I. GAuLIsH. - Celtic place-names are found as far east as the Dniester and Dobrudja, and as far north as Westphalia. The language of the Galatians in Asia Minor must have stood in a very close relation to Gaulish. Indeed few traces of dialectical differences are to be observed in continental Celtic. Unfortunately no literarymonuments written in the ancient speech of Gaul have come down to us, though Caesar makes mention of religious poems orally transmitted by the Druids, and we also hear of bardi and vates. But a large number of personal and place-names have been preserved. The classical writers have, moreover, recorded a certain number of Gaulish words which can generally be identified without difficulty by comparing them with words still living in the modern dialects, e.g. pempedula, " cinquefoil," cf. Welsh pump, " five," and deilen, " leaf"; ambactus, Welsh amaeth; petorritum, " four-wheeled chariot," cf. Welsh pedwar, " four," and Ir. roth, " wheel," or Hilt, " course." We have further between thirty and forty inscriptions (three in north Italy) which we may without hesitation ascribe to the Gauls. These inscriptions are written in either N. Etruscan or Greek or Latin characters. We are thus in a position to reconstruct much of the old system of declension, which resembles Latin very closely on the one hand, and on the other represents the forms which are postulated by the O. Ir. paradigms. Hence Gaulish is particularly valuable as preserving the final vowels which have disappeared in early Irish and Welsh. The few verb-forms which occur in the remains of Gaulish are quite obscure and have not hitherto admitted of a satisfactory explanation. The statements of ancient authors with regard to the Belgae are conflicting, but there cannot be much doubt that the language of the latter was substantially the same as Gaulish. Caesar observes that there was little difference between the speech of the Gauls and the Britons in his day, and we may regard Gaulish as closely akin to the ancestor of the Brythonic dialects. It is difficult to say when Gaulish finally became extinct. It disappeared very rapidly in the south of France, but lingered on, possibly till the 6th century, in the northern districts, and it seems unnecessary to discredit Jerome's statement that the speech of the Galatians in Asia Minor bore a strong resemblance to the language he had heard spoken in the neighbourhood of Trier. There is no evidence that Breton has been influenced by continental Celtic. The number of Gaulish words which have come down in the Romance languages is remarkably small, and though at first sight the sound-changes of French and Welsh seem to bear a strong likeness to one another, any influence of Gaulish pronunciation on French is largely discounted when we find the same changes occurring in other dialects where there is little or no question of Celtic influence.
The proper names occurring in classical writers, on inscriptions and coins, have been collected by A. Holder in his monumental Altceltischer Sprachschatz (Leipzig, 1896-1908). The inscriptions have been most recently treated by J. Rhys in the Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. ii. See also a paper in this volume entitled "Celtae and Galli" by the same author for the text of the Coligny and Rom inscriptions. The value of Gaulish for grammatical purposes is set forth by Whitley Stokes in a paper on "Celtic Declension" in the Proceedings of the London Philological Society (1885-1886). For the extent over which Gaulish was spoken, its relation to Latin and its influence on Romance, see E. Windisch's article on "Keltische Sprache" in the section "Die vorromanischen Volkssprachen" in Gruber's Grundriss der romanischen Philologie 2 , vol. i. pp. 373 ff. Cf. further the introduction to J. Loth's Chrestomathie bretonne (Paris, 1890); G. Dottin, Manuel pour servir a l'etude des antiquites celtiques (Paris, 1906); R. Thurneysen, Keltoromanisches (Halle, 1884).
| | | [CELTIC LANGUAGES II. Goidelic And Brythonic. - When the monuments of the Celtic dialects of the British Islands begin to appear, we find a wide divergence between the two groups. We can only mention some of the more important cases here. The Brythonic dialects have gone very much farther in giving up inflectional endings than Goidelic. In Irish all final syllables in general disappear except long vowels followed by s or r and u < o preceded by i. But these reservations do not hold good for Brythonic. Thus, whilst O. Irish possesses five cases the Brythonic dialects have only one, and they have further lost the neuter gender and the dual number in substantives. In phonology there are also very striking differences, apart from the treatment of the labialized velar qv already mentioned. The sonant n appears in Brythonic as an, whereas in Goidelic the nasal disappears before k, t with compensatory lengthening of the vowel, e.g. I. E. *kmtom, Ir. eet, " hundred," W. cant, Bret. karat; Prim. Celt. *jovnko-, O. Ir. oac, Mod. Ir. og, " young," W. ieuanc, Bret. iaouank. t, k standing after a vowel and preceding 1, n (and also r if k precede) disappear in Goidelic with compensatory lengthening of the vowel, e.g. Prim. Celt. *statla-, Ir. sal, "heel," W. sawdl; Prim. Celt. *petno-, Ir. en, " bird," O. W. etn, Mod. W. edn. Similarly b, d, g disappear in Goidelic when standing after a vowel and preceding 1, r, n with compensatory lengthening of the vowel, but in Welsh they produce a vowel forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel, e.g. Prim. Celt. *neblo-, Ir. nel, " cloud," W. niwl; Prim. Celt. *ogno-, cf. Lat. agnus, Ir. uan, " lamb," from *On, W. oen; Prim. Celt. *vegno-, cf. Ger. Wagen, Ir. fen, " wagon," O. W. guein, Mod. W. gwain. The Goidelic dialects have preserved the vowels of accented syllables on the whole better than Brythonic. Thus Brythonic has changed Prim. Celt. a (= I. E. a, o ) to o (W. aw, Bret. eu); and Prim. Celt. u to i, e.g. Ir. brdthir, " brother," W. brawd, Bret. breur; Gaulish dunum, Ir. ditn, "fort," W. din. Already in Gaulish the I. E. diphthongs show a tendency to become simple long vowels and the latter are treated differently by Goidelic and Brythonic. In early times I. E.' both became o and I. E. ei gave e. In Goidelic 6,e, in accented syllables were diphthongized in the early part of the 8th century to ua, is if the next syllable did not contain the vowels e or i, whereas in Brythonic O gave it (written u) and e became in W. and in Bret. oe (oue), e.g. Gaulish Teuto-, Toutius, Ir. tuath, " people," W., Bret. tud; Brythonic Leto-cetum, Ir. liath, " grey," W. llwyd, Bret. lowed. Similarly in loan-words, Ir. ceir, fial, W. cwyr, O. Corn. guil, from Lat. cera, velum. Further I. E. ai, oi are preserved in Irish as ai (ae), oi (oe), Mod. Ir. ao, but in Welsh I. E. ai gave either ai or oe, whilst oi changed to i (written