114
in threes; ædʹi꞉m, ‘I confess’, infin. ædʹvælʹ, M.Ir. 1st sing. atmu, perhaps by analogy with kʹrʹedʹəm, ‘I believe’, infin. kʹrʹedʹvælʹ (Spir. Rose p. 6 has aidvimuid); bʹihu꞉nαχ, ‘rascal’, M.Ir. bithbinech; dʹerʹəm, ‘I say’, M.Ir. atberim; tʹiʃiNʹtʹ, ‘to shew’, M.Ir. taisbenad.
4. χ.
§ 328. This symbol denotes the voiceless guttural spirant formed with the back of the tongue against the soft palate which occurs in German but there is much less friction in the production of the Donegal sound than is the case in German, Scotch or Welsh. For this reason it sometimes interchanges with h (§ 178) and finally it is often so faint especially in the termination ‑αχ that at first I did not seem to hear it at all. The feeble articulation of this spirant is perhaps characteristic of Ulster Irish generally as Lloyd states that in Monaghan “when final it is silent with compensatory lengthening; before t it is always silent” (G. J. 1896 p. 146 col. 2). Cp. the spelling morghat for mordhacht Spir. Rose pp. 31, 47. Before palatal vowels χ as also ꬶ, k, g, being velar sounds cause the tongue to be retracted which tends to change a following i(꞉) into y(꞉), see § 125.
§ 329. Initially χ can only occur as the aspirated form of k, e.g. mə χydʹ ‘my share’; χæLʹ mʹə, ‘I lost’. kɔ, ‘as’, which in the other dialects always appears with χ remains unaspirated in Donegal. On the other hand (ə) χy꞉çə, ‘ever’, M.Ir. caidche, coidche is always aspirated. Other cases such as henʹikʹ mʹə, ‘I saw’; hα, ‘not’, < nocha; χUə mʹə, ‘I went’, are merely apparent as the pretonic syllable has been lost.
§ 330. Medially and finally χ is very frequent and represents an O.Ir. ch before an originally non-palatal vowel or non-palatal consonant, e.g. αχmwirtʹ, ‘heat in horses’, Di. eachmairc; αχmwirʹ, ‘ready, quick, smart’, achmair Cl. S. 18 vii ’03 p. 3 col. 2, cp. O’R. achmuire, ‘readiness’, formed from O.Ir. ech (?); bαχəL, ‘tress’, O.Ir. bachall; bαχtə, ‘bank of peat’, bachta Craig, Irish Composition p. 166; bɔχt, ‘poor’, O.Ir. bocht; bα꞉χrαn, ‘bog-bean’, Hogan bacharán, cp. Meyer bachar, ‘acorn’; bʹαχɔg, ‘bee’, diminutive of M.Ir. bech, which occurs in bαχ ·χαpwiLʹ, ‘a wasp’; bʹαlαχ, ‘road’, M.Ir. belach; rαχə mʹə, ‘I shall go’, O.Ir. do-reg; ʃiər fα ʃαχ, ‘and so forth’, O.Ir. sech; ʃαχnuw, ‘to avoid’, Di. seachnadh; ər ʃαχrαn, ‘astray’, M.Ir. sechrán; ʃαχt, ‘seven’, O.Ir. secht.
