Chapter 22

This system, which was eked out with other signs, would seem to have been framed in the south-west of Ireland by a person or persons who were familiar with the Latin alphabet. Some of the inscriptions probably go back to the 5th century and may even be earlier. As illustrations of the simplest forms of Ogam inscriptions we may mention the following:Doveti maqqi Cattini, i.e.“(the stone) of Dovetos son of Cattinos”;Trenagusu Maqi Maqi-Treniis rendered in LatinTrenegussi Fili Macutreni hic jacit; Sagramni Maqi Cunatami, “(the stone) of Sagramnos son of Cunotamos”;Ovanos avi Ivacattos, “(the stone) of Ovanus descendant of Ivacattus.” It will be seen that in the oldest of these inscriptionsqis still kept apart fromk(c), and that the final syllables have not disappeared (cf.maqqi, O. Ir.maicc), but it appears certain that in Ogamic writing stereotyped forms were used long after they had disappeared in ordinary speech. Several stones contain bilingual inscriptions, but the key to the Ogam alphabet is supplied by a treatise on Ogamic writing contained in the Book of Ballymote, a manuscript of the late 14th century. It should be mentioned that the Welshstones are early whilst the Scottish ones are almost without exception late, and several of the latter have so far defied interpretation. In addition to the Irish Ogams there are a number of Christian inscriptions in Latin character, but, with one exception, they are not older than the 8th century.

See R.R. Brash,The Ogam Inscribed Monuments of the Gaedhil(London, 1879); R.A. Stewart Macalister,Studies in Irish Epigraphy(London), vol. i. (1897), vol. ii. 1902, vol. iii. 1907. The Welsh inscriptions are contained in J. Rhys,Lectures on Welsh Philology²(London, 1879). The Scottish stones have also been treated by Rhys in theProceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries(Edinburgh, 1892). See also G.M. Atkinson for the tract in the Book of Ballymote,Kilkenny Journal of Archaeology(1874). The Irish Christian inscriptions were published by Margaret Stokes as the annual volumes of the Roy. Hist, and Archaeol. Association of Ireland (1870-1877), and have been republished by R.A. Stewart Macalister.

(a)Irish.—We are able to trace the history of the Irish language continuously for a period of 1200 years, and from the time that the literary documents begin we are better supplied with linguistic material for the study of the language than is the case with any other Celtic dialect. At the same time that form of Irish which is to be found in the oldest documents has preserved a number of features which have entirely, or almost entirely, disappeared from the Brythonic languages. For this reason scholars have largely occupied themselves with Irish, which for purposes of comparative philology may be regarded as the classic Celtic language.

