THE STORY OF THE MANX PEOPLE
THE MANX LANGUAGE
A friend asked me the other day if there was any reason why I should not deliver these lectures in Manx. I answered that there were just forty good and sufficient reasons. The first was that I did not speak Manx. Like the wise queen in the story of the bells, he then spared me the recital of the remaining nine-and-thirty. But there is at least one of the number that will appeal strongly to most of my hearers. What that is you shall judge for yourselves after I have braved the pitfalls of pronunciation in a tongue I do not know, and given you some clauses of the Lord’s Prayer in Manx.
Ayr ain t’ayns niait,
(Father our who art in heaven.)
Caskerick dy row dty ennym.
(Holy be Thy name.)
Dy jig dty reeriaght.
(Come Thy kingdom.)
Dty aigney dy row jeant er y thalloo mry te ayns niau.
(Thy will be done on the earth even as in heaven.)
Son dy bragh, as dy bragh, Amen.
(For ever and ever. Amen.)
I asked a friend—it was Mr. Wilson Barrett—if in its fulness, its fine chest-notes, its force and music, this old language did not sound like Italian.
“Well, no,” he answered, “it sounds more like hard swearing.”
I think you must now understand why the greater part of these lectures should be delivered in English.