Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/17

Rh GAELIC 7 tions of the Cimbrian Celts. Wales, occupied by about a million inhabitants, is nearly Celtic, and uses the ancient tongue of Wales, Cumbria, and Strathclyde. Across the sea from Wales lies the Isle of Man, where the Gaelic branch of the Celtic held sway, and does to some extent still. In Ireland the Gaelic also prevailed, and is still spoken by about a million people. And lastly, in the Scottish Highlands about 300,000 people still use, less or more, the old Gaelic tongue of Scotland. Thus Brittany, Wales, Man, western Ireland, and the Scottish Highlands are now the territory of the Celtic languages. That they once occupied a wider sphere is beyond a doubt. There are traces of the tongue, in one form or other, to be found all along southern Europe. Topography is a valuable source of evidence, and one that will be made to serve pur- poses it has never served as yet ; and it furnishes us—in Italy, France, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal—with relics which, like animal fossils dug from the depths of the earth, speal: unmistakably of what formerly existed there. How far the Gaelic form of Celtic speech prevailed it is difficult to say, or whether it existed alongside of the Cimbric on the continent of Europe. But the name Gallia is signiﬁcant as applied to France; and it is a suggestive fact that, to this day, the Bretons call France Gaul, as distinguished from their own country, and in like manner call the French language Gallic, as distinguished from the Breton. In Scotland the Gaelic and Cimbric races long dwelt together, distinct and yet nearly related. When they separated, either as to race or language, is not easily settled. There are indications on the Continent which rather throw doubt on the idea maintained by some writers that the divergence took place after the settlement of the race in Britain, and farther inquiry as to these indications is essential ere a satisfactory conclusion can be reached. But within the his- toric period the two races existed side by side in Scotland, the Cimbric occupying the region called Strathclyde, with their separate government and laws, and the Gael at least occupying the Dalriadic kingdom of Argyll. The people called by the Romans Picts occupied the north and east of Scotland. That these were the same people with the Dalriadic Scots is somewhat questionable. That they were closely related to them is beyond doubt, but that they had linguistic and other peculiarities is manifest. Their topo- graphy proves it, being ditferent from that of either Ireland or Argyll, and, so far as the historic relations of both are concerned, they indicate a state of chronic war. For centuries there were mutual raids of Scots on Picts, and Picts on Scots, until ﬁnally, under Kenneth lIacAlpine, king of Dall‘l:1(l:1, the Picts were overcome in the year 843, and they and the Scots became united under one monarchy. The tradition is that the Picts were annihilated,—meaning, in all likelihood, their power,—and there arose one great united kingdom. The united people are the ancestors of the present Scottish Highlanders, and the Gaelic language has come down from them to us, inﬂuenced as to structure by the dialect spoken and written by the victors. The Gaelic language, as now in use in Scotland, resembles closely in its structure both the Irish and the .Ianx. They form one faniily, and yet it has its own distinctive features. Irish scholars maintain that it is a modern and corrupt offshoot of the Irish, and account in this way for these peculiarities. They say, for example, that the absence of the present tense in the Gaelic verb is a mere instance of decay, and proves the modern character of the dialect. But the Welsh is no modern and corrupt form of Irish, but an ancient distinct tongue, so far back as history carries us. And yet it wants the present tense, indicating that this peculiarity is distinctive of some of the Celtic tongues, and that what is cited as a proof of recency may in reality be a proof of priority. The present tense may be called an Irish addition made to the verb in the process of culture. At the same time it must be allowed that there is a diffi- culty in proving from any literary remains existing that the present Scottish form of the language is of great antiquity. All the literary relics that have come down to us are written in what is usually called the Irish dialect. The present tense is in universal use, as well by Scottish as by Irish writers. This arose from the identity of the Irish and Scottish churches. The dialect in which all theological treatises were written was one, and this dialect extended from the clergy to bards, and sennachies, and medical men. There is not a page of Gaelic written in any other dialect before the middle of last century. But as in other coun- tries there was both a spoken and a written dialect in use, so in both Scotland and Ireland there appears to have been a dialect in use among the people as their common speech, and another used by their scholars,—the former varying according to locality, and the latter being identical through- out. Some of the features that distinguish the Gaelic language, partly in common with the other _Celtic tongues, and .partly not, are the following :— 1. The aspiration of consonants. This is accomplished by the change of an into 12, of b into 12, of d into 3/, of g into a broad y, of 32 into f, and s and i into it. As appearing in the initial articula- tions this presents a peculiar difficulty to the learner of Gaelic. He has been accustomed, in learning other tongues, to observe the changes required by inﬂexion, and other requirements of correct grammatical structure. But he has not been familiar with changes in the initial letters of words. In English these letters never undergo any change; but in Gaelic he meets with such changes at once. He ﬁnds mac, a son, becoming in certain circumstances we, and he is ready to doubt whether both forms belong to the same word. 'I‘o make the difﬁeulty as little formidable as possible to the reader, the authors of the Gaelic orthography fell upon the method of using the letter It-,which, though hardly a letter in Gaelic, and never used to begin a word, is now 11scd more than any other letter. The Irish use a dot. The use of the h serves to preserve to the reader the original form of the word. Hence mac becomes by aspiration, or acloucisscmcnt as the French call it, mhac, pronounced cac. These initial changes of certain consonants are made for the puriose of enphony, to which Gaelic makes large sacriﬁces, and also or the purpose of distinguishing gender. An aspiration converts the feminine into the masculine, and, rice vcrsa. An comm is the head, masculine, co’ dies the foot, feminine. So a chos is his foot, a cos is her foot; a chcann is his head, a ccrmn is her head, the pronoun undergoing no change, although its gender is indicated by the change. There are other purposes served by aspiration of consider-' able importance. The Gaelic learner makes a large acquisition when he masters the principles of aspiration, and inquirers into the characters of the language will cease to blame the frequency with which h appears in Gaelic writing when they come to see how im- portant a purpose it serves. 2. Another peculiarity of the Gaelic language is to be found, as already said, in the want of a present tense in the verb. The verb “ to do ” is dean, the theme of the verb being in the impel.»- tivc mood. There is no tense expressing simply I do, the form in use being I am doing, tha mi a’ (lcanamlz. The Irish say dcmzaim, I do, but that is not the Scottish form of the expression. In this Gaelic is not only at one with several of the Celtic branches, but with some of the Semitic tongues. And it has this further in common with these last, that the future is used to express present time. This occurs frequently in the Gaelic version of the Bible, where we have an ti a chrcidcas amzs a.’ Jlﬂzac, he that will believe in the Son, for he that believeth. And yet occasionally a true present tense appears in Gaelic :-—¢m cluinn thu sin! Do you hear that? cluimlidh, I do hear it; am faic that sin! Do you see that? chi, I do see it. In those cases and some others there is no doubt a distinct present tense. The cases are, however, few, and occur in peculiar eirelunstanees. 3. Another feature peculiar to Gaelic is that there is no real inﬁnitive in the verb. The inﬁnitive in use is a noun which may appear either in the form of a participle or an inﬁnitive, according to the effect of the preceding preposition. I am going to strike, that mi ’dol do blmaladh, I am going to striking; I am striking, Ilia. mi a.’ bualadli, I am at striking,—tl1e preposition do, to, in the one case giving the noun the force of an inﬁnitive, and the preposition qg or a’, at, giving the same noun the force of a participle. The Gaelic inﬁnitive is thus identical with the Latin gerund, and is one of ‘(I10 points where the classical and the Celtic tongues meet and touch. In the article CELTIC LITERATURE reference is made to some of those cases in which the Irish dialect of the