IS THE IRISH LANGUAGE WORTH PRE¬
SERVING?
Is the title of a paper by Rev. P. A.
Yorke, of Dublin, which appears in
the Ecclesiastical Record for July. As
the GAEL was made up when we receiv¬
ed it, we shall give a part of it only in
this issue. We hope the lovers of Ire¬
land will carefully read it, and that they
will make some exertion to preserve
her language,
There is nothing which propagates
an idea or a principle better than pub¬
licity. Hence every Irishman should
do his share in distributing Gaelic lit¬
erature. The GAEL is the only Irish
journal published to-day, and should
be in every Irishman’s library.
Gaodhail, make an exertion to circu¬
late it.
What a melancholy, as well as deep¬
ly interesting subject for reflection, is
the question asked at the head of this
paper! How humiliating to national
pride, to reflect, that our language should
be now in such a precarious condition.
How painful to think, that after weath¬
ering the fierce storms of so many cen¬
turies, in its perilous passage down the
stream of time, we should now see its
very existence threatened as a spoken
medium. An affirmative answer to
the question proposed is certain to
be given by all those who love the an¬
cient and cultured tongue of the Gaed¬
hill, now admitted to be one of the old¬
est spoken in Europe, if not in the world.
No doubt, the insular position of our
country was the great means of saving
it from the vicissitudes which befell
languages among other branches of
the human family. Should the chief
of the epic poets, Homer, again revisit
the earth, he would no longer hear in
the classic land of Greece the beauti¬
ful language in which he sang his im¬
mortal lay. Were the prince of orators,
Demosthenes to thunder again in the
Areopagus, he would not be understood.
Should Cicero now stroll into the an¬
cient Forum, he would hear a language
different from that through which he
was wont to entrance his auditory.
But if Ollamh Fodla, the Irish Solon,
who was their senior by centuries, re¬
appeared again, he would hear his own
musical language spoken not far from
where Strongbow landed. When we
ponder on this unquestionable fact, we
are reminded of what has been said by
that singularly able writer Thierry:
"The Keltic language is destined to be
as indestructible as the Keltic race its¬
elf."
Philologists usually divide into six
branches the languages derived from
the Aryan the primitive tongue spoken
by those who lived in the high table-
lands of Iran and Armenia. According
to his classification Irish is placed fifth
on the list. It is universally admitted,
that our national language has an ori¬
gin far beyond the period of authentic
history. It extends far back into the
shadowy past, until it seems lost in the
mists of antiquity itself. The monu¬
ments to which Ireland can point as
undoubted evidences of her ancient
civilization are as notably abundant as
they are various. With pardonable
pride she boasts of a yet more convin¬
cing proof in the living language of her
people.
"Sweet tongue of our Druids and bards of past
ages,
Sweet tongue of our monarchs, our saints, and
our sages,
Sweet tongue of our heroes, and free born
sires,
When we cease to preserve thee our glory
expires."
(To be concluded in our next.
Mr. Griffin, Lawrence, Mass., sent a dozen sub¬
cribers a few days ago.
The English Tory papers are abusing Mr. Blaine
because he declined Salisbury's invitation to be
presented to the queen.
Let every reader resolve to get at
least one other subscriber In this way
the circulation of An Gaodhal will at¬
tain one hundred thousand.
