Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 12

1 74 The Celtic Magazine.
lorcallach garbh an tus cleithe, 'g eubhach shuas oirre.
In Colonsay a huge cleft in the soHd rock is called by the people
Uinneng lorcaill. Holland is '(an) OlahuV ; hospital is spideal, as in
Dalnaspidal. In the case of words imperfectly naturalized initial
/t is retained : Herod, ham.
The classical J is i in Gaelic : lob, ludhach. Judicium appears as
iudiceachd in Armstrong-'s Dictionary, and Justitia (jvsticia ?) is in
Armoric insticc. English./', like soft ,'/, becomes in Gaelic s (sounded
sh), sometimes de : Jean is Sine ; ,/>"J!/le^' is siui/lair ; Janet is Seonaid
or Deonaid ; and jacket is seiceid and deacaid.
Latin v usually becomes/: Jigil and fers from vigilia -dnd versus
are not now used in Scottish Gaelic. But we have yior from ver-
(Welsh gtoir) ; Jion from riniim (W. givin) ; feart from virtus, and /om/
from vocalis. English v is written bh with much the same sound :
Bheiius. In one case at least, perhaps through false analogy, v
becomes m \ venture is meantair in the Southern Isles.
The letter zu is not in Latin. English iv appears in
Gaelic in a variety of forms. As pure vowel it becomes ti:
Uilleum. As semi-vowel zv is written bh : Walter is Bhaltar ;
well, well is bhuil, blmil : tvig is bhuige. The sound some-
times hardens into b: warrant is harrantas (Welsh gwarant) and
tvitch is buitseach. Wh, as is well known, is pronounced in Scot-
land with a strong guttural sound : idia is choo, which is chuich. In
some districts the sound becomes /.- where is far in Aberdeen.
The difference between English and Scotch in this respect is in
part at least due to Gaelic influence. The Highland people pro-
nounce zvh with even a stronger guttural sound than the Lowland
Scotsman : wherry is chuirri. Not only so ; but precisely as Celtic
cu in cuileane.g. becomes Teutonic wh in whale, English wli becomes
CM in Gaelic : wheel is cuidheall (if you observe carefully the
English pronounciation you will find that it is diphthongal
ivhe-el, like the Gaelic) ; whist is cuist ; ivhip is cuip ; whig is cuigse.
This latter word came into use among Highlanders at the time of the
Revolution, and denoted the government of William and after-
wards of the Georges, as oppo.sed to the party in favour of the
Stewarts. The minister who conformed to Presbyterianism was
ministeir na cuigse. Duncan Macintyre commences his poem on
the battle of Falkirk —