AN GAODHAL.
495
PROF. ROEHRIG on THE IRISH LANGUAGE,
(Continued from page 485.)
The Irish bard is possibly related to the Sanskrit
bharata which, besides bearer, carrier, has also
the meaning of poet, songster, juggler, actor. The
Irish words, san, sean, (old), which we see also in
sen sinin, senan, Kymric hen (old), hyn (older)
hyuaf (eldest) in the Irish sen athir (grandfather)
Kymric (Welsh and Cornish) hen-dat sen-matar
(grandmother), Lymric hen-man; in the Irish sen¬
chus (old history, antiquity, law). is related to
the Sanskrit sanas (old), Zend, hana to the Lith¬
uanian senas (old age). senis (old man), to the
Latin senium (old age), senex (old man) senatus
Council of the Elders. It appears in the Gothic
sineigs, sinista (oldest) in the Old High German
s ni skalkus (oldest servant of the house, marshal)
in senechal, etc. As a title of honor (like the word
Elder), it appears in senior, Span. senor, Portug.
senhor, French seigneur, sieur, English sir and
in compounds such as the French Monsieur
etc.
We meet, however, in the Celtic also with an¬
other, apparently quite heterogeneous non-Aryan
element which has hitherto, received but little at¬
tention, if it has not even been altogether over-
looked and neglected. In the first place, the sim¬
ple Conjunctions are few in Celtic, and in that re¬
spect it bears some resemblance the Turanian, es¬
pecially the Ural-Altaic languages. The Pronoun-
may be combined with Prepositions, and this is
said to form one of the principal characteristics of
the Celtic tongues : and it has, furthermore, been
asserted that by this peculiarity they differ from
the Indo-European family, since it is in the Ural-
Altaic or Tartar-Finnish languages that Preposi¬
tions are thus combined with Pronouns. But
this is not really the case. In these languages
the same combinations as in Celtic occur, viz.
Preposition pronoun but in all other instances
the Prepositions are placed after and not before
the noun and are thus, real prepositions, — it be¬
ing one of the special features of these languages
to arrange governed words before those governing
them, and the determining elements before the de¬
termined.
Wa may compare the Iris combinations such
as agam, agad etc., with the Hungarian, where am
as a suffix for the Possessive Pronoun, my, and
ad for thy (or in soft sounding words em, ed), in
combination with Substantives : and for the Per¬
sonal Pronoun (me, thee), when combined with
Prepositions. Examples of the latter construction
are rolam, of me; rolad of thee: role of him; ben¬
nam in me, bennad in thee, benne in him, with
Sustantives, as uram, my master: urad thy mas-
ter; ura his master; kertem my garden kerted; thy
garden, etc. Similarly, in Turkish evin my house;
eva his house; anam my mother, etc. But also in
Semitic and several other languages, we can ob¬
serve something very similar to these constructions
Thus, in Hebrew we have inseparable Prepositions
with pronominal suffixes e. g. lanu to us; lakoen to
you. lo to him etc and in Arabic lana to us; lan¬
um to you; li to me; mihni from me. minkum from
you. minhum from them; fikum in you; alakum on
you, etc. Also in Persian we have the affixed form
of the Pronouns am, for the first person. at for the
2nd etc. In the Latin mecum, tecum, secum. We
have indeed a similar combination of Preposition &
Pronoun; but it difiers in placing the Pronoun first
and the Preposition last; while in the Irish, agam
agad, etc. and the other forms above alluded to
as occurring in various languages, are just the
reverse in the mode of combination.
A most interesting phonetic peculiarity occurs
in the Celtic where it is stated in the words of an
old familiar rule, "coal le coal, leathan le leathan,"
that is, narrow (slender) with narrow, broad with
broad. It lies at the bottom of many grammatical
processes, and affords a foundation for correctly
pronouncing and spelling the words. The mean¬
ing of this rule is that in one and the same
words, homogeneous (broad and slender), sounds or
vowels must stand before and after — that is on both
sides of — a consonant — while, on the other hand,
vowels of a different class cannot follow one anoth¬
er, or stand in successive syllables of one and the
same word. Thus, for instance if a slender syllable
is added then, the preceeding syllable must
be made slender likewise, and thus become at¬
tenuated. e.g., cailleach, genitive, cailliche, etc.
Here the addition of the slender vowel (e) causes
a corresponding change in the syllable which pre¬
cedes, something perhaps to be in a measure at
least, compared with what the Germans call "Um-
laut" in their language. Now, the law (narrow
with narrow and broad with broad), exists in its
completeness and integrity to the fullest extent,
as a fundamental principle in the so-called Ural-
Altaic or Tartar-Finnish languages, and is termed
the law of vocalic harmony, or the lay of harmonic
sequence of vowels. The vowels are there also di¬
vided into strong (broad), a, o, u, weak (slender),
e, i, (sometimes with additional shades or modifi¬
cations of the same nature, represented by a, o, u,
in the German transcription), the general rule be¬
ing that all the syllables of a word must have vow¬
els of the same class, either strong or weak or
what is the same either broad or slender. Accord¬
ingly, only vowels of one and the same class can
occur in the same word. The added syllables must
correspond with the vowel of the root or radical
syllable, so that the whole word be brought into
harmony by harmonizing the vowel of every fol¬
lowing syllable with that which precedes it.
Thus, in the Hungarian we have such forms as
ismert tek ("you have known") where all the vow¬
els are slender, and varandanak (they will wait")
