L

luis, the quicken tree. The tenth letter of the Gaelic alphabet now in use. When it is preceded by itself or by any other consonant and followed by a, o, or u, it has a broad lingual sound, to which there is none like in the English language; as, làn, full; lom, bare; lus, a herb. When l is immediately followed by e or i, it is pronounced like the Italian gl in gle or gli; as, litir, a letter; linn, an age. In the case of nouns beginning with l, if the masc. poss. pron. goes before, l is pronounced as in English; as, a litir, his letter; which differs essentially in sound from, a litir, her letter. With regard to verbs beginning with l, the preterite is pronounced as in English and in most other situations it is pronounced as ll. The letter l when aspirated is not followed by h in writing and the difference between the plain and aspirated sounds is generally only distinguishable to a keen ear and is almost lost on most people, but when labhair, speak. which is plain, and labhair e, he spoke, which is aspirated, are correctly pronounced, the difference should be easily discernible.

Seall an duilleag thùsail / View Original Page