u), Ir. Loeb," side," W., Bret. tu; I. E. *oinos, Ir. Oen, " one," W., Bret. un; Prim. Celt. *saitlo-, cf. Lat. saeculum, W. hoedl, " age," Bret. hoal. In Goidelic accented e changes to i before i, u in the following syllable, cf. Ir.' fid, " wood," gen. sing. fedo, O. H. G. witu, and i changes to e before a or o under similar conditions. In like manner u becomes o before a or o, whilst o changes to u before u, cf. Ir. muir, " sea," Prim. Celt. *mori, gen. sing. mora. Of Brythonic finals which disappear, a, i, (o), j alone influence preceding vowels, whilst an i (y ) which received the stress in O. W. was also able to modify vowels which went before it. In Goidelic the combinations sqv, sv appear respectively as sc, s (medially f ), but in Brythonic they both give chw; Prim. Celt. *sqvetlon, Ir. scel, " story," W. chwedl; Prim. Celt. *svesor, Ir. siur, " sister," but mo fiur, " my sister" (whence Scottish piuthar by false de-aspiration), W. chwaer, Bret. c'hoar. In Brythonic initial s becomes h in the 7th century, but this is unknown in Goidelic, e.g. Ir. salann, " salt," W. halen, Cornish haloin, Bret. holenn; Lat. se-men, Ir. sil, " seed," W. hil. Initial v gives f in Goidelic in the course of the 7th century, whereas in Brythonic it appears as gu, gw, cf. Lat. verus, Ir. fir, W., Bret. gwir. We may also mention that in Goidelic initial j and medial v disappear, e.g. Gaulish Jovincillus, W. ieuanc, " young," Bret. iouank, Ir. oac, Oc; W. bywyd, " food," Ir. biad. Postconsonantic j in Brythonic sometimes gives -id (Mod. W. -ydd, Mod. Bret. -ez), e.g. Gaulish nevio-, novio-, 0. Bret. nowid, W. newydd, Bret. nevez, Ir. nice. I. E. -kt and -pt both appear in Goidelic as -cht but in Brythonic as -ith, cf. Lat. septem, 0. Ir. secht, W. seith, Bret. seiz. We unfortunately know very little about the position of the stress in ancient Gaulish. According to Meyer-Liibke in placenames the penult was accented if the vowel was long, otherwise the stress lay on the preceding syllable, e.g. Augustod inum, 0. Fr. Ostedun, now Autun; Catalaunos (Chalons), Tricasses (Fr. Troyes), Bituriges (Fr. Bourges). In Goidelic the stress, which is strongly expiratory, is always placed on the first syllable except in certain cases in verbs compounded with prepositional prefixes. In Old Welsh and Old Breton, on the other hand, the final syllable, i.e. the primitive penult, received the stress, but in both languages the stress was shifted in the middle period to the penultimate. The Goidelic dialects, like the Slavonic, distinguish between palatalized and nonpalatalized consonants, according as the consonant was originally followed by a front ( e, i ) or back vowel (a, o, u), a phenomenon which is entirely unknown to Brythonic. Finally, the two groups differ radically in the matter of initial mutation or, as it is often called, aspiration. These mutations are by no means confined to initial consonants, as precisely the same changes have taken place under similar conditions in the interior of words. The Goidelic changes included under this head probably took place for the most part between the 5th and 7th centuries, whilst in Brythonic the process seems to have begun and continued later. It is easier to fix the date of the changes in Brythonic than in Goidelic, as a number of British names are preserved in lives of saints, and it is possible to draw conclusions from the shape that British place-names assumed in the mouths of the Anglo-Saxons. In Goidelic, we find two mutations, the vocalic and the nasal. Initial mutation only takes place between words which belong together syntactically, and which form one single stress-group, thus between article, numeral, possessive pronoun or preposition, and a following substantive; between a verbal prefix and the verb itself. | Original sound | k | t | p | g | d | b | m | Irish . | x(ch) | h(th) | f (ph) | 3 (gh) | 3 (dh) | v,w(bh) | v,w(mh) | Welsh | g | d | b | nil | (dd) | v(f) | v(f) | Original Sound . | k | t | p | g | d | b | Irish.. . | g | d | b | ng | n | m | Welsh.. . | ngh | nh | mh | ng | n | m i. When the word causing mutation ended in a vowel we get the vocalic mutation, called by Irish grammarians aspiration. The sounds affected are the tenues k (c), t, p; the mediae g, d, b; the liquids and nasals m, n, r, 1; s, and Prim. Celt. v (Ir. f, W. gw). At the present day the results of this mutation in Irish and Welsh may be tabulated as follows. Where the sound is at variance with the traditional orthography, the latter is given in brackets. In the case of n, r, l in Goidelic we get a different variety of n, r, l sound. In Welsh in the case of r, 1, the absolute initial is a voiceless r, 1 written rh, ii, which on mutation become voiced and are written r, 1. In Irish s becomes h written sh and the mutation of f is written fh, which, however, is now silent. Examples: - Irish, cii, "hound," do chic, "thy hound"; Welsh ci, dy gi (do, dy represent a Prim. Celt. *tovo); Irish mcithair, " mother," an mhdthair, " the mother," Weish mam, y fam (the feminine of the article was originally *senta, senda). 2. When the word causing mutation originally ended in a nasal, we get the nasal mutation called by Irish grammarians eclipse. The sounds affected are k (c), t, p; g, d, b; Prim. Celt. v (Ir. f, W. gw). In mod. Irish and mod. Welsh the results are tabulated below. Irish f becomes w written bh, whilst W. gw gives ngw. Examples: - Irish bliadhna, " year," seacht m-bliadhna, " seven years," cf. Latin septem, Welsh blynedd, saith mlynedd; Irish tir, " country," i d-tir, in a country,"Welsh tref," town," yn nhref," in a town,"cf. Latin in. 3. In Welsh k (c), t, p undergo a further change when the word causing mutation originally ended in s. There is nothing corresponding to this consonantal mutation in Goidelic. In this case k (c), t, p become the spirants x (ch), th, f (ph), e.g. tad," father," ei thad," her father," ei represents a primitive *esias. In the interior of words in Brythonic, cc, pp, tt give the same result as initial k, t, p by this mutation. The relation in which the other Celtic dialects stand to this system will be mentioned below in dealing with the various languages. It will be noted from what has been said above that, with the exception of the different treatment of the labialized velar qv, and the nasal sonant n, the features which differentiate the Brythonic from the Goidelic dialects first appear for the most part after the Romans had left Britain. At the beginning of the Christian era the difference between the two groups can only have been very slight. And Strachan has shown recently that Old Irish and Old Welsh agree in a very striking manner in the use of the verbal particle ro and in other syntactical peculiarities connected with the verb. | b 1 v | hi; nt n 5 n (i.) Goidelic. - The term Goidelic is used to embrace the Celtic dialects of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. In each case the national name