Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/20

Rh indispensable. Place-names have a large importance as the data of early history. To know the meaning of place-names gives a new interest in every parish, even to those who are not experts in philology. To know the history of a parish is interesting to every inhabitant of the parish and not only to the skilled historian. That model parish history, Mr. William MacKay’s book on Glen Urquhart and Glenmoriston, just shows what a harvest the open eye and the cultivated mind can reap almost anywhere in the Highlands. But would the book ever have been written if the scholarly author had not a knowledge of the Gaelic tongue?

Again, what a mine of educative wealth, too little utilised, is to be found in our homely but beautiful Gaelic proverbs, the crystallised wisdom of the past!

Apart from the purposes of scholarly research, the knowledge of the language and culture of an ancient people is profitable. It broadens and humanises the mind, and is very stimulating to thought. To know a language like Gaelic, along with English, is valuable in the acquisition of other European tongues. As a vocal gymnastic merely, it is a fine equipment for attaining correct pronunciation of new languages. In English, according to Pitman’s shorthand system, there are 42 varieties of vowel and consonant sounds; but in Gaelic, according to Stewart, we have 40 shades of consonantal sound alone, and 63 varieties of vowel sounds, including diphthongs and triphthongs. So that to speak Gaelic our vocal organs must be trained to 103 distinctly different positions! And yet there are people who think the Gaelic is a barbarous tongue! No, it is a venerable language, full of musical and vocalic variety. Gaelic poetry is superior to English in at least one respect, its wonderful richness in assonance. This musical and effective device suits well languages like Spanish and Gaelic that abound in full-toned vowels, but is ineffective in English, which is more hard and consonantal. If it is worth while to learn Italian to read Dante, it is also worth while to know Gaelic simply for the richness of its poetry.

The question has often been asked, and it goes to the root of the matter, Whether Bilingualism is really possible? Mr.