Weathered Clan Chattan Tartan?

[Padraicog]

For example, the Macphersons in Badenoch may pronounce 'Creag Dhubh' as 'Cray-GOO,' and the Camerons in Lochaber may pronounce the same two words as 'Craig-DOO.' Both pronunciations are slightly different when heard, if the listener could even tell the difference, but the meaning is essentially the same. In this particular case, whether or not the 'h' is present at the beginning of the word 'dhubh,' really doesn't matter and certainly does not affect the pronunciation in any way. Like clan and family surnames, the slightly differenced spelling could certainly be up to the individual and/or family's discretion (as well as educational/literacy issues, which was rampant throughout much of the UK in centuries past), but it would never be altered to the extent where the original word is completely transformed, which would obviously change its meaning entirely.

Neloon's post explained the essence of lenition in Gaelic, but let me make a couple of further points. What is written on paper is a system of representing the sounds of a language not the the other way round; spoken language came first.

Secondly when one sees an "h" in written Gaelic it is generally indicating that there is a change from the normal way of pronouncing the word. Neloon gave a couple of examples where an adjective is used to describe a feminine noun - the pronunciation differs from its use with a masculine noun. Similarly when using the Vocative case (essentially speaking) to someone the pronunciation of the name changes compared with the Genitive (essentially but not entirely true speaking about someone) case. For example Mairi or Mary in English (genitive) becomes Mhairi (approximately pronounced Vaaree) in the Vocative case.

In short then far from the "h" indicating little of significance it is the complete opposite showing as it does quite important differences in pronunciation

Oh and one other thing - written Gaelic compared to written English is so much easier to follow because the rules are fairly clear and have few exceptions.