570
AN GAODHAL
PROF. ROEHRIG on the IRISH
LANGUAGE.
(Continued from page 497)
We find that in certain instances, i is inserted in
Celtic, to render masculine words feminine, thereby
transforming them, so to say, from broad to slen¬
der words, as, for instance, in Irish fasg masc.,
faisg fem. dul masc., dail fem., etc. This leads
us to some further remarks on the influence and
significance of the above-mentioned two distinct
classes of vowel sounds. As in the Ural-Altaic
family of languages referred to, we have couplets
or correlative double forms of suffixes (one broad
and the other slender), as circumstances may re¬
quire the use of the one or the other, — so we have
there, in a similar manner, often also, two such
corresponding forms of entire words, but with
this remarkable difference, that they then not only
represent a mere external duality of form, but ex¬
press an antagonism in form as well as in meaning
according to the nature of their vowels. This I
have shown, with more full developments, else¬
where, in various articles and essays, published
years ago, on philological points of interest; and
I shall now almost literally recapitulate again,
here in this connection, so far at least as it may,
without wearing the reader, serve to elucidate the
traces we still find of it in Irish. These are few,
it is true, but seem to have originally covered an
incomparably larger ground and extended to a
great many more essential, grammatical as well as
lexical, items in Irish and other Celtic tongues.
We hope, therefore that the following somewhat
length, digression will not abate the reader's in¬
terest, since it is intended to afford us a broader
foundation for a phenomenon of language which,
though existing now only in a fragmentary man¬
ner in Irish, is exceedingly interesting and sig¬
nificant in itself, and connects what little remains
of it, in Celtic, with a once (most probably uni¬
versal law extending, more or less, throughout the
whole domain of human speech, and appearing to
reach even the very confines of the mysteries of our
mental constitution and the various modes of ass¬
ociation of ideas in our mind by correlation and
contrast. Such a subject must, on that account
be pre eminently interesting to every philological
inquirer and philosophic reader. Now, when one
of such word couplets, as we may call them, con¬
tains broad or strong vowels, vix., a, o, u, — it gen¬
rally denotes strength, the male sex, affirmation,
distance, etc.; — while the other, with slender or
weak vowels, viz., e and i [the consonantal skele¬
ton, frame or ground-work of the word remaining
the same as it was], expresses weakness, the female
sex, negaton, proximity, and the whole series of
corresponding ideas. Roots of an allied meaning
in the Tartar-Finnish group are, thus, frequently
distinguished from one another simply by a differ¬
ence of vowel class : with slender or weak vowels,
meaning often the opposite of what the broad or
strong vowels would express. The classification
of vowels into broad and slender must, therefore,
adapted to the differentiation of meaning at an
early period, and it is certainly, a remarkable fact
that the changes from broad to slender, or from
slender to broad, that is the substitution of one
class of vowels, in the piece of the other compli¬
mental class, bring about another in some respects
more or less opposite meaning of the word. Here
then, in this change, which substitutes within the
articulate framework or body of the word a vowel
of the one class for a vowel of the other com¬
plemental class, some sort of polarity may be rec¬
ognized, — a law which seems to indicate that in
primitive speech, every word had probably a dual
form. As soon as, one may say, a sensuous idea
had gained the material embodiment of a word — or
better, at the very moment of this act of crystalliz¬
ation, if it may be so termed, — the electric flash of
the intellect resolved the forming word into two
parts, or rather into two aspects of one and the
same unit, giving to it a positive and a negative
pole. With this process, that fundamental law
which necessitates the division of the vowel-sounds
into two classes (broad and slender) is in beauti¬
ful harmony. If we turn our attention to some
Ural-Altaic languages, — to the Hungarian, Turk¬
ish, Mongolian and Turgusic, of the present day,
we find this dualism still traceable to a consider¬
able extent. Thus, — to give a few instances from
many, in the Mantchoo (a Tungusic tongue.) oc¬
cur such couplets of words as dmd father, with
broad vowels; eme mother, with slender vowels;
k'ak'a (male), keke female); amk'a (father-in-law)
emke (mother-in-law, etc, In these and similar
instances, it will be seen at once, that those words
which embody the broad (strong, deep, heavy,)
vowels, express the strong, the large, the masculine,
while those including the slender (weak, light.)
vowel-sounds, denote the weaker, the diminutive the
feminine.
PRAYER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
This prayer is well known, and runs as fol¬
lows —
O Domine Deus, speravi in Te,
O care mi Jesu nunc libera me,
In dure catena, in misera pœna,
Desidero Te
Languendo, gemendo, et genuflectendo
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me.
Which may be translated —
O Lord ! O my God ! I have trusted in Thee,
O Jesus! Beloved! deliver thou me,
A prisoner friendless
In misery endless
I weary for Thee,
In sighing, in crying. before Thy throne ly¬
ing,
Adoring, imploring — deliver Thou me.
Scottish-American Journal.
