The Survey shows that variations  in pronunciation of slender 'r' are limited to the Outer Hebrides, particularly Lewis and South Uist.  The distribution pattern of 'Màiri' is identcal to that of 'Alasdair' (not shown), but that 'nas doirche' (darker) with the use of  ð  (where  ð is the IPA representation of 'th', as in 'thin') is confined to Lewis, particularly to the western side of the island.

 

 

Most of the slender 'r' configurations conform to the 'Màiri' pattern, with some exceptions such as 'nas doiriche' in South Uist.  Other examples include some words with slender 'r' before a stop e.g. 'thubhairt' (said), 'cuairt' (circle) and 'càirdean' (friends).  With these, neither 'r' nor 'ð' is used.

 

 

In the 'anns an t-sneachda' example, the 's' of 'sneachda' is silent, so consonants 't' and 'n' come together.   The map shows that over most of the Gaelic area, this was recorded as sounding like 'tr'.  Climbers and  hill-walkers may be familiar with 'Coire an t-Sneachda' in the Cairngorms, where the 'tr' sound is used.  This change of consonant is also seen  in the change of 'St Ninian' to 'St Trinian'. This has been ascribed to Gaelic influence - a view discussed by W J Watson in  'The Celtic Placenames of Scotland', p294 (see Refs).

 

Letter 'c' followed by 'n' also causes the 'n' to be prounced as 'r'.  There are two examples of this in the Survey e.g. 'cnoc' (hill) and 'cnuimh' (worm) - these have not been been included here in map form as, almost without exception, the 'n' is recorded an 'r'.   In the name 'MacNicol' - in some parts of the Highlands, at least e.g. in . Skye, the name is pronounced macre:kol.