for the speech is Gaelic (Ir. Gaedhlig, Scottish Gaidhlig, Manx Gailck ), from Ir. Scottish Gaodhal, Gaedheal, Mid. Ir. GOedel, W. Gwyddel," a Gael, inhabitant of Ireland or Scotland."Old Irish may be regarded as the ancestor of Scottish and Manx Gaelic, as the forms of these dialects can be traced back to Old Irish, and there are practically no monuments of Scottish and Manx in the oldest period. Scottish and Irish may be regarded as standing to one another in much the same relation as broad Scottish and southern English. The divergences of Scottish and Manx from Irish will be mentioned below. The language of the Ogam inscriptions is the oldest form of Goidelic with which we are acquainted. Some 300 inscriptions have up to the present been discovered in this alphabet, the majority of them hailing from the south-west of Ireland (Kerry and Cork). In Scotland 22 are known, whilst in England and Wales about 30 have turned up. Most of the latter are in South Wales, but odd ones have been found in North Wales, Devon and Cornwall, and one has occurred as far east as Hampshire. The Isle of Man also possesses two. The letters in the oldest inscriptions are formed by strokes or notches scored on either side of the edge of an upright stone. Thus we obtain the following alphabet:, h d t c q ' 'm g ng z r a o e i This system, which was eked out with other signs, would seem to have been framed in the south-west of Ireland by a person or persons who were familiar with the Latin alphabet. Some of the inscriptions probably go back to the 5th century and may even be earlier. As illustrations of the simplest forms of Ogam inscriptions we may mention the following: Doveti maqqi Cattini, i.e. "(the stone) of Dovetos son of Cattinos "; Trenagusu Maqi Maqi-Treni is rendered in Latin Trenegussi Fili Macutreni hic jacit; Sagramni Maqi Cunatami," (the stone) of Sagramnos son of Cunotamos "; Ovanos avi Ivacattos," (the stone) of Ovanus descendant of Ivacattus."It will be seen that in the oldest of these inscriptions q is still kept apart from k (c), and that the final syllables have not disappeared (cf. maqqi, 0. Ir. maicc ), but it appears certain that in Ogamic writing stereotyped forms were used long after they had disappeared in ordinary speech. Several stones contain bilingual inscriptions, but the key to the Ogam alphabet is supplied by a treatise on Ogamic writing contained in the Book of Ballymote, a manuscript of the late 14th century. It should be mentioned that the Welsh stones are early whilst the Scottish ones are almost without exception late, and several of the latter have so far defied interpretation. In addition to the Irish Ogams there are a number of Christian inscriptions in Latin character, but, with one exception, they are not older than the 8th century. See R. R. Brash, The Ogam Inscribed Monuments of the Gaedhil (London, 1879); R. A. Stewart Macalister, Studies in Irish Epigraphy (London), vol. i. (1897), vol. ii. 1902, vol. iii. 1907. The Welsh inscriptions are contained in J. Rhys, Lectures on Welsh Philology2 (London, 1879). The Scottish stones have also been treated by Rhys in the Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries (Edinburgh, 1892). See also G. M. Atkinson for the tract in the Book of Ballymote, Kilkenny Journal of Archaeology (1874). The Irish Christian inscriptions were published by Margaret Stokes as the annual volumes of the Roy. Hist. and Archaeol. Association of Ireland (1870-1877), and have been republished by R. A. Stewart Macalister. (a) Irish We are able to trace the history of the Irish language continuously for a period of 1200 years, and from the time that the literary documents begin we are better supplied with linguistic material for the study of the language than is the case with any other Celtic dialect. At the same time that form of Irish which is to be found in the oldest documents has preserved a number of features which have entirely, or almost entirely, disappeared from the Brythonic languages. For this reason scholars have largely occupied themselves with Irish, which for purposes of comparative philology may be regarded as the classic Celtic language. The history of Irish is divided into three periods: Old .Irish (loo - Iloo), the documents mainly representing the language of the 8th and 9th centuries; Middle Irish, extending roughly from 1100 to 1550; Modern Irish from 1550 to the present day. These periods merge into one another to such an extent that no firm division can be made. The language of some manuscripts of the 14th century contains forms which are really Old Irish, and Middle Irish orthography was partly employed by historians and antiquarians in the middle of the 17th century. Old Irish, as compared with Brythonic, preserves a wealth of inflectional forms in declension and conjugation, but many of these tend to disappear very early. In the modern dialects of Ireland and Scotland there is a rigid rule of orthography that a palatalized, or, as it is termed, slender consonant in medial or final position, must be preceded by a palatal vowel (i), and a nonpalatalized consonant by a non-palatal or broad vowel (a, o, u). This is the famous rule of the grammarians known as caol le caol agus leathan le leathan (" slender to slender and broad to broad "), but it is not so strictly adhered to in the spoken language as is commonly stated. In the older language the quality of medial and final consonants is only denoted very imperfectly, thus non-palatalized final consonants are regularly not denoted as such, e.g. O. and Mid. Ir. fir, Mod. Ir. fior. In Old and Mid. Irish the initial mutations are only regularly denoted in the case of the vocalic mutation of c, p, t, s, f, and the nasal mutation of b, d, g. The vocalic mutation of c, p, t, s,f was denoted by writing ch, ph, th, sh, fh, the first three symbols of which were derived from the Latin alphabet. Another method of denoting the mutation was to write a dot over the letter, originally the punctum delens, which was justified in the case of mutated f as the latter early became silent. But no such devices were ready at hand in the case of the medial b, d, g, and the mutated forms of these consonants were consequently not represented at all in the orthography. The same remark holds good in the case of the nasal mutation (eclipse) of the tenues. But it is easy to demonstrate that the same condition of affairs as we find in the modern language must have obtained in Old Irish. This insufficiency of symbols renders the orthography of the early stages of the language very complicated. We find that b, d, g were used initially to denote the voiced stops, but medially and finally they represent spirants, the voiced stops in this case being denoted by c, p, t. It is not until much later times that the h in the mutated forms of the tenues, or the use of the dot, was extended to the mediae. Thus in Mid. Irish we find do