It is perhaps too late, however, to urge now even so slight an alteration as this in the Orthography of the Gaelic, which ought rather to be held as fixed beyond the reach of innovation, by the happy diffusion of the Gaelic Scriptures over the Highlands.
[23] Leathan re Leathan, is Caol re Caol.
Of the many writers who have recorded or taken notice of this rule, I have found none who have attempted to account for its introduction into the Gaelic. They only tell that such a correspondence between the vowels ought to be observed, and that it would be improper to write otherwise. Indeed, none of them seem to have attended to the different effects of a broad and of a small vowel on the sound of an adjacent consonant. From this circumstance, duly considered, I have endeavoured to derive a reason for the rule in question, the only probable one that has yet occurred to me.
[24] As deanuibh or deanaibh do ye, beannuich or beannaich bless.
[25] It is worthy of remark that in such words as caird-eil friendly, slaint-eil salutary, the substitution of e in place of a in the termination, both misrepresents the sound, and disguises the derivation of the syllable. The sound of this termination as in fear-ail manly, ban-ail womanly, is properly represented by ail. This syllable is an abbreviation of amhuil like, which is commonly written in its full form by the Irish, as fear-amhuil, &c. It corresponds exactly to the English termination like, in soldier-like, officer-like, which is abridged to ly, as manly, friendly. By writing eil instead of ail, we almost lose sight of amhuil altogether.
[26] From the extracts of the oldest Irish manuscripts given by Lhuyd, Vallancey, and others, it appears that the rule concerning the correspondence of vowels in contiguous syllables, was by no means so generally observed once as it is now. It was gradually extended by the more modern Irish writers, from whom, it is probable, it has been incautiously adopted by the Scottish writers in its present and unwarrantable latitude. The rule we have been considering has been reprobated in strong terms by some of the most judicious Irish philologers, particularly O'Brien, author of an Irish Dictionary printed at Paris 1768, and Vallancey, author of an Irish Grammar, and of various elaborate disquisitions concerning Irish antiquities, from whom I quote the following passages: "This Rule [of dividing one syllable into two by the insertion of an aspirated consonant] together with that of substituting small or broad vowels in the latter syllables, to correspond with the vowel immediately following the consonant in the preceding syllable, has been very destructive to the original and radical purity of the Irish language." Vallancey's Ir. Gram. Chap. III. letter A. "Another [Rule] devised in like manner by our bards and rhymers, I mean that which is called Caol le caol, agus Leathan le leathan, has been woefully destructive to the original and radical purity of the Irish language. This latter (much of a more modern invention than the former, for our old manuscripts show no regard to it) imports and prescribes that two vowels, thus forming, or contributing to form, two different syllables, should both be of the same denomination or class of either broad or small vowels, and this without any regard to the primitive elementary structure of the word." O'Brien's Ir. Dict. Remarks on A. "The words biran and biranach changed sometimes into bioran and bioranach by the abusive rule of Leathan le leathan." Id. in voc. Fear. The opinion of Lhuyd on this point, though not decisive, yet may properly be subjoined to those of Vallancey and O'Brien, as his words serve at least to show that this judicious philologer was no advocate for the Rule in question. "As for passing any censure on the rule concerning broad and small vowels, I chose rather to forbear making any remark at all upon them, by reason that old men who formerly wrote arget silver, instead of airgiod as we now write it, never used to change a vowel but in declining of words, &c. And I do not know that it was ever done in any other language, unless by some particular persons who, through mistake or ignorance, were guilty of it." Archæol. Brit. Preface to Ir. Dict. translated in Bp. Nicolson's Irish Historical Library.
[27] Pinkerton's Inquiry into the History of Scotland.
[28] E.g., troidh a foot, has been written troidh or troigh, either of which corresponds to the pronunciation, as the last consonant is quiescent. In Welsh, the articulation of the final consonant has been preserved, and the word is accordingly written troed. This authority seems sufficient to determine the proper orthography in Gaelic to be troidh and not troigh. For a like reason, perhaps, it would be proper to write tràidh shore, rather than tràigh, the common way of spelling the word, for we find the Irish formerly wrote tràidh, and the Welsh traeth. Claidheamh a sword, since the final articulation was wholly dropped, has been sometimes written claidhe. The mode of writing it still with a final labial, though quiescent, will probably be thought the more proper of the two, when it is considered that claidheamh is the cognate, or rather the same word with the Irish cloidheamh the Welsh cleddyf, and the French glaive.
[29] I flatter myself that all my readers, who are acquainted with any of the ancient or the modern languages which have a distinction of gender in their attributives, will readily perceive that the import of the term Gender, in the grammar of those languages, is precisely what I have stated above. The same term has been introduced into the grammar of the English Tongue, rather improperly, because in an acceptation different from what it bears in the grammar of all other languages. In English there is no distinction of gender competent to Articles, Adjectives, or Participles. When a noun is said to be of the masculine gender, the meaning can only be that the object denoted by it is of the male sex. Thus in the English grammars, gender signifies a quality of the object named, while in other grammars it signifies a quality of the name given to the object. The varieties of who, which, and he, she, it, refer not to what is properly called the gender of the antecedent noun, but to the Sex real or attributed, or the absence of Sex, of the object signified by the antecedent. This is in effect acknowledged by writers on rhetoric, who affirm that in English the pronouns who, he, she, imply an express personification, or attribution of life, and consequently of Sex, to the objects to which these pronouns refer. The same thing is still more strikingly true of the variations on the termination of nouns, as prince, princess; lion, lioness, which are all discriminative of Sex. It seems therefore to be a mis-stated compliment which is usually paid to the English, when it is said that "this is the only language which has adapted the gender of its nouns to the constitution of Nature." The fact is, that it has adapted the Form of some of the most common names of living creatures, and of a few of its pronouns, to the obvious distinction of male, and female, and inanimate, while it has left its nouns without any mark characteristic of gender. The same thing must necessarily happen to any language by abolishing the distinction of masculine and feminine in its attributives. If all languages had been constructed on this plan, it may confidently be affirmed that the grammatical term gender would never have come into use. The compliment intended, and due to the English, might have been more correctly expressed, by saying that "it is the only language that has rejected the unphilosophical distinction of gender, by making its attributives, in this respect, all indeclinable."
[30] Uan beag bainionn, 2 Sam. xii. 3. Numb. vi. 14. So leomhann boirionn, Ezek. xix. 1.