Blair Collection > How to learn Gaelic

VOWEL SOUNDS.
(22) The vcwel digraph ao is really one single vowel. It
is always long, and resembles rvu in the French word ' ca:>ur/
or the u in the English word ' curl.'
(23) The short sound of aO is represented bv a and e
final and unaccented — (eionta, còr.sa, feòla, àite, uile) ; a (ea)
short before JA, gli^ and unaccented ch — (òladh, seadh, lagh,
leagh, oglach, buileach) ; a in the article in all its forms — (a',
am, an, na. nan) ; and in most of the particles — (mar, an, am,
ag (a'), etc.) ; ai and oi, short, before the liquids I, n, r ; i in
the verb ' is,' in the conjunction 'is,' in the word ' tigh'; and
short before gh.
(24) In the diminutive suflixes ag (-e<ig) and -an, a has its
short open sound a (9) — (cìdàg, caileag, caolan).
Vowel Digraphs and Triguaphs.
(25) The only proper and constant diphthong's in Oaelic
are ia and ua, in which both letters are always distinctly
sounded — (grian, uan).
(26) In the other vowel combinations, when flanked by
mutable consonants, only one of the vowels is fcounded, the
others merely indicating or regulating the quality, broad or
slender, of the contiguous consonants — (gràidh, laigh, ceàird,.
* The required sound is more purely met with in the French word ' beau ' (bo).