sin, etc. Even the preposition de has with some people degenerated into this a, thus ta sé a ḋiṫ orm, "I want it," for de ḋiṫ.
Page 14, line 9. For air read uirri. Line 12. seilg means hunting, but the reciter said, seilg, sin fiaḋ, "Shellig, that's a deer," and thought that Bran's back was the same colour as a deer's. Uaine, which usually means green, he explained by turning to a mangy-looking cur of a dull nondescript colour, and saying ta an madaḋ sin uaine.
Page 16, line 30. bearna and teanga, and some other substantives of the same kind are losing, or have lost, their inflections throughout Connacht. Line 31. tiġeaċt is used just as frequently and in the same breath as teaċt, without any difference of meaning. It is also spelt tuiḋeaċt, but in Mid-Connacht the t is slender, that is tiġeaċt has the sound of t'yee-ught, not tee-ught.
Dr. Atkinson has shown that it is incorrect to decline teanga as an -n stem: correct genitive is teangaḋ. Reasta: see rasta in O'Reilly. Used in Arran thus: Ní’l sé in rasta duit = you cannot venture to.
Page 18, line 15. Gual means a coal; it must be here a corruption of some other word. Muid is frequently used for sinn, "we," both in Nom. and Acc. all over Connacht, but especially in the West.
Page 20, line 3. Deimuġ (d'yemmŏŏ). This word puzzled me for a long time until I met this verse in a song of Carolan's
Níor ṫuill sé diomuġaḋ aon duine.
another MS. of which reads díombuaiḋ, i.e., defeat, from di privitive, and buaiḋ "victory." Deimuġ or diomuġ must be a slightly corrupt pronunciation of díombuaiḋ, and the meaning is, that the king's son put himself under a wish that he might suffer defeat during the year, if he ate more than two meals at one table, etc. Line 15. reasta = a "writ," a word not in the dictionaries—perhaps, from the English, "arrest." Cúig ṗúnta. The numerals tri ceiṫre cúig and sé seem in Connacht to aspirate as often as not, and always when the noun which follows them is in the singular, which it very often is. Mr. Charles Bushe, B.L., tells me he has tested this rule over and over again in West Mayo, and has found it invariable.
Page 22, line 2. cá = where, pronounced always cé (kay) in Central Connacht. Line 17. má ḃfáġ' mé = If I get. In Mid-Connacht, má eclipses fáġ, as ni eclipses fuair.
Page 26, line 18. I dteaċ an ḟaṫaiġ = In the giant's house. Tiġ, the proper Dative of teaċ, is not much used now. Line 20. cuaille cóṁraic = the pole of battle.
Page 28, line 9. Trian dí le Fiannuiġeaċt = one-third of it telling stories about the Fenians. Line 10. This phrase soirm sáiṁ suain occurs in a poem I heard from a man in the island of Achill—
“’Sí is binne meura ag seinm air teudaiḃ,
Do ċuirfeaḋ na ceudta ’nna g-codlaḋ,
Le soirm sáiṁ suain, a’s naċ mór é an t-éuċt,
Gan aon ḟear i n-Eirinn do ḋul i n-eug
Le gráḋ d’á gruaḋ.”
I have never met this word soirm elsewhere, but it may be another form of soirḃe, "gentleness." Line 18. Colḃa, a couch, pronounced colua (cul-looa): here it means the head of the bed. Air colḃa means, on the outside of the bed, when two sleep in it. Leabuiḋ, or leabaiḋ, "a bed," is uninflected; but leaba, gen. leapṫan, is another common form.
Page 30, line 30. Daḃaċ, "a great vessel or vat;" used also, like soiṫeaċ, for ship. The correct genitive is dáiḃċe, but my reciter seemed not to inflect it at all.
