north-west in all those cases generally retains e or i, and forms it with the following broad vowel into a diphthong.
Y is the sound given to slender dh and gh at the beginning of a word, but does not give any mark of dialect.
nasalised vowels
A nasal sound is given to all vowels except ao by contact with the nasal liquids m, mh, and n, but not in all cases. The vowel is nasalised, for example, in eun, bird, and sgeun, start, but not in breun, putrid, or in treun, strong. Sometimes vowels are nasalised without nasal liquids in the words. Faigh, get, is nasalised in Arran, Skye, and Sutherland, and caith, spend, etc., in Arran and Skye. Ciabhag, lock of hair, treubh, tribe, and uabhar, pride, are nasalised in Skye and West Ross. Other instances of nasalisation of the accented vowels are oidhche, chaoidh, treibhdhireach, troigh, ubh, ubhall, uchd in Arran, dithis, fuasgail, tuaicheal, ultach in Perth, cubhaidh, cuibheas, fiach (worth), ucas, uchdach (ascent), urlar in West Ross. MacAlpine says urlar is properly unnlar; that means probably that in his dialect, as in West Ross, etc., the word is ùllar, with u nasalised, and r assimilated to l. Uaigh, grave, is nasalised generally in the north, through confusion, no doubt, with uaimh, cave. As tualaig, loosen, which is nasalised in Perth, is tuainig or tuanaig in other dialects, the word may be properly tuanlaig. Adhlac, to agree with its pronunciation, as has been said (p. 224), should be annlac, nn being assimilated to l. The first vowel of òran, song, is nasalised in Perth, though not in Arran, Kintyre, or Islay, where it is óran, or in North Argyll or Skye, where it is òran, but in Strathspey, Ross, Sutherland and Lewis, and in Ireland, the word is amhran, in Middle Irish ambrán.
Ao is not nasalised. Before nasalisation can take place, some other sound—û or ì—has to be substituted. The connection of this change of vowel with nasalisation has already been noticed (pp. 236, 237). With regard to the seeming exceptions, oidhche and chaoidh, it should be observed that
