frequent and is heard before chd and in a few other cases. It is e there before ch except in deachaidh and seach, seachad, and seachran. MacAlpine gives a in Geamhradh, seachd, seach, seachad, neach, reamhar, but e usually in the positions in question. In breac (spotted), breac (trout), breac (to spot), with breacag, breacan, etc., leac (stone), seac (withered), and deachd (indite) he gives e and French u short as alternative pronunciations of the digraph. About Inverness a is noticeable before ch and in other cases; each (horse) for example is there ‘yach.’
In North Argyll and the adjoining parts of Inverness, Lochaber, etc., e is the vowel sounded in this digraph before l, nn, rr, and rd, and gives the dialect in those parts perhaps its most distinctive peculiarity of pronunciation. Geal (white) is there ‘ge’l,’ cearr is ‘ce’rr,’ fearr ‘fe’rr,’ ceard ‘cè’rd, fearna ‘fè’rna,’ and so on. As has been indicated already ea is diphthongised before long l, n, and m in the north, much in the same way as the single vowel a. Sometimes the resulting diphthong is au, and e is represented by a y sound preceding au or by its influence upon the preceding consonant, as Bealltuinn ‘Byaulltuinn,’ seann ‘shaunn.’ That is what takes place in the north generally before long l, and in Badenoch, Strathspey, etc., before long n also. In other cases the diphthong is formed of e and u in place of a and u, as ceann ‘ceunn,’ gleann, ‘gleunn,’ meall ‘meull,’ teampull, ‘teumpull.’ This is the rule in North Argyll and Lochaber, and extends in the case of nn as far as Rannoch, West Ross, and Skye, and in some instances to Sutherland. Before long l it extends in the case of meall (deceive) and meall (lump) to Rannoch and West Ross. In some cases ea is changed into eo before ll, e.g. geall ‘gyoull’; so seall, steall also in Lochaber, etc. In Rannoch ea is similarly changed to eo and diphthongised before rn as cearn ‘cyourn,’ etc. In Glenlyon ea becomes the eu diphthong in cearn, fearna, etc., in teàruinn and teàrnadh, in ceard, feaird, and in Peairt (Perth), in which r is short. The same diphthong is heard there also in peurda (flake of wool in first carding) as though the word were pèarda.
