Fòram na Gàidhlig

bean~beanntan wasn't so much about the vowel as it was about the consonant. The rule is that if the spelling tells you you have slender b bh m mh p ph f fh at the start of a word, you can get either /b/ or /bj/, /m/ or /mj/ etc. The key is the following vowel.

If it's a front vowel (/i/ /e/ or /?/), you don't get the /j/:
milleadh /mi.../
fios /fi.../
pinn /pi:.../
bean /b?../
féis /fe:.../

Otherwise, i.e. if it's a back vowel, you get the /j/:
beanntan /bjau.../
meall /mjau.../
peann /pjau.../
feallsanachd /fjau.../

The key is the following vowel... And because as a reader I can apparently only make out whether the ea in bean/beanntan is front or back by looking at whether that is followed by a single or double n, the key to the consonant for me is actually the consonant following the following vowel... Tha mo cheann goirt.

Full points!

Seonaidh wrote:Duilich, I'm not quite with this "bean - beanntan" thing.

Tha e a-mach air fuaimneachadh a' chiad lide - ben an coimeas ri bjawn