Download Volume 12 here

—
364 Gaelic Society of Inuerness.
I live. The particle even expresses "separation"—//at«ir mi reidh
's e is " I have got quit of (and) him." Its most frequent construction
is, of course, as an ordinary copulative conjunction. But
when two conceptions ai*e linked together very closely in time, or
place, or even as cause and eftect, and expressed in the other languages
by the present participle, or the participle with the absolute
case, or a dependent sentence, the ideas are connected in Gaelic
idiom by agns. In the Scriptures the absolute case is the favourite
construction nir teachd a nuas d'n bheinn dha, lean cuideachd
mhor e; air dol do'n luing dha, cJiaidh t thar an uisge. Here unquestionably
the Gaelic idiom would prefer ayus. You do not
say air dhomh eirigh chuir mi orm m' aodacli, nor air dha freagairt,
thtibhairt e ; but dh'eirich mi 's chuir mi orm m' aodach : thubhairt
e 's e freagairt. The same idiom is found in Scotch, and,
not unlikely, borrowed from Gaelic—
" Let me alane and me nae
weel " is an exact translation of leig learn 's gun mi gu maith.
is paralleled by Bui-ns :
—
'* Tha mi sgith 's mi learn fhin"
" How can ye chant, ye little birds,
An' 1 sae weary, fu' of care T
The pious and judicious Dr Alexander Stewart when commenting
on the exclusion of some forms and idioms from the Scriptures
accounted for the omission by the " scrupulous chasteness of the
style." The style that embraces forms and idioms whi(?li the
jieople do not use and rejects those which they do use, is a phase of
chastity, the issue of which is annihilation, and not a pui'e and
healthy life.
Let me not, however, be misunderstood. I consider that the
late Dr Ross of Lochbroom and the northern clergy had reason to
be dissatisfied with the scanty recognition which their dialect
received in the Gaelic Scriptures. Personally I have always had
great sympathy with an excellent lay preacher who lived in Assynt
some forty years ago, and who, when reading to the people, used
the English Bible and translated into the local idiom as he Avent
along. Our translators went to Ireland rather than to Ross-shire
for their diction and idiom, and in my judgment these distinguished
men made a great mistake. But he would be a bold man
who would advocate a change now in our Gaelic translation in all
cases wliere improvement is possible. Feelings and associations
cluster around the sacred volume, which even cold science must
acknowledge and respect. But my argument is this— if this book