Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

84 HISTORY OF THE
bramandich, a lazy high-fed youth ; bramag, crowdy,
having a natural relation, as cause to effect, &c.
Ore, a sow, a swine. If Adam had called the
sow buo, the name he gave the cow, his son Cain
at two years of age could have corrected him, on
hearing the note of that animal, ore. Orcan, a pig,
also a squat corpulent person, and t-orc, a boar,
are but a variety. We are not prepared to affirm
it, but the classical scholar, if we mistake not, will
find it, that herein is the leading idea of " Orcus"
one of the names of the god of hell, and of Orcho-
menus, a town of Boetia. We "have all read of
devils having entered " a herd of swine."
It has another voice when it raises up its snout
to smell a person, namely, uch, ucli, whence its
other name, 7nue, pronounced muehg. A human
being, indeed, throwing his mouth into a similar
shape and attempting to speak, will utter the same
sound.
Laogh, a calf. Any person desirous to learn
how to pronounce the very important diphthong
ao in Celtic, requires but to imitate the note of the
calf. Here have we another argument that lan-
guage was progressive, and formed upon natural
principles just as occasion required. The name of
the calf, laogh, is as true an echo, or onomatopaeia
of its note as can be given by letters, yet Adam
must have lived at least nine months before he had
heard a calf, and, consequently, before he could