bochtaib in choimded(Mod.Ir.dobhochtaibh), Mid. I r.ro-gab = Mod.I r.do ghabh. The nasal mutation of c, p, t was first denoted by writing these sounds double and finally in the 18th century by writing gc, bp, dt. The spirants arising out of Prim. Celt. g, d, b came in Old Irish to be confused with those which developed out of Prim. Celt. p, t, k, in other than initial positions. In final positions in polysyllables we commonly find d and b written but medially th and ph, e.g. didnad," consolation,"gen. sing. dithnatha. For the ending -ad cp. Lat. -dtu-. On the other hand we find g written medially and ch finally. These rules, however, are not yet applied in the oldest documents. When we turn to the inflections we find that most of the old terminations have disappeared, but that their influence on preceding consonants is still felt and serves to distinguish one form from another; thus in the declension of fer," man,"nom. sing. fer, gen. sing. fir, dat. sing. fiur, ace. sing, fer n-, nom. pl. fir, gen. pl. fer n -, corresponding to Prim. Celt. (Gaulish) viros, viri, viro, viron, viri, viron, the influence of the following sound still differentiates the cases from one another. In the later language the initial mutations come more and more to be used for this purpose. In Middle Irish the declensions and conjugations are much simplified and the neuter gender is given up in substantives. In the verb the athematic conjugation has disappeared and the distinction of primary and secondary endings is not observed. On the other hand Irish has developed a peculiar system of absolute and conjoint inflection with different sets of endings. The conjoint endings are always used in the case of compound verbs, and in simple verbs they are employed after certain proclitics, e.g. the negative particles. Thus berid," he bears,"is an absolute form; do-beir," he gives," ni beir," he does not bear,"are conjoint forms. Further, the verb system is partly dominated by the various devices employed to express relatival function. There are three main types of conjugation in Old Irish corresponding to the Latin first, third and fourth conjugations, the Latin types moneo and audio being difficult to distinguish in Irish. In the modern language there is in reality but one conjugation. The old Irish verb system comprises present and imperfect indicative, imperative, pres. subjunctive in - a - or -s- with corresponding past subjunctive, future in -f- or -s- or/ eor with reduplication along with corresponding secondary future, -s- preterite, -t- preterite, reduplicated preterite, a preterite containing a long stem-vowel, together with deponential and passive forms in -rd. This system is eked out with the verbal prefix ro, which among other functions changes a preterite into a perfect or a present into a perfect. Such a cumbrous system was bound to fall to pieces. A number of isolated forms have come down, but the only tenses which have survived into the modern period are the present and imperfect indicative, the imperative, the present subjunctive, the -s- preterite, the -b- and -efuture with corresponding secondary forms, and some of the passive forms in -r. At the same time in the modern language there is an increasing tendency to use analytical forms. Two noteworthy features of the Irish verb remain to be mentioned. The one is the use of pronouns as objects infixed between particle and verb, or in a verb compounded with a preposition between preposition and verb. There are two sets of forms according as to whether the verb occurs in a relative clause or not. Thus -m- is the ordinary infixed pronoun of the 1st pers. sing., whilst -dom- is the corresponding relative form. In the 3rd pers. sing. aspiration may be employed, e.g. ni ceil," he does not hide,"ni elicit," he does not hide it."This has been given up in the modern language. Secondly in verbs compounded with prepositions the accent of the verb varies according as to whether the verb is used enclitically or not - thus after the negative ni orin the infinitive and imperative. Hence we have do-beir," he gives,"by the side of ni tcibair," he does not give,"infin. tabairt; do-gniu," I do," ni denim," I do not do,"infin. denum. The changes caused by this alternation in addition to others due to the working of the Irish accent and to the initial and internal mutations have played havoc with the verb system and render it exceedingly difficult to reconstruct the paradigms. In the .later periods of the language analogy naturally plays a great part, and many of the complicated forms are done away with, but even in the modern dialects the alternation between enclitic and orthotonic forms still survives in the commonest verbs, e.g. Irish bheir se" he gives," ni thabhair se'," he does not give, "infin. tabhairt; Scottish bheir e, cha toir, toirt; Manx ver eh, cha der, coyrt; Irish, ni se," he does," ni dheanann se'," he does not do,"infin, deanamh; Scottish ni e," he does," cha dean e," he will not do,"infin. deanamh; Manx nee eh, cha jean eh, jannoo. In the early period Irish borrowed a number of words from Latin. These are mainly connected with the church or with articles of civilization which would be imported from Roman Britain. Some of these show traces of British pronunciation, e.g. O. Ir. trindoit, from Latin trinitatesn with o for a. In others again Lat. p is represented in Ir. by c, which may be due to the substitution of q as being the nearest Irish sound to the foreign p. Thus we find Ir. corcur," purple," case,"Easter"; cenciges, ` Whitsuntide"; cruimther, " presbyter." In addition to these several loans were received from Norse. In the Mid. Irish period many French words came in, and during the middle and modern periods the number of English words introduced is legion. Pedersen has tried to show in his Vergl. Gramm. that a considerable number of words were borrowed from Brythonic (Welsh) at an early date. [For the Latin loan-words, see J. Vendryhs, De hibernicis vocabulis quae a latina lingua originem duxerunt (Paris, 1902); Kuno Meyer has collected a number of loan-words from Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Early English, Latin and Early French in Revue celtique, xii. 460 and xiii. 505. See also Whitley Stokes, Bezzenberger's Beitrage, xviii. 