﻿582
AN GAODHAL.
PROF. ROEHRIG on the IRISH
LANGUAGE.
(Continued from page 570.)
Sometimes, however, the reverse takes place so
that e, i, have the power of significance of a, o, u,
and vice-versa. So we see that the Mantchoo ex¬
hibits still other traces of this law of polarity, at
least in the roots of words; e- g., bime (to be),
bume (to die), k'ank'an )a strong spirit), kcnken (a
weak spirit); vasime (to descend), vesime (to as¬
cend); fusikhon (vile, abject, low, contemptible),
vesikhon (high, elevated, precious), etc. This
principle is so deeply felt that the Mantchoo inter¬
pretation of Chinese philosophy, expressly says;
"Tumen jaka-i sekiven damuc a- i ashshan ekisa¬
ka debi", i.e. the origin of all things is founded
merely on alternate movement and rest of the two
principles e and a. In the Hungarian tongue, ves¬
tiges of this law are discoverable in such couplets
as fa (tree) fu (grass); all (standing) ull (sitting).
ott (there) itt (here) ; az amaz (that one) ez emez
(this one) :— oda (on that side) ide (on this side] etc,
— respectively to denote the remote and near ob¬
ject, in a similar manner as the English those and
these. Let us turn in the next place to the Turk¬
ish language, with its almost innumerable dialacts
which are fonnd dispersed over Tartary and the
Russian Empire, — from Willna in the West near¬
ly to the limits of Eastern Siberia, and from Tiflis
in the South to the very borders of the Polar Sea,
where 80,000 people of the Yakoota tribe speak a
highly interesting and (if perhaps, excepting the
still older Akkadian language of remote antiquity)
probably the most antique dialect of this wide¬
spread language. Among numerous illustrations
of this law of polarity which this language affords,
we select the following, viz.; olmak means to be¬
come, to be; while olmek is to perish, to die:
durmak to remain to stay, durmek, to move on:
somewhat similarly as the English stop and step
(Anglo-Saxon stepe, staep), av (the hunting
groond), ev (the interior of the tent, the house).
ace (tc open ich (concealed, inside, inward); ard
(behind), ird and irt (before) : kor (blind), gor
(seeing). We have furthermore, in Turkish and
its dialects, kalmak (to remain), and gelmek (to
move on, to come), g and k being interchangeable
and sustaining to each other the same relation, as
for instance, in Irish the ch and gh (with slender
vowels), In Tartar Turkish, we meet not only
with sevmek (to love) but also with savmak (to
hate, to live in discord, to quarrel). Still another
evidence of this law is afforded in both the Man¬
tchoo and other Ural Altaic languages, by the pe¬
culiar manner in which they indicate the distinct¬
ion of gender, in the instance where this distinct¬
ion is made. This they effect not, as in the lan¬
guages of modern formation, by the use of certain
terminations, but by a change in the body of the
word itself, — in its radical vowel. And it will
here be again seen that the change is always from
one to the other class of vowels the broad vowels
being appropriated to the masculine, the slender
vowels to the feminine. The same phenomenon is
exhibited, to a certain extent, and in a somewhat
modified manner, in the Celtic tongues. Thus in
Irish, there are many words which are changed
from the masculine to the feminine by the insertion
of the slender vowel-sound i after the radical vow¬
el; e.g. lot (lot, wound) is masculine, loit (loit),
feminine: mod (mod, tribunal) masculine, moid
(moid) feminine, dul (dul desire,) masculine, duil
(dui) feminine, foth (fat heat), masculine, faith,
(fait) feminine, mung (mung name), muing (muing
feminine; fasg (fasg, bond), masculine, faisg (faisg)
feminine. Also other couplets exist in Irish, such as
sios, suas, anios, anuas, denoting opposite direction,
(sios, suas, anios, annas.) etc.
When we now direct on attention to those lan¬
guages which were moulded by the intellects of more
cultivated races than Tartars and Finns, and which
are exceedingly complicated in their structure, we
cannot expect to find many clear traces of this prim¬
itive law of formation. Yet even here evidences are
not wanting. Thus in Hebrew and Arabic, we
have hu he, hi she; in Hebrew we find correlative
modes of action expressed by such associate forms as
piel and pual, hiphil and hophal, etc. In Greek the
correlative of makr-os and mikr-os is suggestive.
The relation of Ares (the god of war), and Eris (the
goddess of discord), is worthy of note. Observe, too
the distinction of gender in the article, ho the mas¬
culine, he the feminine, and so on; which reminds
us again of the above Irish mode of formation to ex¬
press the difference in gender. In latin we have
cal-(idus) warm, gel-(idus) cold, [k being soffened
into g and rendered likewise slender, as it were],
and a beautiful illustration we see in relation of
homin — (homo) man, and femin —, woman inplying
hemin — (f=h) as in Spanish hombre and hembra,
the letter f being but a modification of the simple as¬
pirate. In the verb, the change of vowel in passing
from the Indicative to the Subjunctive (the sub¬
junctive or contingent mood may, indeed, be con¬
sidered as the feminine element of the verb, the neg¬
ative pole, while the Indicative is the strong mascu¬
line mood — the positive pole) may be instanced, as
when the Latin sum becomes sim, sunt becomes
sint, das becomes d s; dat, det, etc.
[To be continued]
Father Nolan's Prayer Books out of print, also
part II of Keating's Farras feasa, and the price of
Bourke's Easy Lessons, raised. We have one copy
of the prayer book which e want to keep so that
we may print it when we get a little more Gaelic
type. It would be a pity to stop the circulation of
the book so that our subscribers ought to try and
extend the Gael that it may be in a position to re¬
publish it soon:
