Compensatory lengthening and The secret of time

No, I'm not about to go mystic on you, no worries. But time does come into it. Now - just humour me for a moment and enjoy:

V > V:; VV /_ C: [+son]#

V > V:; VV /_ C: [+son][αplace]C[αplace]

V > V / _ C:[+son]V

V > V / _ C:[+son][αplace]C[βplace] and α ≠ β

You know, when I started doing linguistics ... quite some time ago, I thought I'd finally escape maths. Hah! Anyway, that was just for enjoyment, I will make things much clearer.

I'm sure you have all come across words like ann, ball, ceann and cam and wondered where the strange diphthongs come from? So why do we say [auN] and [kaum] and [bauL] rather than *[aN], *[kam] or *[baL]? Ok, we can take the view that they simply are pronounced like that and that we have to learn by listening. Fair enough, listening is important but some of us are a bit more inquisitive than that and we don't all have the privilege of living with a native speaker. And as it turns out, there are a few very good pointers - less arcane than the above rules by the way.

So here's what happened: Going back to Old Irish (again), we find a handful of interesting consonants. Long sonorants - that is, long l n r and m. They are called sonorants because you can "keep saying them", almost as if they were vowels, something that doesn't work with p t k for example. Because they were long, our kind scribes wrote them as double consonants, quite logical really. So we got

Old Irish	Gaelic	Irish
lomm [Lomː]	lom	lom
tomm [tomː]	tom	tom
mall [maLː]	mall	mall
mell [mʲeLː]	meall	meall
cenn [kʲeNː]	ceann	ceann
donn [doNː]	donn	donn
corr [koRː]	corr	corr
cerr [kʲeRː]	cearr	cearr

So what? Well, it turns out long consonants are prissy, pardon, unstable sounds which don't hang around for long. What often happens is that the long consonants "transfer" their long quality to the preceding vowel. This in turn gets broken (diphthongised) in many cases. That happens in many languages, just think of the changes from Old English to Modern English: hlūd [luːd] became loud [laʊd], nama [naːmə] became name [neɪm]). The pronunciation daisy chain goes like this from Old Irish to Gaelic:

Old Irish	Middle Irish	Common Gaelic	Scottish Gaelic (most)
lomm [lomː]	lom [loːm]	lom [loːm]	lom [lɔum]

But hang on, if that happens before ll, nn and rr in Gaelic, what about ìm and cum and innte and especially ceannaich, seeing ceann has a diphthong? Well spotted. As always, things aren't as straightforward as that.

First of all, when do you lengthen?

1. Before rr: barr [baːR], gearr [gʲaːR], cearr [kʲaːR], corr [kɔːR], tarr [taːR] ...
2. After i/ì: ìm [iːm], tìm [tʲiːm], ...
3. After u, io: cum [kuːm], a chum [ə'xuːm], ionnsaich [jũːNsɪç], cionn [kʲũːN] ...

Second, when do you diphthongise?

• Everywhere else

Including after "disappeared" fricatives. In other terms, if you come across a bh, dh, gh or mh that is apparently not pronounced, this fricatives has gone into lengthening or diphthongising the preceding vowel. Cool, eh? Snaidhm, geamhradh, oighre...

And when not to?

If the sonorant is followed by another vowel. This includes words with helping vowels, so words like Donnchadh escape both lengthening and diphthongisation. This is called "rule ordering" in linguistics, meaning that when you have two rules which could both apply, the language usually has a preference for which applies first and which second. Usually, applying one means the other can't apply any more.

A good pair of words to remember here is caill [kaiLʲ] and cailleach [kaLʲax]; similarly ann [auN] and Anna [aNə].

When the vowel before the sonorant is a diphthong anyway, this doesn't apply either e.g. iarr [iəR], féill [feːLʲ]...

Traditionally there was a tendency not to diphthongise when the sonorant is followed by a homo-organic consonant, meaning that if ll, nn, rr are followed by d, dh, s, t, or th you would simply lengthen the vowel. This is still apparent in words like sùnndach which can still be heard as [suːNdəx] but this rule is only marginal today.

This happens in virtually all surviving dialects. Some conservative (regarding lengthening) dialects of East Perthshire, Kintyre and Arran had kept the long consonants and never lengthened the vowel or broken but they are mostly moribund today. So to be brief, all that needs to be said about these dialects is that in almost all cases these dialects either lengthen the vowel or simply have a short vowel, but hardly ever dipthongise. So in Arran Gaelic for example ann, ceann, donn, cum and ionnsaich would be pronounced as: [aN] [kʲaN] [doN] [kum] and [iNsiç], around Cowal this would be [aNː], [kʲaNː], [doNː], [kumː] and [iNːsɪç].

The most lively dialects today are fairly homogeneous, except perhaps for Lewis Gaelic (don't sigh) which is the most progressive amongst these. There are two categories of diphthongs to be considered here: the so called i-glides and the u-glides. The difference in quality is simply due to the quality of the original vowel and following consonant (either broad or slender) and isn't much of a problem. Here's an overview over these dialects:

Before a Broad Sonorant (LL, NN, RR, M) Spelling Lewis Elsewhere Examples a au au ann, fann, cam, mall ... ea au au ceann, cearr, gearr, leann ... o ɔu ɔu tom, lom, donn, bonn ... u ɔu uː cum, cunnradh, cunntas ... io ɔu uː ionnsaich, iolla, tionndaich ...

abhC, amhC au au samhradh, samhla ... aighC əi əi saighdear, maighdean ... (e)adhC, aghC ɤː ɤː adhbran, Raghnall, adhbhar ... eamhC ɛu ɛu geamhradh, leamhrag ... ìon/m ia ia mìos, fìon, gnìomh ... iodhC, ioghC iə iə iodhlann, tiodhlac ... oghC oː oː foghnaidh, roghnaich ...

Before a Slender Sonorant (LL, NN, M) Spelling Lewis Elsewhere Examples ai ai ai caill, saill, cainnt, caim ... oi əi əi broinn, soillsich ... ui əi ui cruinn, druim, cluinn ... i ei / iː iː mill, till, ìm, innte ... ei ei ei beinn, seinn, leinn ...

aibhC, aidhC, aimhC ai ai snaidhm, taibhse, aimhreid ... aoibh/mh/gh əi ui buidhe, guidhe, craoibh ... oibhC əi əi goibhle, goibhnean ... oimhC ɔi ɔi doimhne, doimhneachd ... oighC ɤi ɤi oighreachd, oighre ... uimhC əi ui cuimhne, cuimhneachadh ...

So how does this all relate to the Secret of Time? What's Gaelic for time? Àm, isn't it? Or is it am? Cùm or cum? Ceàrr or cearr? Strictly speaking, as long as you are aware of the rules of lengthening/diphthongisation (which is easy if you're a native speaker) there is no need really to indicate length over the vowels. But people like to clarify, so at some point they began to indicate the long vowel/diphthong by using an accent over it. But as this hasn't become universal yet, you find people spelling words like ceàrr, bàrr, àm, cam etc with or without an accent. It's up to you in a way, but as the general practice these days seems to be to use the accent, we suggest you do that. But that's the secret behind this confusion over words like àm vs am anyway.

As an extra minor footnote watch out for the derivatives of these words. As many will add a vowel to indicate the genitive or add an ending to form a verbal noun, you must not pronounce or write a long vowel/diphthong in the derived word. Here's a few illustrative examples:

àm clàr-ama bàrr Dùn Bharra geàrr a' gearradh a ghearras gearraidh ... ceann a' ceannach a cheannaicheas ceannaidh ... cùm a' cumail tinn nas tinne

So. Happy diphthongising to you all.