56 ff. For Celtic names in Norse see W. Stokes, Revue celtique, iii. 186 ff., and W. A. Craigie, Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil. i. 439 ff.] With regard to the dialects of Irish, there is a well-known rhyme which states the peculiarities of the speech of the four provinces, and dialectical differences must have existed at an early period, though they do not make their appearance in the literary language until the 18th century. At the present day the Irish of Leinster has vanished entirely, and we have unfortunately no records of it. But in the other three provinces the vernacular still lives, and we find the Irish of Munster, Connaught and Ulster marked off from one another by well-defined peculiarities. In general it may be stated that the south of Ireland is more conservative than the north. In Munster there is a tendency to shift the word-stress from the initial syllable to a heavy derivative syllable, e.g. -dn. This does not take place in Connaught, whilst in Ulster the tendency is to shorten the vowel. Again in monosyllables ending in ll, nn, m, and under certain other conditions a short vowel becomes a diphthong in the south, in Connaught it is merely lengthened, but in Ulster the original length is retained, e.g. Ulster ball, " member, limb," Connaught ball, Munster baull. Final dh, gh in Munster are sounded as g. In certain cases the north prefers the vocalic mutation where the west and south have the nasal, thus notably in the dative singular after preposition and article, e.g. Munster-Connaught do'n bhfear, " to the man," Ulster do'n fhear. In the south synthetic verbforms are employed to a much larger extent than in the north. | Year. 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 | | Monoglots. 319,602 163,275 103,562 64,167 38,192 20,953 | Bilinguists. 1,204,684 942,261 714,313 885,765 642,053 620,189 In the early part of the 19th century Irish was still the speech of more than half the inhabitants of Ireland. A German traveller reckoned that out of a total population of seven millions in 1835 four millions spoke Irish as their mother-tongue. The famine of 1846-1847 was felt most in those districts that were purely Irish, and these were the parts that were and still are chiefly affected by the tide of emigration. Add to this the fact that the influence of O'Connell and his satellites, and above all that of the Roman Catholic clergy, was against the language. In spite of the efforts of the Gaelic League (founded 1893), which have met with considerable success, the language is rapidly dying of internal decay. The speakers of Irish are chiefly confined to the following counties, where over 20% of the population speak Gaelic: - Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal. The following figures will illustrate the decay of the language since the famine: According to the 1901 census report the speakers of Irish were distributed as follows: - Leinster, 26,436; Munster, 276,268; Connaught, 245,580; Ulster, 92,858. The Gaelic movement, which has thriven largely on account of its anti-English character, would have a much better chance of galvanizing the ancient language of Ireland if it were not for the supreme difficulties of Irish spelling and phonetics. Of the hundreds of thousands of persons who attend the classes of the League not more than one or two per cent. at the outside arrive at any state of proficiency. Presbyterian Gaels in Scotland are taught to read the Bible but Irish Catholics are not encouraged to do so. The result of this is seen in the fact that, whilst many, if not all, of the local Nationalist newspapers under the pressure of the League publish badly-printed and little-read columns in Irish, there are only two regularly appearing periodicals which contain any large amount of Irish. Half the contents - and those the most important - of the weekly organ of the league, An Claidheamh Soluis (" the flaming sword"), are in English. The latter was started in 1898 under the title of Fdinne an Lae (" the ring of day," i.e. the dawn). The other periodical is the monthly Gaelic Journal (Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge), a would-be literary magazine of very inferior quality which has led a precarious existence since 1882. In 1898 it was decided to hold a festival called the Oireachtas (" hosting, gathering") on the lines of the Welsh Eisteddfod. The venture was a great success and similar meetings have been held every year since, whilst each province and many of the counties have their annual local Gaelic feis (festival). The literary output of the movement has been prodigious, consisting in the main of a number of short stories and dramas (mostly propagandist), but nothing of any particular merit has as yet been forthcoming. The best-known writers are Dr Douglas Hyde (collector of folk-stories- Beside the Fire, 1890, An Sgeulaidhe Gaedhealach, 1895 (reprinted from vol. x. of the Annales de Bretagne), Love Songs of Connaught, 1893, Religious Songs of Connaught, 1905); P. O'Leary (author of two lengthy stories, Seadna, 1904, Niamh, 1907); P. Dinneen (author of an historical tale, Cormac Ua Connaill, 1901); P. O'Shea, better known as "Conan 1VIaol," author of a collection of short stories entitled An Buaiceas, 1903. Authorities On Irish Language. -FOr the study of Old Irish - Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica 2 (Berlin, 1871); B. Giiterbock and R. Thurneysen, Indices to the Irish words treated in Zeuss (Leipzig, 1881); E. Windisch published the first grammar of Old Irish in 1879 (trans. by N. Moore, Pitt Press, 1882), but Windisch's treatment of the verb was rendered obsolete by the discovery of the laws of the Irish accent by H. Zimmer, Keltische Studien (Berlin, 1884), and R. Thurneysen, Revue celtique, vi. 309; J. Vendrybs, Grammaire du Vieil-Irlandais (Paris, 1908) R. Thurneysen, Handbuch des AltIrischen (Heidelberg, 1909). Mention should also be made of J. Strachan, Selections from the Old Irish Glosses (Dublin, 1904); and the same writer's Old Irish Paradigms (Dublin, 1905), Stories from the Tain (Dublin, 1908). See also various papers on the Irish verb in the Transactions of the London Philological Society by Strachan (1895-1902); H. Pedersen, Aspirationen i Irsk (Copenhagen, 1898); C. Sarauw, Irske Studier (Copenhagen, 1901); G. J. Ascoli, Archivio glottologico italiano, vols. v. and vi. For the study of Middle Irish - E. Windisch, Irische Texte mit Worterbuch (Leipzig, 1880). (Other volumes in conjunction with W. Stokes.) Editions of texts by W. Stokes, Kuno Meyer and others in the Revue celtique, Zeitschrift fiir. celtische Philologie, Eriu. K. Meyer has issued an exhaustive Mid. Irish glossary (A-D) as a supplement to the Archiv fiir celtische Lexikographie. The remainder is being published under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy. The first grammar of Modern Irish was published by Francis Molloy in 16 77 at Rome under the title of Grammatica Latino-Hibernica. Molloy was followed by Jeremiah Curtin in 1728 with a book called Elements of the Irish Language. Numerous other grammars were published towards the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, but few of them have any value. The more important of them are enumerated in the introduction to O'Donovan's Grammar and to Windisch's Kurzgefasste irische Grammatik, and in Pedersen's Aspirationen i Irsk, pp. 29-47. We may mention W. Neilson's Grammar (1808) as it is important for the Irish of E. Ulster. But the greatest native grammarian was John O'Donovan, who traversed Ireland in connexion with the Ordnance Survey, and published in 1854 a comprehensive grammar noting the differences between the various dialects. A little grammar published by Molloy in 1867 is instructive on account of the author's peculiar point of view. The most useful books for the study of the living language are the series of booklets (five) published by Father O'Growney, one of the chief promoters of the present movement. Mention should also be made of J. P. Henry's Handbook of Modern Irish, pts. i.