Entertainment / Literature / I-Mutation: Also called initial mutation, an i-mutation is a change to the initial sound of a word in response to other words appearing in the sentenc. This is a common feature of Celtic languages like Irish and Welsh in which words change not only their ending sounds (such as the singular Irish for 'coat,' c????ta, becoming the plural Irish c????tai) but also their beginning sounds, such as Irish mo ch????ta. Typically, such mutations heppen when a preceding word requires the change. In Irish, mo (my') causes a change called lenition, so mo + c????ta becomes mo ch????ta (my coat'). A closely relataed phenomenon is the i-umlaut, the raising of a vowel by assimilation to an [i] sound in the next syllable. This is commonm in Germanic languages. For instance, in Old English, the prehistoric word *socyan probably became Anglo-Saxon secan because of i-mutation. See also lenition.
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