An gaidheal - National Library of Scotland

,)90 THE GAEL. May, 1873.Gaelic dictionary thrice—think ofthat! a most ca})ital amusement fora rainy day in tlie Highhinds — (laughter)—andhe had made up a list ofbetween 400 and 500 Latin wordsin it. Examples of these the Professorquoted, and continued^Thesewords were not piit down by the oldmethod of conjecture, but by thenew and true method of lingualaffinity—the affinity of letters to oneanother. There were in Gaelic agreat number of words not referableto Latin, but were Teutonic, and adispute existed among philologists asto whether Teutonic or Latin rootspredominated in Gaelic. The questionwas what was the character ofthe language and its relations toLatin and other languages. It wasgenerally supposed that the Gaelicwas a very barbarous, liarsh, andgutteral language. Not long agoeven the fashionable language ofGermany was said to be harsh, whilenow it was said to be a language forgods and philosophers. (Laughter.)In fact, all people spoke of a languagewhich they did not undei's-tandas barbarous and harsh. Besidesthere was the superstition of JohnBull in this matter. (Laughter.)John Bull had no gutteral or aspiratein his language. He could not pronounce"he." John Bull was anoble animal, but that was one of hisdefects. (Laughter.) This aspirationor breathing was the simplestthing for the human organs to do.It was not harsh at all, but soft, andwas one of the commonest sounds in(Laugh-Greek as well as in Gaelic.ter and applause.) Another peculiarityof Gaelic was that they werefond of softening l)y aspiration thehard initial consonants of words.His fault with (jlaelic was that itwas softened too much. (Laughter.)He would, however, say further inits praise, that it combined somevery beautiful dipthongal and liquidsounds which the English languagedid not possess. Gaelic possessed aliterature, and held the very historicfoundations of all the old literatureof this country. No man couldexamine into the early documents ofthe country before the time of INIalcolmCanmore without knowingGaelic, and a great amount of thepi-ejudice and of the ignorant traditionsthat existed had been causedfrom a want of a knowledge of Gaelic.The Gaelic language contained someof the most beautiful descriptivepoetry to be found anywhere; heconfessed there was no more beautifuleven in Greek. (Laughter andapplause.) Though some peopleaverred tliat the Gaelic language wasdying, and said, "Why not let it diein peace?" why, he said, " My oldgrandmother is dying, and I haveno objections that she should die inpeace ; but I do not want to kickher out of the old ai-m chair. Iwant to cherish and su})port herthere so long as she breathes andbrings out of her soul all her oldtraditions and all the knowledge ofher youth. I want to have herblessing from her dying lips andworship her ere she departs " (Londcheers.Rev. Dr. M'Lauchlan jn-oposeda vote of thanks to Lord Colonsayfor ])residing, and to ProfessorBlackie for his leai-ned and interestingand eloquent address. (Cheers.)He was jjrei^ared to say this, and hethought he could establish it, thatGaelic was a sjaoken language and awritten language a thousand yearsbefore English existed. (A^iplauseand laughter.) If that was not sufficientantiquity, he did not knowwhat they would ask. At the i)i"esentmoment there were 400 ministerswho preached in Gaelic every.Sunday, and that did not look like