As in all Insular Celtic languages, Loegrish has consonant mutations. Welsh has three (vocalic, spirant, and nasal), while Cornish and Breton have four (soft, hard, spirant/aspirate, and mixed). In Loegrish, mutation is rarely used; for example, the Brythonic toponyms Dymock in Gloucestershire (from Standard Loegrish tai mhoch, colloquial tai mock), Pentric in Wessex (from Standard Loegrish pen thorch, colloquial pen torc), and so forth. These reflect the effects of Latin influence on the region known as Lloegyr early on, which even prevented the usual effects of consonant mutations within words.
While it is likely that the loss of consonant mutation is more prevalent in the southern dialects, it is hard to map it geographically; there are toponyms and loanwords in which lenition is fossilized, such as Treville (< trebh mhilin) and Malvern (< mil bhrunn), but, in the modern language, it is hardly ever used in writing, except in schools and educational materials, and many speakers do not use it.
The standard version of Loegrish is heavily biased towards the Loegrish used in books, but publication and writing of books in Loegrish stopped by the 19th century, which is why the Standard is very archaic to modern-day speakers. Even then, though, mutation was falling out of use.
What survives of the consonant mutation system is influenced by the Irish system. In older texts, the use was much more common, and much closer to that of Cornish and Breton.
Lenition
Lenition is the Loegrish equivalent of the vocalic mutation in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
b > bh [v]; d > dd [ð]; g > gh [γ]; p > f [f]; t > th [θ]; c/k > g [g]; m > mh [v]
Uses of lenition, or the vocalic mutation:
- after the definite article hinn (the), for feminine singular nouns only: hinn gair (the city).
- for adjectives describing feminine singular nouns: cair mhár (big city); hinn gair mhár (the big city)
- for nouns describing another noun as if they were adjectives: tai mhain (stone house/house of stone)
- in the genitive, for the noun owning the other noun: adin ddin (a man’s arm/the arm of a man)
- for adverbs formed with in: in mhinich (often)
- on the second word in a compound word, or after a prefix: hendrebh (< hen+trebh, old village); ro-bhich (too small)
- after the third-person possessive pronoun ei to mean his: ei chath (his cat), but ei cath (her cat)
- after the vocative particle a, imported from Irish: a Dhiwi! (David!)
Spirantization
Spirantization is even rarer in Loegrish, and is almost never used.
b > m; d > n; p > b; t > d; c/k > g
The only real use of spirantization is after the pronoun ei to indicate plural their: ei gath (their cat).
Previous: Page 3: Loegrish Dialects