INTRODUCTION mn.Sc.(a) § 127. This is not by any means homogeneous, and it is often subdivided into (1) the Bch. area, roughly the ne. of Abdsh. between the Ythan and the Deveron, with the Bnffsh. coast, and (2) the valleys of the Dee and Don, the old provinces of Formartine and Mar. Vowels in mn.Sc.(a) § 128. The mn.Sc.(a) dialect agrees with sn.Sc. in having ee [i] in words like bone, stone, but moon, spoon, shoe, moor become meen, speen, shee, meer; good, cool become gweed, cweel, and this is the case generally when a back stop consonant precedes the vowel; book, hook, enough, tough are byook, hyook, anyooh, tyooch.1 § 129. O.E. &obreve; in close position does not tend to become oa [o] as is the case so frequently in the central dialects. See § 52. § 130. O.E. æ (i-umlaut of ā), ēa and e in open position (see § 29, n.) tend to have ee [i] rather than [e] in the coast districts of mn.Sc.(a). § 130.1. O.E. ēaw has [&turnv;u] in mn.Sc. — e.g. dyow, fyow, hyow, nyow, for dew, few, hew, new; so for the Rom. words beauty, duty, mew, pewter we find byowty, dyowty, myow, pyowter.2 § 131. In words like mine, fine, pipe, bite, dike, bide, the diphthong used in Bch. sounds very like oi 3 in boy. It may be heard in the same class of words in the Black Isle and Cai. The people in the inland parts of Bch. are of the opinion that these pronunciations came up from the fishing population of the coast. This oi pronunciation of the vowel in pipe, etc., seems, however, to be of ancient date — e.g. Stirling Rec., 17th March 1546-7, “wyne . . xviijd the point”; Records of Elgin, ed. Cramond (Aberd. 1903), I. 168 (22nd Oct. 1582), “fooll swoin carle that he wes” (swoin = swine); Ib. I. 180 (15th Aug. 1623), “Rys, koyne” (koyne = quine, girl4); Pitcairn's Assembly, 1692 (1722), p. 38: “Fat hae they deen? if that be true we're but a Boick of drone Bees without stangs.” Cf. also Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk, p. 192, 2nd ed., 1871: “The places is to be set aboot the twenty-foift, so ye'll need a' be owre bye”; but here David, the ground officer, is probably intended by the author to be attempting to speak very fine. § 132. In the coast villages yet another curious diphthong may be noted and compared with a similar one in the Black Isle and Cai. This diphthong is [ei] and the following are examples: O.E. ā — raids (fishing ground), braid; O.E. open e — e.g. leather, feather, stead, steal; O.E. close e — e.g. leg, edge, egg, segg (cf. n.Rxb., Fif., Bl. Is., Cai.), end, bend, send, etc., length, strength.5 § 133. a before a nasal is rounded in the Bch. fishing villages, as in brand, brander, sand, land, sandeel — bron, bronner, son, lon, sonle. Cf. a similar rounding in O.E. and in Chaucer, hond, lond. Consonants, mn.Sc.(a) and nn.Sc. § 134. The most characteristic change in mn.Sc., and also in nn.Sc., is that of wh [&turnw;] into f, br. lip-teeth fric., which is not confined to the pronominals as in sn.Sc. but extends to other words beginning with wh — e.g. what, whistle, whisky, whilie,6 etc. Wh = [&turnw;] is a b.l-bk. fric. — i.e. in the production of the sound the back of the tongue is raised to narrow the air-passage simultaneously with the rounding of the lips. This back action of the tongue is first eliminated, giving rise to a pure lips-consonant such as is heard in Ger. u of quelle, and then this lips-consonant is changed into the lip-teeth f of ordinary pronunciation. This curious change has been often assigned to Celtic influence, and the ancient speech of the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, in County Wexford, Ireland, is cited in confirmation of this theory. The Saxon and Flemish followers of Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, were settled in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy in Wexford, Ireland, in the year 1169. They formed a little island of Saxon speakers in the midst of a sea of Celtic speech. Although they retained their old dialect up to the early part of the 19th cent., it was not unaffected by the speech of their Celtic neighbours, 1 bjuk, &cd.juk or hjuk, &sci;′njux, tjux. 2 dj&turnv;u, fj&turnv;u, hj&turnv;u, nj&turnv;u; ′bj&turnv;ut&sci;, ′dj&turnv;ut&sci;,mj&turnv;u, ′pj&turnv;utm. 3 The first element in the diphthong is a vowel like [&turnv;] in but with slight lip rounding. 4 In Montrose (Ags.1) this pronunciation has survived = [k&openo;&sci;n]. 5 reidz, breid; ′leidm, ′feid&sci;r, steid, steil; leig, eid&yogh;, eig, seig, ein, bein, sein, leinþ, streinþ. 6 fat, f&turnv;sl, ′f&turnv;sk&scirtail;,′f&schwa;ili.