237 



Spucctn (diminutive of ppuc), a streamlet, is often made SrufFane, 

 especially in the "Western counties, as in Ballytrofaun, in parish Kil- 

 shalvy, Sligo — baile-an-c-ppucdm, the town of the streamlet. In 

 Kildare the same word becomes Straffan, the name of a parish, which 

 has also given name to one of the stations on the southern line of 

 railway. 



I believe that the greater number of the alterations noticed under this 

 heading are attributable to the English language, but there are several 

 instances of words and names corrupted similarly by the speakers of 

 Irish. For example, the word cuaift, past tense of the verb cei&, go, 

 is pronounced puai& in the South; and 0' Donovan, in one ofhisDerry 

 letters, informs us, that the word mag, a plain, is there pronounced in 

 Irish " something between mugh and muff" thereby facilitating or sug- 

 gesting its conversion into the present name, Muff. Bruff, in Limerick, 

 is called by those who speak Irish, t)pub na Oeipe, a corruption of the 

 ancient name, bpug na "Oeipe, though the word recovers its correct 

 form in the name of the old fort — Liptn a' bhpoga. 



Any one who had studied the English language and its letter 

 changes, might however anticipate that the Irish gutturals would some- 

 times be converted into English /. "Words transplanted directly from 

 Irish, as might be expected, conform in many instances to the letter- 

 changing laws of the English language ; there are many illustrations of 

 this, some of which I shall have occasion to refer to further on. Take 

 as an example, names commencing with knock. In such English words 

 as " knight," "knife," " knee," &c, the k sound is entirely omitted in 

 pronunciation ; but in the Anglo-Saxon originals cnight, cnif, cneow, 

 both letters — the c hard and the n — were pronounced (Max Miiller, 

 " Lectures," 2nd series, p. 186). The Irish cnoc is subjected to the 

 same law, for while both letters are heard in Irish, the anglicised form 

 knock is always pronounced nock. 



There is a similar compliance with English custom in the change of 

 the Irish gutturals to /. The English language, though it has now no 

 gutturals, once abounded in them, and in a numerous class of words the 

 guttural letters are still retained in writing, as in daughter, laughter, 

 night, straight, plough, &c. While in many such words the sound of the 

 gutturals was wholly suppressed, in others it was changed to the sound 

 of /, as in trough, draught, cough, rough, &c. It is a curious fact that 

 the struggle between these two sounds has not yet quite terminated ; 

 it is continued to the present day in Scotland and the North of Ireland, 

 where the peasantry still pronounce such words with the full strong 

 guttural. 



It will be seen, then, that when the Irish gutturals are corrupted 

 to/, the change is made, not by accident or caprice, but in conformity 

 with a custom already existing in the English language. 



IV. Interchange of d and g. — The letters d and g, when aspirated 

 (6 and §), are sounded exactly alike, so that it is impossible to dis- 

 tinguish them in speaking. This circumstance causes them to be, to 



