtic Review This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:00:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SCOTTISH GAELIC DIALECTS 69 SCOTTISH GAELIC DIALECTS CHARLES M. ROBERTSON (Continued from vol. iii. p. 332) The mutual action and interaction of vowels and consonants upon one another are exceptionally prominent in the pro- nunciation of Gaelic, and show themselves very insistently in the orthography of the language. The silent vowels that form a part of that orthography have their explanation in most cases in the history of the language, but practically they owe their retention, or their presence, in the modern spelling to the adjacent consonants. Cois, the dative of cas, foot, for example, derived the i from a retraction of the ending of coxi, the prehistoric form of the dative of the word, but phonetically the preservation of the i is due to the fact that s has its slender or narrow sound or the dis- tinctive sound that it has when in contact with either of the slender vowels e and i. On the other hand the retention and sometimes even the introduction of silent consonants are often due to adjoining vowels. One general use of such consonants in the modern language is to show that the vowels on either side of the consonant are to be sounded apart, or that, in other words, they belong to different syllables. Accordingly such consonants are introduced when required for that purpose in inflection and word formation. As Munro has it in his Grammar: 'In the course of inflecting a primitive word, or combining a termination or compositive syllable therewith, if two vowels belonging to distinct syllables meet together, they must be separated by a silent dh, gh, or th,' and he gives amongst other examples ceb, mist; but cebthar, misty. Silent consonants in this way serve the same purpose as the diaeresis mark in English orthography. Other purposes also are served by them. After liquids they indicate that the liquids are sounded long. After a vowel they often indicate that the sound of the vowel differs from what it This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:00:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 70 THE CELTIC REVIEW would be otherwise, as when a and o are changed to ao before dh and gh. The number of instances in which consonants are absolutely silent, however, is by no means great. ' Silent' consonants are not always silent. They may be silent in one dialect and not in another. Indeed, apart from the cases in which there is immediate contact with a liquid or another consonant the instances of consonants that are silent in every dialect are comparatively few in number, and even where they are in contact with liquids or other consonants they are not without phonetic influence in the pronunciation of the word. Even th at the end of accented syllables in many instances is not silent in Arran, Kintyre, and Islay, or, though with a different pronunciation, in the west of Ross-shire. Silent consonants owe not only their retention or introduction in many cases to their vowel neighbours. They often owe their silence to those same vowels. They have lost their sounds through aspiration, and aspiration has been caused by the vowels. Aspiration took place whenever a single consonant stood between two vowels in early Gaelic speech. No consonant, unless supported by its own double or by some other consonant, was strong enough to resist the force of vowels on either side of it, and remain unchanged in such a position. In the case, for example, of those consonants called mutes or stops, b, p, c, g, d, t, the organs of utterance which should be closed completely so as to stop or intercept the emission of breath between the two vowels, were only partially closed in anticipation of the coming vowel, and so permitted an emission of breath or aspiration that in place of the 'stops' caused the sounds that were really uttered to be the corresponding ' aspirates' or aspirated consonants. The consonants that were themselves spirants, as v and s, when they came into such a position, vanished altogether. The liquids in such positions also underwent a change, and though it is not properly aspiration, though often conveniently included under that distinctive designation, it agrees with aspiration in that it takes place in the same circumstances and arises from the same cause. The great cause of many, This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:00:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SCOTTISH GAELIC DIALECTS 71 perhaps of most such changes, is ease of utterance. When one sound gives place to another the displacing sound is generally the easier to enunciate. Aspiration is not unknown of course in other languages. In English, for example, father shows what we call aspiration in f and th of the original p and t seen in the Latin pater, only th in this as in some other instances has the sound of dh-not that of th as in 'thin '-and is the aspiration of d which took the place of t as seen in the Anglo-Saxon form faeder, Gothic fadar, etc. In our Gaelic athair p as usual has been lost and t has become th now either sounded as h or altogether silent. Perhaps the most curious apparent parallel to this treat- ment of the particular consonant t is found in the Glasgow vernacular, as when such a word as 'water' is pronounced 'wa'er' or 'waher.' Though the process of change in this case is hardly to be called aspiration, the result certainly is oddly similar. Gaelic orthography, strange though it looks when first examined by those familiar with English and other languages, is in reality highly phonetic and well fitted to distinguish simply and effectively the sounds of the language. MacAlpine did not speak without knowledge when he uttered such an encomium as-' The orthography of the Gaelic shows more acuteness and ingenuity in its structure than any other language the author knows anything of.' In that orthography it is possible to distinguish simply and effectively four different sounds of each consonant in the event of its having so many. First there are the broad and the narrow or slender sounds. These are distinguished in spelling according as the flanking vowels are broad or narrow. If the vowel nearest to the consonant is broad, that is, if it is a or o or u, the consonant has what is called its broad sound. If the vowel is a narrow one, that is e or i, the consonant has its narrow or slender sound. This distinction in the sounds of the consonants is the foundation for the rule in Gaelic spelling that the vowels on either side of a consonant or group of consonants must This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:00:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 72 THE CELTIC REVIEW be of the same class, that is, either both broad or both narrow. To quote the old couplet as given by Armstrong:- 'Leathan ri leathan is caol ri caol Leughar na sgriobhar gach facal 'san t-saoghal' 'Broad to broad and small (vowel) to small, you may read or write every word in the world.' Then there are the aspirated sounds of both the broad and the slender consonants. These are marked, except in the case of the liquids, by writing h after the consonant, a method which both indicates the change of sound and preserves the identity of the consonant. In the case of some consonants the distinction of broad and slender, of course, is not, at least usually, recognised, and aspirated sounds that might be looked for and that did exist, no doubt, in the language at one time, are not now to be found, and have had their place taken by others. Thus dh gets the sound of gh both broad and slender, and sh, fh, and even in a few instances ch, get the same sound as th. The liquids 1, n, r The four different pronunciations are recognised in the case of each of the liquids 1, n, and r, also in the orthography. That is without taking into account difference of length. There are broad and slender sounds, as in the case of the other consonants, and they are distinguished in the same way by means of the flanking vowels. Both the broad and the slender sounds here also have their respective changes of sound, which correspond in their occurrence to the aspirations of other consonants, and are therefore commonly called their 'aspirated' sounds.
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