Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 4

WEST HIGHLAND STORIES. 355
It nowhere appears in Lapp, for olmush is the equivalent of
Fear, a man, and laibbo is a baker, though liepush, a horse, is
like ÌTTTTOS.
Now, any English tradesman may he named by adding er to
the proper words, as trader, railway-engine-boiler-riveter. Any
Gaelic tradesman may also be named, in like manner, by adding
fhear, or ear, or air, to other words ; but neither in Gaelic nor in
English will these terminations properly apply to a iv&àQS-ivoman.
In English the proper addition is seamstress, in French it is euse
— and here again is Gaelic — Ise is the equivalent of she, and
esa?i of he, and aiche is the termination which is common to
both genders, as —
Ban-f huaghl-atcAe, a female seamstress,
but in English there are two ways of forming such words. We
say horse man, horse woman ; but if we say rider, we must add
another word to express & female rider; so the termination er, if
Keltic, is equivalent to man in horse man, which is Teutonic.
Any one who knows Gaelic can easily put a meaning on num-
bers of Italian names. For example, " Monte, Soracte," Monadh,
Sorachan (mountain, peak or hillock), is a small peaked mountain
standing alone near Rome. " Monte Appennino," Monadh na
Beinne (the mountain tract of the hill country), is at least as de-
scriptive in Gaelic as Italian, and the sounds are very like still.
In like manner, the connection between Gaelic and any one
of a large class of European languages, can be shewn, but it has
no apparent relationship to Lapp. Hence, Gaelic is useful to a
Sanscrit scholar, and necessary to the full development of any
system which treats of the Aryan family of races and languages ;
and it is a very useful accomplishment for any student of the
Eastern languages, which pave the way to promotion in India.
It is also useful to a classical student who wants to go deep into
Greek and Latin.
No Frenchman can fully understand the origin of his own
language without knowing Gaelic, for French is still full of words,