Blair Collection > Vestigia celtica

Z7
the dim wastes of that untried sea, even
the archangels of philology must ply their
" mighty pens " with discretion.
In modern Irish these idioms are still
rife and lively. It were, indeed, not too
much to say that every modern Gaelic
instance of that idiom which is mainly
considered in this chapter, may be taken as
equally illustrative of the living Irish usage.
And the same may, in fact, be said of the
idioms yet remaining to be dealt with, in
the chapters that are to follow.
Parallel usages in Manx are also abund-
ant. As examples we may take the follow-
ing : y7z thie aym's = an tigh agam-sa = the
house at me=:my house ; y7i cabby I ayd's =
an capall agad-sa = the horse at thee = thy
horse; yji thie eckey = 2in tigh aige = the
house at him = his house. In conversa-
tional Gaelic, it may here be observed,
agam, emphatic aoaiJi-sa = 2it me = my, is
often shortened into aaju, emphatic ciam-
sa, which, as spoken, very closely approxi-
mates to the sound of the Manx aym's.
Similarly also, agad, emphatic agad-sa — d'ad