The Scottish Celtic review

2S0 Gaelic Orthogniphi/— Common i\[istakcs.Churches on the Gaelic Scriptures, presented to the Free ChurchGeneral Assembly of 1867, it is stated that the committee agreedthat ann an and ann «m should be abbreviated into 'an and 'am.This change was disapjjroved of by several members of committee,who held, with Dr. Stewart (ef Gramm., p. 127) that ann an(ann am before a labial) is a lengthening or reduplication of annor an, instead of an being an abbreviation of ann an—a viewwhich was subsequently adopted by a majority of the committee.We shall now show that an (am before a labial) is not anabbreviated form, and should not, therefore, be written with anapostrophe before it.1. An is the regular modern form of the ancient preposition in(in), cognate, as previoush' noticed, with Lat. in, Goth., A. S., andEng. in. The vowel i has a tendency to become a before n, asseen b}' comparing the modern an, an t-, with the ancient articlein, in t-, and the modern interrogative particle an with its ancientform in. Ebel has obsej-ved (cf Kuhn's Beitrage, iii. 7, 8) that "ais found for i, especially before n (analogous to the French pronunciationof en=Lat. in,m clavs:=de ioitus, sunglier—singukn-is,with a even written for i), in the article an = ind, ant=int, inthe prep. a(n) = in, in the interrogative particle an(n) = in,whilst the prefix Mi- or ion- has preserved the i of the old ind-) inr.olann (a hoAy) = colinn (flesh)." An, therefore, is not anaV)breviation of ami an, but the regular modem foi-m of OldGael. in.2. That av in "ann an comhairle nan aiiigidh," "ann an slighenam peacach," " an dorus a' bhutha," " an iiit a nihic," and theother clauses previously quoted, is the regular modein form of theancient prep, in, may also be seen by comparing these clauseswith the corresponding clauses (quoted above) in modern Irish " : agcomhairle na neimhdhiadhach," "a slighe na bpeacarh," "andorus na puible," " a nait a mhie," &c. Here, " ann an comhairle"r=:(Ir.) "a gcomhairle" (c being eclipsed by g, on account ofthe nasal termination of the preposition) ="an comhairle" (incounsel) = 01d Gael, "icomairle" (with n of the prep, droppedbefore the tenuis) = " in-comairle" (cf. Ir. Texte, s. v.) ;" ann anslighe" = (Ir.) "a slighe" (with the nasal of the prep, droppedbefore s^ = "an slighe" (in way) = Old Gael. " isligid," or "hisligid" (with n dropped before s) = " in-sligid " ; "an dorus "=(Ir.) "a ndorus" (with n of the prep, carried forward to the next