Such assimilation is of course of old standing in the language. The Book of Deer has, for example, igginn for in cinn, at the head of, and naglerec for nan clerec of the clerics.
Before the verbal particle ‘do’ n is sometimes lost. For example, in West Ross, An do chuir thu e? Did you sow it? is ’Do chuir thu e? so ’Do dhùin thu e ? Did you close it? Do ghabh thu e? Did you take it? Also in Thubhairt e gu’n do chuir thu e, he said that you had sowed it, gu’n do is sounded gu’do, and so on. A more frequent occurrence in the North and a distinctive feature of the northern dialect is the loss of d in all those positions. Munro in his Gaelic Grammar says in a footnote (p. 207): ‘In speaking, an do, whether interrogative or relative, is commonly contracted into na; as ’Na shil e? for an do shil e? Has it begun to rain? Seall na ghoil e, for seall an do ghoil e (see if it has boiled), etc. In writing so violent an elision is hardly admissible. In verse, however, where the poet is obliged at times to reduce the two particles into one syllable, the contraction is allowable; more especially as the other form of it (’ndo) is so difficult of pronunciation, v. Ossian, Comala, 11. 38, 82, 83). The lines from Comala, with their renderings in the version by Peter M‘Naughton, Grandtully, are:—
‘Na choidil righ Mhòrbheinn an treun?’
(‘Has the brave King of Morbheinn slept?’)
‘’Na thuit MacChumhail féin ’san t-sliabh?
’Na thuit, a thriath a’s duibhe sgeul?’
(‘Has Cumhal’s son fallen on the hill?
Has he fallen, thou chief of sad tale?’)
In those instances na is for the interrogative particle an and do. The phrase ‘Na thuit?’ Did [he] fall, is of constant occurrence in MacPherson’s Ossian, e.g. Fingal, i. 11. 203, 263, 265. Instances of na for an do abound in the works of Mary MacPherson, the Skye bardess; and some have been quoted in the paper on Skye Gaelic mentioned at the beginning of these articles. For example:—