-iv., and of the grammars by P. W. Joyce (Dublin, 1896) and the Christian Brothers (Dublin, 1901). For the northern form of Irish J. P. Craig's Grammar of Modern Irish is useful (2 Dublin, 1904). The phonetics of a Munster dialect have been investigated by R. Henebry, A Contribution to the Phonology of Desi Irish (Greifswald, 1901). The dialect of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway has been described by F. N. Finck, Die Araner Mundart, i. Lautlehre and Grammatik, ii. Worterbuch (Marburg, 1899). G. Dottin has given an account of a dialect of North Connaught (Mayo) in the Revue celtique, xiv. pp. 97-137. A study of the speech of the north was published by E. C. Quiggin under the title of A Dialect of Donegal, Phonology and Texts (Cambridge, 1906). For an account of the decay of Irish see H. Zimmer, "Die keltische Bewegung in Irland," Preussische Jahrbiicher for 1898, vol. 93, p. 59 ff., and the last chapter of Douglas Hyde's Literary History of Ireland (London, 1901). The work of the earlier compilers of glosses will be mentioned in the literature section below. The first dictionary of the modern language of any importance was that published by J. O'Brien in 1768. Next came E. O'Reilly with his Irish-English Dictionary (Dublin, 1817). This book contains a vast store of words gathered on no principle whatever from all manner of sources, and has therefore to be used with caution, but even at the present day it renders considerable service. A second edition with a supplement by O'Donovan was published after the latter's death in 1864. The first trustworthy dictionary of the modern language was published under the auspices of the Irish Texts Society by P. J. Dinneen (London, 1904). EnglishIrish dictionaries have been compiled by D. Foley (Dublin, 18 55); E. E. Fournier (Dublin, 1903); T. O'Neill Lane (Dublin, 1904). (b) Scottish Gaelic. - Scottish Gaelic is the form of Goidelic speech which was introduced into Scotland by the Dalriadic Scots who came over from Ireland in the early centuries of our era. We possess practically no early monuments of the language. We have one or two inscriptions in Latin characters, such as that at St Vigeans and the Ogams mentioned above, which have not yet been solved. In the Book of Deir there is a colophon of a few lines probably written by an Irish scribe in the 9th century, and as the language of these lines differs in no wise from the Irish of the period, we do not know if they accurately represent the Gaelic of Scotland or if they may not be pure 'Irish. In the same MS. there are further Gaelic scraps belonging to the IIth and 12th centuries. The word-forms in these entries are identical with those current at the time in Ireland, but the historical orthography seems to show more signs of decay than is the case in Irish. The medieval Scottish MSS. in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh are only just being published, but they seem either to hail from Ireland or to be written in pure Irish. The end of. the 15th century brought a change. The Lordship of the Isles, the great bond between Ireland and Scotland, was broken up. The Gaels of Scotland, thrown on their'own resources, advanced their own dialect to the position of a literary language and tried to discard the Irish orthography. The Book of the Dean of Lismore, compiled about 1500, is written in a kind of phonetic orthography which has not as yet been sufficiently investigated. The language of those poems which are not directly ascribed to Irish poets, and which may therefore be regarded as representing the literary language of the Highlands at the time, seems to occupy a position midway between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. But until the beginning of the 18th century the Highlands were under the literary dominion of Ireland, so much so that Bedell's Irish version of the Scriptures was circulated in Scotland with a glossary from 1690 to 1767, and Bishop Carsewell's version of Knox's Prayer-book (1567) is pure Irish. The language of the people is poorly represented in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the orthography is not fixed until we reach the 18th century. Irish and Scottish Gaelic differ considerably in point of vocabulary, but there are also important divergences in phonetics and inflections. In the first place, Scottish Gaelic as written has entirely given up the nasal mutation (eclipse), e.g. Scottish ar bb," our cow," Irish ar m-bó Scottish nan tir, " of the countries," Irish na d-tir. It should, however, be observed that in Skye and the Outer Isles the nasal mutation has been partly restored and in some places there are even parallels to the Welsh nasal mutation of c, p, t to ngh, mh, nh. Secondly, post-vocalic c, p, t are commonly preceded by a breathed sound not represented in writing, thus mac " son," is pronounced mahk; slat, " rod," as slaht. Again there is a tendency to insert a sibilant in the group rt, thus ceart, " right," is sounded kearst, and the distinction between palatalized and non-palatalized sounds is not so rigidly observed as in Irish. The group cht is in Scotland pronounced as if chk. We may also mention that Scottish Gaelic preserves an old h in a number of words where Irish now has a, thus, Old Ir. fer, Scottish G. fer, Irish far, but in both cases the spelling is fear (in this respect Scottish Gaelic goes hand in hand with Manx and the almost extinct Irish of Down). Similarly, we find that in Scottish Gaelic and Manx stressed vowels preceding a palatalized consonant have not undergone palatalization to the same extent as in Irish, e.g. in Ireland duine, " man," <*dunjo-, is pronounced din'a, but in Scotland dun' d (in Manx written dooinney). A further peculiarity of Scottish Gaelic is that it substitutes lenes or voiceless mediae for the voiced stops, and even l; r, n sounds show a great tendency to give up the voice. Scottish Gaelic goes farther even than Irish in the confusion of vowel-sounds, e.g. Lat. coxa, Ir. cos, " foot," Sc. cas; Ir. codal, Sc. cadal. When we turn to the inflections we find that analogy has here played a much greater part than in Irish. There is a tendency to make the plural of all substantives except masculine monosyllables end in -an. In the conjugation the synthetic forms have with one or two exceptions entirely disappeared and the present forms have become momentary