An Irish-English dictionary - National Library of Scotland

REMARKS ON THE LETTER A.
the consonant that commands the change in the preceding, without being subjected to any in itself)i or else another
adventitious vowel must bo placed after it of the same class with the subsequent.
i
'
1 :
I shall instance only in two words amongst many others, both to illustrate those two rules by way of exemplification, and to
show how prejudicial they naturally must have been to the primitive purity of the Irish language, by changing, corrupting,
and metamorphosin» a great number of its words from their original an^l radical structure. I shall first exemplify in the
Irish word Gall, a Gaul, plural Gaill, Gauls ; which are the Celtic wonls upon which the Latin words Gallits, Galli, have
been formed. Nothing more evident from the most ancient monuments of the Irish iiatinn, than that the natioiiiil name of
the first Celts who came to Ireland (whether they arrived there immediately fnin Ci!!, -i it!r r ai"; r r< aii'nju for some
tract of time in the gi-eater British Isle, as Mr. Llrayd gives good grounds to 1 1 ', " :: \ Gaill ia
i : , i
'
i
-
the plural; and that their language was called Galic, or Gallic, though it is ci pi iM :,i il a;, i, DunfGall,
and Gaill, in the plural, was afterwards applied by the old natives to other ti.l :i .,,. ,i ih, -, ],, aniii- (Alts into
that ishind from ^diffcrent parts of tlio Cmtim-iit, aii.l ov.-ii t- ta. i:a-;M, a.'n a; ar^ a i
; :
-. Mli.aa tln-y called Chnnm Gall, as
well as Sagsanaic; wliicli ma-t liavr ].r,MTr,laJ Ik.iIi I'lana a a a t la ir mk n ,a i-iu ,.u .account of the cKange in
their national name iVcHii (lain iiitu daalliil, cti-., aii''i/V/.
SolikewisO tlieWOrd GnZ/cor (/a a ia a; a'. a ,; :i ',a„//,,Wr ar (/„a,//„7a-, j^aliit.
Gaedhilice or- Gacdhilffe, {rom\\]:l\i la a.l'-a' a la- I., ii aiaiay-'l la aari l-ra ai laaaariaus into '/(í"(M.íl7/r, gi-nit
Gnotlhailge, by the unnatural siihstitutian ,,t ,r,. iiata al ul' a, or (c, of the ancients, abwlutaly ordering that we should pronounce
their ao just as we do oe iu the Latin van,! (.'a ///;«.
>
1
;
;
'
I
i
I
G«i'.!aaii •! (.ii a aal aaaali shape, in
I'
a-t limted
which, to conform with the orthographj^ I mustlet it standiu tia' li'ia:
that Guidhil and Guldhilic is not to be counted a modern manner of wriiua: i: a ;a :l alirmed by
Welsh manuscripts of respectable antiquity, wliirain tln' Trisli nrc calla-1 (ini/d.'^j!. aal .^aualanca- UaijJu^d, and their langu,age
Guid/iilec. Apropos to this writin •' " ', aannat Imt ala. i,a, l,, tUa byo, that it hence .appears this old
n,ation must have always judged the prina:
find in Mr. Lhuyd's Archreologia (Conipara. I,:
a, ii.ml- t l-r .iriaia il!\ u:if and the same people, inasmuch as we
, | a,, I,. aa, L':;, a,, I. ::) ihat tin WaMi or old Britons interpreted in their
language the Latin word r,'^//i« nr C.'