452
AN GAOḊAL.
is often the result, or retro active effect, of the
ending e.
The Irish article an leads us back to the pron¬
ominal stem ana in Sanskrit; in Lithuanian,
slso ana: Slavonian ona. Also, na in Irish,
stands in the same relation to ana. Thus, the
first part, viz., an, of ana, as well as the second
part, viz, na, of ana, performs the functions of
the definite article in Irish. Exactly the same
takes place in regard to the Latin ille: the
first of it, viz., il is the definite article in Italian,
but remains a [conjoint) pronoun in French. The
second part of ille. feminine illa, viz., le, femin¬
ine la, is the definite article in French.
Now, to pass on to a few more points in Irish
grammar, we will remark that stems drop fre¬
quently the final nasal in the nominative singular
which then ends in a mere vowel. The same oc¬
curs in Sanskrit, in Zend, in Latin and Gothic: e.
g., Sanskrit, rajan (stem ending in n): Nominative
Singular, raja, (ending in a vowel. Similarly, we
find, in Gothic, ahman, [n stem. Nom. Sing. ah¬
ma. In Latin, we have, for instance, sermon [n
stem], Nom. Sing. sermo, etc. So we have in I¬
rish, e. g., ceathramhan, ceathramha; naoidhean,
naoidhe, etc. The Sanskrit ending man (neuter
gender), which also appears in the Latin men,
neuter gender, e. g., crimen, nomen, lumen, carmen
is in Irish, which, however has lost its neuter,
amhain, mhuin, mhin. The Dative Plural, ibh, in
Irish, corresponds with the Sanskrit Instrumen¬
tal and Dative (Ablative as well), bhis and bhyas;
the Latin bis in nobis, vobis; the Greek fi(n), etc. ;
also with the Latin bus [filibus, pitibus, diebus;
the bh— Sanskrit bh— Greek, f— Latin b), being the
essential part of these terminatlons.
But it not so much in the Irish of the present
day that all the resemblance, analogy and relation¬
ship with Sanskrit, Zend, and the classic languages
is most clearly to be seen. We have, often, to re¬
sort to the old Irish, to obtain a full view of these
manifold connections. Thus, we find there a com¬
plete declension, in many respects more so than
in Latin, with five cases in the Singular, four in
the Plural, and two in the Dual. The compara¬
tive degree of Adjectives is formed by adding ther,
thir, to the Positive. This connects with the San¬
skrit tara, the persian ter, Greek teros, etc. Inter¬
rogative pronouns begin with a guttural in Irish,
as in Sanskrit and the Indo European language gen¬
erally. Thus, for instance, the interrogative cred,
stands for cia red, meaning what thing, like the
Italian che cosa. The Irish Conjugation connects
with the first and sixth classes in Sanskrit; Irish
e.g., dahhmar; Sanskrit, dahamas —h and g,
gh being related to one another, as we have in the
Sanskrit verb dah, to burn; also some forms with
ga [aag—] instead of h, and in regard to the final s
in Sanskrit, and r in Irish, we refer to the very
common interchange of s and r in languages gene¬
rally as for instance, in Latin, where we have
such double forms as arbor and arbos: labor and
labos: robur and robus, etc.; in the Greek dialec¬
tic difference of Doric tair, and Attic tais, etc. : the
English hare, German hase: Ger. [Ich] war, Eng.
I) was, etc.: also to the Visarga rules in Sanskrit,
and among others, also, to the fact that, in the A¬
rabic alphabet, s and z, soft s, are nearly express¬
ed by one and the same letter, differing merely by
a diacritical dot. Again, the second person Plural
of the Present tense in Sanskrit, for instance of
dah, to burn, is dahatha: in Irish, daghthaoi, etc
The ending of the first person maoid , in Irish,
which corresponds to the Scotch maid, connects
with the Zend or Old Bactrian maiae, the Sanskrit
mahe — for madhe, — Greek metha, etc. The Con¬
jugation is in Irish more organic, that is, more
like Sansdrit or Latin, especially in old Irish, —
while now much use is made of auxillaries. The
Infinitive endings are tinn, sinn, and the mutilited
form is t, dh. They are, all, reducible to the Sans¬
krit Infinitive, which ends in tum, — the Latin su¬
pine in tum. The Irish assertive is, is, is the same
as the Sanskrit asti, Greek esti, Latin est, Persian
est, German ist, and English is Like the latter, it
has lost its original t. In the ending of the third
person Plural, sat or sad, in Irish, appears the
Sanskrit sata or santa, Greek santo. The two roots
for expressing to be, which are in Sanskrit as and
bhu, in Latin es and tu, — which latters also in fu-i
fu. turns, fore, — in the Greek, fuo, fusis, — the Per¬
sian, buden, — the Slavonic, byt, — the German, bi n,
bist, — English, to be, been, etc. — exist also in Irish.
The Irish language is, moreover, very regular
in its grammar. The exceptions to rules, consti¬
tute by themselves, as such, no irregularity. If
we take the right view of rules and exceptions, we
will find that by the term rules, we have to under¬
stand laws of language, and not the more or less
arbitrary framework established by grammarians.
It is comparatively easy to make rules and call ex¬
ceptions whatever cannot be so arranged as to fit
those rules. The so-called exceptions, however,
are rules, for which the principles have to be
sought. The Irish language has only such gram¬
matical forms as are indispensable for definiteness
and perspicuity. It is not burdened with a mul¬
tiplicity of meaningless, redundant forms and
modes of expression. Thus, it has no indefinite Ar¬
ticle. A number of other languages dispense with
it, likwise. So do Sanskrit, Arabic, Latin, Hunga¬
rian, Turkish, etc. Irish has but one mean past
tense and one future. The same is the case with
Hebrew and Arabic. An interesting peculiarity are
the consuetudinal present and past tenses in Irish,
and also the double form of the verbs, synthe¬
tical and analytical, give to the language a great
variety and flexibility. The verb "to have," strictly
speaking, does not exist in Irish.
To be continued.