in force. Hence in ordinary grammars it is stated that the present has become a future, thus ni mi means "I shall do." The past participle chiefly ends in -te as against Irish -the, -te, or -tha, -ta, according to the quality of the preceding sound. The present (future) and past subjunctive (conditional, representing both the imperfect indic. and secondary future of Irish) supply the place of the Irish consuetudinal forms. In idiom also Scottish has diverged very considerably from Irish, e.g. in the use of tha (Ir. td) for is. It seems now to be agreed that the various dialects of Scottish Gaelic fall into two main divisions - northern and southern. Mackinnon states that the boundary between the two passes roughly up the Firth of Lorne to Loch Leven, then across country from Ballachulish to the Grampians. The country covered by the northern dialect was of old the country of the Northern Picts, whilst the portion of Argyllshire south of the boundary line, together with Bute and Arran, made up the kingdom of Dalriada. The Gaelic district south of the Grampians belonged to the Southern Picts. The southern dialect is commonly regarded as the literary language. It approaches more nearly to Irish and preserves the inflections much better than the speech of the north. The following characteristics of the northern dialects may be mentioned: (i) The diphthongization of open e to is is carried much farther in the north than in the south. (2) The vowel ao in the north is more regularly the high-back-narrow-unrounded vowel-sound, whereas the south in many cases has a low-front-wide-round sound. (3) The north has str in initial position where the south prefers sr. Further, the northern dialects go very far in dropping unaccented final vowels. It may be remarked that in the reduction of derivative endings containing long vowels Scotland goes hand-in-hand with Ulster Irish, thus Connaught aran, " bread," is in Ulster and Scotland aran. Again, Scottish agrees with North Irish in the loss of synthetic verb-forms and in using as negative cha, Mid. Ir. nico, nocha. But, on the other hand, Scotland, with the exception of South Argyll and some of the Isles, diphthongizes accented a, o, e, in monosyllables, before 11, nn, m, thus resembling the speech of Munster. In South Argyll the original short vowel is half lengthened. As to the southern limits of Gaelic speech in Scotland, the boundary between Gaelic and English in medieval times was the so-called Highland line, and at the War of Independence it is probable that it extended to Stirling, Perth and the Ochil and Sidlaw Hills, the Inglis being limited to a very narrow strip along the coast. Dr J. A. H. Murray traced the linguistic frontier in 1869-1870 with the following results. The line started about 3 m. west of the town of Nairn on the Moray Firth and ran in a south-east direction to the Dee, 4 m. above Ballater. On the other side of the Dee it began 4 m. above Balmoral and followed the boundary of Perth and Forfar as far as Glen Shee, where it went off to the south-west as far as Dunkeld. After passing Birnam Hill it turned due west until the upper part of Glen Almond was reached, where it bent to the south ward, passing through Comrie and along the braes of Doune to the Teith, 3 or 4 m. below Callander. Thence it ran along the north shore of Lake Monteith to Gartmore, and from there to Rowardennan on the east side of Loch Lomond. On the west side it passed through Glen Douglas down Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde, leaving Bute and Arran to the west. At the present day this boundary has probably receded to the extent of several miles, and even in 1870 there were districts such as Bute and the region round Dunoon where Gaelic was only spoken by the oldest natives and the immigrant population. The language is not found in the northeast of Caithness, the boundary running, according to Murray, roughly from a little north-east of Lybster to the mouth of the Forss. Celtic was driven out of Shetland and Orkney by Scandinavian some time during the middle ages. (See further J. A. H. Murray, The Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, London, 1875; Revue celtique, vol. ii. pp. 180-187.) Until the 18th century Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and on the uplands of Ayr and Lanark. The following figures from the census returns illustrate the decrease in the number of persons who speak Gaelic: - Monolinguists. Bilinguists. 1881. No return 231,594 (this includes Gaelic monolinguists) 1891.43,73 8 210,677 1901 28,106 202,700 In the last-mentioned year it appears that nearly one-half of the speakers of Gaelic are reported from the counties of Inverness and Ross (23,893 monolinguists and 82,573 bilinguists). From about 1300 we find Scottish emigrants filtering into the glens of Antrim, where the Gaelic that is spoken is still unmistakably Scottish. There have long been local societies of Highlanders for the cultivation of their native tongue, the most important one being An Comunn Gaidhealach (founded 1891). This society holds an annual gathering called the Mad (= Eng. "moot") on the lines of the Welsh Eisteddfod, and recently the Scottish Education Department has countenanced the teaching of Gaelic in Highland schools. But the political element plays little or no part in the language movement in Scotland, and the latter is not likely to assume the proportions of the Gaelic League in Ireland. Asa rule, however, Highlanders are better able to read their own language than Irish Gaels, for, the majority being Protestants, they are encouraged to read their Bibles. There are only two periodicals which devote half their space to Gaelic. The one is An Deo-Greine (" the sunbeam"), founded October 1905; and the other is the Catholic propagandist quarterly Guth na Bliadhna (" the voice of the year"), started in 1904. Up to 1905 a fortnightly newspaper printed wholly in Gaelic appeared in Prince Edward Island, under the title of An Mac-talla (" the echo"), and efforts have been made to revive it. A weekly newspaper wholly in Gaelic was started in 1908 by R. Stuart Erskine under the title of Alba. Authorities On Scottish Gaelic. - The first grammar of Scottish Gaelic was compiled by W. Shaw ( An Analysis of the Galic Language, 1778). The most useful one was that published by Alexander Stewart, Elements of Gaelic Grammar (Edinburgh, 1801). A revised edition of this work with many additions and corrections was published by H. C. Gillies, London, 1902. This book is rather spoilt by the author's attitude, and requires to be supplemented and corrected. G. Henderson and C. W. Robertson have published important papers on the modern dialects in the Zeitschrift fiir celtische Philologie, the Celtic Review and the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness. The most useful work on Gaelic philology is Alexander Macbain's Etymological Gaelic