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

lu
THE LANGUAGE
patriotism, Lave been showo, and still are shown by the mountaineers of all parts
of Europe, as well as of the Highlands of Scotland, notwithstanding the Komau
and feudal corruption and oppression to which even the people of the most
inaccessible districts had been more or less subjected. But the demeanor, if
not even the character of the Highlander, has greatly deteriorated within my
own time." For no Highlander, even within these forty years, would pass a
stranger, on a country road, without speaking to him, if a common man, or
saluting him, if a gentleman ; but now, the singular thing is his noticing either
the one or the other, unless with a sullen or suspicious look. The reason is,
that gentlemen, unacquainted with the social position of the Highlander in his
own country, which was above that of a labourer, until very recent times, regard
his salute as merely the natural obeisance of the serf to his lord, and never
notice it any more than they would notice the wag of the coUey's tail ; and the
pride of the Highlander has taken the alarm. Hence, I have no doubt, the
change that has struck me so forcibly in my recent visits to the Highlands.*
The Gaelic alphabet is called Bilhluiseanean, — the life of plants, — being
compounded from the roots hith, life, lids, plants, and ean the plural aiBx.
The English letters, as sounded in the above words, represent the initial
sounds of the Gaelic letters as nearly as it can be represented by individual
English letters ; but the Gaelic consonants, when in action, are sounded much
broader, deeper, and softer, than their initial names. These initial sounds are,
I have no doubt, to be ascribed to a modern innovation, and ought to be cor-
rected, because so apt to mislead. The distinction is so great and so essential,
* Mr Campbell of Islay, in bis beautiful and gentlemanly preface to the Gaelic Tales, has found the
Gael a gentleman of Nature's own making ; but he was travelling where the country is not yet wholly
inundated by the str.anger.