Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Qupperneq 223

Norse Steinn in Hebridean Place-Names
231
be overruled). Another inhabited locality nearby is called
“Snishival” [sNy:s'avaL], probably from O. N. Sneis-,
Sneisar-, or Sneisa-fiall, where sneis ‘stake, pole, post’ may
have referred to some sort of landmark once erected on the
summit of the ridge on whose slopes the houses are, or
possibly to the summit itself (I have not inspected the
place; the shape of the ridge is important in judging of the
latter possibility). The vowel [y:], in hereditary Gaelic words,
nearly always represents the older diphthong which, in Old
and Middle Irish, was variously written áe, aí, óe, oi. There
were originally two diphthongs, one with a as its first ele-
ment and another with o, but they fell together already
during the Old Irish period, i. e. before about 900 A. D.,
and were later monophthongized. In Modern Irish and
Scottish Gaelic the spelling is ao (aoi before palatals); the
pronunciation varies considerably. In the beginning of the
ninth century, when Viking colonization was in its initial
stages, the two original diphthongs must have fallen to-
gether and constituted one phonemic unit, whether diph-
thongal or monophthongal. A consonant or consonant
cluster preceding this unit was always non-palatal; follow-
ing consonants, however, could be palatal or non-palatal.
In all likelihood the unit had two distinct allophones, one
used before non-palatals and the other before palatals.
Without committing ourselves to any definite pronunciation,
we may symbolize the former allophone by áe and the
latter by aí. The names [sty:N'abr'ig'] and [sNy:s'avaL] show
that the O. N. diphthong ei, at the time when the names
came into use in Gaelic speech, was identified by the Gaels
with their own aí and not with the monophthong e, in
which case the initial clusters st- and sn- would have been
replaced by palatals in conformity with the Gaelic phonemic
system. The same phenomenon appears in the Mod. G.
appellative saoidhean [søijan] ‘coal-fish, saithe’ which is
certainly derived from O. N. seiðr. The diphthong [øi] is,
as in hereditary Gaelic words, the result of a merging of