Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 2

THE CELTIC ISIAGAZINE. 315
l^ractice, so wofully dcficiuut in pronunciation, tliat they Avere scarcely
tolerable — scarcely intelligible; and there is reason to fear they shall
continue so until the end of the chapter. I have known exceptions, but
youth is the only time for acquiring our nasal, guttural, and aspirate
sounds, correctly. " Gathelus " knows that it would be quite preposter-
ous to attempt pronouncing Gaelic like Beuria chniaidh Shasunnach.
He knows that no Highlander, unacquainted with English, can pronounce
properly the English words which he has caricatured, in whatever way
they may be written. Tlie Highlander can pronounce them agreeably to
the orthography of Gaelic, but not conformably to the i)ronuiiciation of
English. Is it not a trick, then, to write them in imitation of the rule of
" Caol ri caol " 1 Should the Highlander pronounce them as they are
written by " Gathelus," they would be neither Gaelic nor English, but
specimens of a hermaphrodite tongue, Avhich " Gathelus " has conceived
but not yet brought to the birth. The specimens, sir. are mere caricatures,
drawn j^urposely to raise a clamour against Gaelic, among such i^eople
as do not understand it. They are caricatures distorted and aggravated
ill limbs and feature, in order to give strangers a strange idea of our
language, and to estrange them for ever from ever}'' consideration of it, as
a barbarous thing beneath their notice. This is the treatment which our
venerable tongue sometimes receives from certain bunglers, who make
their bread by murdering it. " Gathelus " cannot produce, from within
the compass of Gaelic, as a written language, an equal number of Gaelic
words, so heavily loaded with unnecessary letters, as the foregoing English
specimens. There is no quiescent final vowel in Gaelic, and still he has
treated us with two in " comh-op-oer-eatae." And what is the sense of
giving us a tripthong in the last syllable of the word " prep-eost-oer-
eous," when the Gaelic syllable is represents the pronunciation, and is
at the same time agreeable to the rule of correspondents 1 Instead of
picking out of the English the most commodious terms for caricature that
he could find, it had been more satisfactory had he drawn his materials
from the Gaelic itself, and then told us how he would remedy the per-
nicious eifects of the rule of broad and small. He has done this, indeed,
in a few instances, but in those few his examples do not at all cut such a
dash as his English vocables in the Highland dress. This is a mere ruse
de guerre, suggested, no doubt, by the " little General " who is at the head
of the literary insurrection at Glasgow. " Gathelus " tells us, he would
not write " treabhaiche," "troich," but it is evident from his manner of
"Writing other Avords, such as *' claidh," for " claidheamh," and " cora "
for " comhradh " (vide advertisement), that he is less master of the
orthoepy than he is of the orthography of Gaelic. Therefore it is that ho
is so keen to get the orthography accommodated to his gibberish. His
Gaelic spelling of English Avords cannot, in Avriting, appear more grotesque
or ridiculous in the eyes of a Saxon than his English method of Avriting
Gaelic Avords does in the eyes of a Highlander. " Gathelus " seems not
to recollect that in every living language there is a double pronunciation
— the colloquial and the solemn ; the former fluctuating and unsteady,
the latter comparatively permanent and fixed. AVe should like to knoAV
to which of the tAvo " Gathelus " intends to adapt his ncAV orthogi'aphy.
Had " Gathelus " been consistent Avith himself in his exposure of the rule