And again:—
‘’S iomadh car a chaidh dhe’n t-saoghal.’
(‘Many a change the world has seen.’) P. 54.
In Matheson’s Hymns the aspirated and the unaspirated forms are met with sometimes within a single stanza. Where the prepositions are reduced to ‘a,’ North and South do not differ; as Chaidh e a Lunainn, or even Chaidh e Lunainn, he went to—do—London; Am beagan a fhuair thu a ghliocas, the little you have got of—de—wisdom.
Variations in sound of certain aspirated consonants in different forms of the same word occur in Northern Gaelic. In Skye mh sounds v in cnàimh, bone, and u or w in the plural cnàmhan; bh is v in the imperatives eubh, call; gabh, take; falbh, go; leubh, read; sàbh, saw; but is silent in the subjunctive eubhadh, the Future Indicatives gabhaidh, falbhaidh, and the infinitives leubhadh, sàbhadh, and dh is sounded in biadh, feed, but is silent in biadhadh, feeding.
In West Ross mh is v in sgiamh, squeal, and u or w in sgiamhail, squealing; bh is v in sgriòbh, write, sàbh, a saw, leubh, eubh, but u (w) in sgrìobhadh, writing, in the verb ‘sàbhaig,’ saw, and is silent in leubhadh, reading, eubhachd, calling; and dh is sounded dh in luadh, full, but h in luadhadh, fulling.
Conversely in other cases the consonant has the more degraded pronunciation where it is final. In Easter Ross gh in truagh, wretched, has the sound of u, but in truaghan, a wretch, it has that of v. So in Sutherland bh is u in eubh, but v in eubhachd, and mh which is u in cnàimh and is silent in làimh, hand, is sounded v in the plurals cnàmhan and làmhan.
Eclipsis
Traces of eclipsis are found more or less in most dialects. As a prominent feature it is met with in Skye and Lewis, and also, it is said, in the west of Sutherlandshire. Tìr nam beann, nan gleann, ’s nan gaisgeach, land of the bens, the glens, and the heroes, usually pronounced Tìr nam beann nang gleann ’s nang gaisgeach, is in Skye, and presumably in
