Page:An Irish-English dictionary, being a thesaurus of words, phrases and idioms of the modern Irish language, with explanations in English.djvu/10

vi living Irish language and in the more modern written compositions than any Irish Dictionary yet published; that it gives the various words fuller grammatical treatment; that it explains them more in detail and with greater precision and accuracy; that it gives a fuller account of local usage and pronunciation; that it treats more fully the more important words which form the basis of the main idioms that constitute the core of the language; that it gives a greater number of peculiarly poetical expressions; a fuller list of technical words and a more copious supply of examples drawn from the living speech of the people; that it has a more abundant list of references to modern standard works; that it deals more exhaustively and with fuller illustration with the various particles whose uses and functions are calculated to puzzle the student. It is claimed that the book gives a fairly accurate explanation in English of the main stream of words, idioms and forms that constitute the Modern Irish Language. Absolute completeness, either in the list of words or in the idioms, is not claimed, the time and space limits and other circumstances affecting the production of the work rendering such completeness impossible. In the insertion of compound words, which form an important factor in the language, space had to be economized.

It is obvious that in an unsettled language like Irish, which has not been cultivated to any extent since the use of print became general, many orthographical difficulties present themselves to the lexicographer. Complete uniformity of spelling is certainly a great desideratum. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive a flourishing literature in an age of printing like the present without a uniform orthography of some kind.