Blair Collection > Elements of Gaelic grammar

INTRODUCTION. XV
to that system which, from its simpHcity, or clear
and comprehensive arrangement, is most fitted
to assist the memory in acquiring and retaining
the parts of speech with their several inflections.
In distributing the various parts of a language
into their several classes, and imposing names on
them, we ought always to be guided by the na-
ture of that language ; and to guard against
adopting, with inconsiderate servility, the distri-
butions and technical terms of another. This
caution is the more necessary, because, in our
researches into the grammar of any particular
tongue, we are apt to follow implicitly the order
of the Latin grammar, on which we have been
long accustomed to fix our attention, and which
we are ever ready to erect into a model for the
grammar of all languages. To force the several
parts of speech into moulds formed for the idioms
of the Latin tongue, and to frame them so as to
suit a nomenclature adapted to the peculiarities of
Latin grammar, must have the effect of disguising
or concealing the peculiarities, and confounding
the true distinctions, which belong to the lan-
guage under discussion.
Although, in treating of Gaelic grammar, the
caution here suggested ought never to be forgot-
ten ; yet it is needless to reject indiscriminately
all the forms and terms introduced into the gram-
mar of other languages. Where the same classi-
fications