Dictionary (Inverness, 1896) (a later edition by W. J. Watson). The chief dictionaries are Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum, published by the Highland Society of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1828); R. A. Armstrong, Gaelic Dictionary in two parts (London, 1825); N. McAlpine, Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary (Edinburgh, 1847) (this book gives the pronunciation of Islay); Macleod and Dewar, Gaelic and English Dictionary (latest edition, Edinburgh, 1901); Faclair Gaidhlig, published by E. Macdonald, Herne Bay, appearing in parts since 1902. (c ) Manx. - Our sources of information with regard to the language of the Isle of Man are even more scanty in the early period than they are in the case of Scotland. There are a number of references to the island in Irish literature, but the earliest monument of the vernacular we possess is the version of the Book of Common Prayer made by Bishop Phillips in 1610. In this translation the traditional Irish orthography is not followed. The spelling resembles the orthography which was employed in Scotland by the compiler of the Book of the Dean of Lismore. How far this system was used is a question which it is difficult to decide. In Scotland the Irish orthography has prevailed in a slightly modified form, but Manx writers adhered to a mode of spelling which was as phonetic as any system based on English, or, probably more correctly Anglo-Scottish, orthography could be. This fact, combined with the rapid phonetic decay of the V. 20 a language, makes it extremely difficult to discover what soundvalues are to be attached to the various symbols. At the beginning of the 18th century English was not understood by two-thirds of the natives, and in 1764 the S.P.C.K. issued a paper containing this statement: "The population of the Isle is 20,000, of whom the far greater number are ignorant of English." But from this time English gradually crept in. The last edition of the Manx Bible was issued in 1819, and of the New Testament in 1840. The present writer's great-grandmother refused to speak English, his grandfather (b. 1815) preached in Manx and English, and his father (b. 1844) only spoke English. The following figures illustrate the rapid decline of the language:- Monolinguists. Bilinguists. 1875 190 12,340 (out of a population of 41,084 exclusive of Douglas) 1901 None 4,419 Manx stands in a much closer relation to Scottish Gaelic than Irish, and fishermen state that they could understand a good deal of what is said in South Argyll, though they are quite at a loss at Kinsale. Manx exhibits the same tendency as Scottish to use analytical and periphrastic forms in the verb, thus jannoo, " to do," is used like Scottish deanamh with an infinitive to express the past and future. The present has acquired a momentary (future) signification, and the past participle ends in -it (Scottish -te). The negative is cha as in Scotland and Ulster. Manx goes as far as northern Scottish in dropping unstressed final vowels, e.g. chiarn, " lord," Irish, tighearna; -yn is the favourite plural ending in substantives. The nasal mutation has been partly given up. Old Irish stressed e is frequently retained, e.g. fbr, " man," Irish far (spelt fear ), and the vowels o and ci are confused as in Scottish, e.g. Manx cass, " foot," Scottish cas, Irish cos. Manx is divided in itself about the treatment of short accented vowels before ii, nn, m. According to Rhys the south side lengthens, whilst the north side diphthongizes; e.g. Irish crann, " tree," cloan, " offspring," S. Manx kron, klon, N. Manx. kroun, kloun (written croan, cloan). In the matter of stress Manx is quite original, going farther even than the dialects of the south of Ireland. Not only does it shift the stress in the case of heavy derivative suffixes like - an and reduce the preceding vowel, e.g. Ir. fuaran, Sc. fuaran, Manx fran, " spring," but even in cases like caghlda, " variety," Sc. Ir. caochladh, O. Ir. coimmchloud; corda, " voice," Ir. comhradh. The Mid. English stress on the final is further retained in words from the French such as ashoon, " nation," livrey, " deliver." As other features peculiar to Manx we may mention the following. An intervocalic s or sh shows a tendency to become lisped and voiced to d. In monosyllables post-vocalic final m, n, are often preceded by an intrusive b, d respectively, thus ben " woman," may be heard as bedn. Ir. a becomes more palatal and is often - c - e. Ir. sc becomes st, sht, e.g. Ir. fescor, " evening," Manx fastyr; Ir. uisce, " water," Manx ushtey. Authorities On MANx. - The place and personal names of the Isle of Man have been collected by A. W. Moore in Manx Names 2 (London, 1903) (33% of the proper names are Scandinavian). The chief source of information about the spoken language is J. Rhys, The Outlines of the Phonology of Manx Gaelic (London, 1895) (the book has unfortunately no index and no texts). The only serious attempt to represent spoken Manx graphically is the transcription of a song by J. Strachan in the Zeitschr. fiir celtische Philologie, vol. i. p. 54. The native grammarian is J. Kelly, who in 1803 published A Practical Grammar of the Ancient Gaelic or Language of the Isle of Man, usually called Manks. This book was republished by W. Gill for the Manx Society in 1859, and a facsimile reprint of this latter was made for Quaritch, London, 1870. A useful little book entitled, First Lessons in Manx was published by Edwin Goodwin (Dublin, 1901). There are two dictionaries, one by A. Cregeen, Douglas 1835, which is now being reprinted for An Cheshaght Gailckagh, a Douglas society which is endeavouring to encourage the use of Manx and to get it introduced into the schools. The other dictionary is by J. Kelly in two parts - (I) Manx and English, (2) English and Manx, published by the Manx Society in 1866. Kelly also prepared a Triglot of Manx, Irish and Gaelic, based upon English, which has never been published. A useful paper on the language appeared in the Transactions of the London Philological Society for 1875 by H. Jenner, "The Manx Language: Its Grammar, Literature and Present State." (E. C. Q.) (ii). Brythonic. The term Brythonic is used to denote the Celtic dialects of Wales, Brittany and Cornwall. Unlike the Goidels the Brythonic peoples have no common name for their language. Forms of Brythonic speech were doubtless current throughout England and Wales and the Lowlands of Scotland at the time of the Saxon invasion. The S.E. of Britain may have been extensively Romanized, and it is not impossible that remnants of Goidelic speech may have lin Copyright Statement
These files are public domain. Bibliography Information
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Celtic Languages'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/c/celtic-languages.html. 1910.
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