Blair Collection > Celtic studies

Preface. xiii
as well as on account of pressure of other occupations, I was only
able to publish, in No. V. of the Atlantis, Nos. 4, 5, and part
of 6, of the Celtic Studies connected with declension. It has been
stated above that Dr. Ebel's papers are based upon the Grammatica
Celtica. To study them profitably, indeed to do so at all, the reader
must have before him the part of that work on declension. As
many of those into whose hands the Atlantis was likely to have
come, may not have had an opportunity of consulting that book,
I thought it desirable to add in the form of an appendix, a trans-
lation of the part just alluded to ; some of the shortest passages
in other parts of the book referred to by Dr. Ebel were likemse
translated, and placed among the foot notes. As the paper
on the Position of the Celtic possesses interest for a wider circle
of readers than those on declension, I translated it also, and
published it in No. VI. of the Atlantis.
Some friends having suggested that it would be desirable to
liave separate copies of these papers printed before the type of
the Atlantis was distributed, I thought it a favourable opportu-
nity to add the Studies omitted through want of space, namely,
on the Celtic Dual, on the Degrees of Comparison, and an ex-
tremely important one, 9. Zur Lautlehre, which had been in the
meantime pubhshed in the first part of the third volume of the
Beitrcige; I have likewise added the chapter on Case-Endings.
I also took advantage of this opportunity to considerably modify
the first chapter in several parts, with a view of more clearly
distmguishing the difterent kinds of stems, and marking the
dilFerence between stem-formation and derivation. Although
Dr. Ebel does not place his paper on the Position of the Celtic
among his Celtic Studies, 1 thought it more convenient to do so,
to avoid the necessity of a long title. I have also put all the
papers on Declension together as a chapter divided into sec-
tions, the shorter papers forming in every case a distinct section.
As it may add to the value of the paper on the Position of the
Celtic, to give a brief analysis of the discussion out of which it
arose, I will give here the substance of the note with which I
prefaced it in the Atlantis.
So soon as the Celtic was firmly established as a branch of
the Indo-European family of languages, the next question to be
determined was its position with respect to the other branches of