Blair Collection > Treatise on the language, poetry, and music of the Highland clans

LANGUAGE, POETIIY, AND MUSIC
OF
THE HIGHLAND CLANS.
THE LANGUAGE.
The letters of the Gaelic language consist of seventeen, (originally sixteen,)
besides the letter h, which is used as an aspirate. Only three of the consonants,
1, n, and r, retain their power at all times, the aspirate so often used having
the effect of either depriving the others of their power, or of rendering their
sounds more vocal, sweet, and mellow. Hence the Gaelic vowels are more
numerous than the consonants which at all times retain their power ; yet this
peculiar feature of the language, although it necessarily renders it more soft,
does not deprive it of its vigour either in tone or expression, as no two Gaelic
vowels are ever pronounced in one syllable excepting ao, whose combined
sound can be acquired properly only from the living voice.
The construction of the Gaelic is extremely simple, yet I venture to say
that any person who will study it, even with the assistance only of phonetic
spelling, and what I can only call a literal translation for want of words to
express my meaning, (for there can be no literal translation without equivalent
words, and the words I use in rendering Gaelic into English are not equivalents —
there being no such to be found in the English language,) will come to the
conclusion that it has been cultivated by philosophic grammarians and philolo-
gists at some prehistoric age, — for the Gaelic is literally an ancient language,
into which modern or coined words cannot be introduced without being detected
as discordant and unnatural. The ancient Celtic clans, from the character of
their language, religion, laws, the constitution of their local or clan governments
and brehon-courts, from their poetry, tales, music, manners, and customs, must
have attained a comparatively high state of civilization at some very remote
period. Striking traits of polished manners, generous hospitality, and stern