in my edition of the poems of Neil Morison. the Pabbay Bard. In N. Inv. one may any day hear (cjɛṛïɑl) for Eng. 'carrier'; Benbecula says Guaile for Guaire. St. Kilda has
eł for air 'on'
ɑhał for athair 'father'
a hłii for a righ 'oh king'.
I have heard of a St. Kilda woman saying: Chlētail! calson thug thu dhiot do logai (= chreutair! carson thug thu dhiot do dhosan) mo ghrādh in S. Kilda becomes (mɔ ᵹlhɑɑ) Arran, too, has (elɑn) for aoirean 'a ploughman' (œṛɑn). In Barra I have heard gaoil for gaoir but the change is not carried out far.
(2) l for n is exemplified in the Uist
Iḷɑrnïſ = Inbhirnis 'Inverness'
khɑɑ̯nɑl 'language' for cānain
'Nam biodh an dā theanga agad 's tu bārd a b'fhearr na mise' (= If thou hadst the two tongues thou wert a better bard than I) Said Alex. Macdonald of Ardnamurchan to John Mac Codrum, the N. Uist bard, to which the latter answered quickly: nam biodh an dā chānail 's an aon teanga th'ann, dh'fhoghnadh e = 'were the two languages on the one tongue there is, it would suffice'. Benbecula has l for n e. g. lānail 'married couple'; cantail 'saying'.
(3) A common feature of many dialects is that rl becomes l:
phjœœḷa the English language beurla
ˑɑh-aḷə heifer atharla.
(4) ḷ final sometimes passes in N. Inv. to łtſ, lcc ˑu̯-iłtſ for umhal 'humble', a loan from Latin humilis. The Gaelic pronunciation still shows that l was flanked by a light vowel; the l here sounds either ł or l (the latter being a little more 'forward' than the English sound).
From analogy or through the forward point-tooth consonant we get:
feṭɑḷtſ‘, eṭɑłtſ‘ Italy
cɟɑramɑltſ Germany.
Cf. Espaint Spain, colloquially (spɑɑñ).
(5) The sound that does duty for devocalized ḷ has been already noticed. It is now the most marked of the Gairloch dialect. If we take the verb 'go', in Gairloch folbh, it at first