The history of Irish is divided into three periods:—Old Irish (700-1100), the documents mainly representing the language of the 8th and 9th centuries; Middle Irish, extending roughly from 1100 to 1550; Modern Irish from 1550 to the present day. These periods merge into one another to such an extent that no firm division can be made. The language of some manuscripts of the 14th century contains forms which are really Old Irish, and Middle Irish orthography was partly employed by historians and antiquarians in the middle of the 17th century. Old Irish, as compared with Brythonic, preserves a wealth of inflectional forms in declension and conjugation, but many of these tend to disappear very early. In the modern dialects of Ireland and Scotland there is a rigid rule of orthography that a palatalized, or, as it is termed, slender consonant in medial or final position, must be preceded by a palatal vowel (i), and a non-palatalized consonant by a non-palatal or broad vowel (a, o, u). This is the famous rule of the grammarians known ascaol le caol agus leathan le leathan(“slender to slender and broad to broad”), but it is not so strictly adhered to in the spoken language as is commonly stated. In the older language the quality of medial and final consonants is only denoted very imperfectly, thus non-palatalized final consonants are regularly not denoted as such,e.g.O. and Mid. Ir.fir, Mod. Ir.fior. In Old and Mid. Irish the initial mutations are only regularly denoted in the case of the vocalic mutation ofc, p, t, s, f,and the nasal mutation ofb, d, g. The vocalic mutation ofc, p, t, s, fwas denoted by writingch, ph, th, sh, fh, the first three symbols of which were derived from the Latin alphabet. Another method of denoting the mutation was to write a dot over the letter, originally the punctum delens, which was justified in the case of mutatedfas the latter early became silent. But no such devices were ready at hand in the case of the medialb, d, g, and the mutated forms of these consonants were consequently not represented at all in the orthography. The same remark holds good in the case of the nasal mutation (eclipse) of the tenues. But it is easy to demonstrate that the same condition of affairs as we find in the modern language must have obtained in Old Irish. This insufficiency of symbols renders the orthography of the early stages of the language very complicated. We find thatb, d, gwere used initially to denote the voiced stops, but medially and finally they represent spirants, the voiced stops in this case being denoted byc, p, t. It is not until much later times that thehin the mutated forms of the tenues, or the use of the dot, was extended to the mediae. Thus in Mid. Irish we finddo bochtaib in choimded(Mod. Ir.dobhochtaibh), Mid. Ir.ro-gab= Mod. Ir.do ghabh. The nasal mutation ofc, p, twas first denoted by writing these sounds double and finally in the 18th century by writinggc, bp, dt. The spirants arising out of Prim. Celt.g, d, bcame in Old Irish to be confused with those which developed out of Prim. Celt,p, t, k,in other than initial positions. In final positions in polysyllables we commonly finddandbwritten but mediallythandph,e.g. didnad, “consolation,” gen. sing,dithnatha. For the ending-adcp. Lat.-ātu-. On the other hand we findgwritten medially andchfinally. These rules, however, are not yet applied in the oldest documents.When we turn to the inflections we find that most of the old terminations have disappeared, but that their influence on preceding consonants is still felt and serves to distinguish one form from another; thus in the declension offer, “man,” nom. sing.fer, gen. sing.fir, dat. sing,fiur, acc. sing,fer n-, nom. pl.fir, gen. pl.fer n-, corresponding to Prim. Celt. (Gaulish)viros, virī, virō, viron, virī, viron, the influence of the following sound still differentiates the cases from one another. In the later language the initial mutations come more and more to be used for this purpose. In Middle Irish the declensions and conjugations are much simplified and the neuter gender is given up in substantives. In the verb the athematic conjugation has disappeared and the distinction of primary and secondary endings is not observed. On the other hand Irish has developed a peculiar system of absolute and conjoint inflection with different sets of endings. The conjoint endings are always used in the case of compound verbs, and in simple verbs they are employed after certain proclitics,e.g.the negative particles. Thusberid, “he bears,” is an absolute form;do-beir, “he gives,”ni beir, “he does not bear,” are conjoint forms. Further, the verb system is partly dominated by the various devices employed to express relatival function. There are three main types of conjugation in Old Irish corresponding to the Latin first, third and fourth conjugations, the Latin typesmoneoandaudiobeing difficult to distinguish in Irish. In the modern language there is in reality but one conjugation. The old Irish verb system comprises present and imperfect indicative, imperative, pres. subjunctive in-ā-or-s-with corresponding past subjunctive, future in-f-or-s-or-ē-or with reduplication along with corresponding secondary future,-s-preterite,-t-preterite, reduplicated preterite, a preterite containing a long stem-vowel, together with deponential and passive forms in-rd. This system is eked out with the verbal prefixro, which among other functions changes a preterite into a perfect or a present into a perfect. Such a cumbrous system was bound to fall to pieces. A number of isolated forms have come down, but the only tenses which have survived into the modern period are the present and imperfect indicative, the imperative, the present subjunctive, the-s-preterite, the-b-and-ē-future with corresponding secondary forms, and some of the passive forms in-r. At the same time in the modern language there is an increasing tendency to use analytical forms. Two noteworthy features of the Irish verb remain to be mentioned. The one is the use of pronouns as objects infixed between particle and verb, or in a verb compounded with a preposition between preposition and verb. There are two sets of forms according as to whether the verb occurs in a relative clause or not. Thus-m-is the ordinary infixed pronoun of the 1st pers. sing., whilst-dom-is the corresponding relative form. In the 3rd pers. sing. aspiration may be employed,e.g.ní ceil, “he does not hide,”ní cheil,“he does not hide it.” This has been given up in the modern language. Secondly in verbs compounded with prepositions the accent of the verb varies according as to whether the verb is used enclitically or not—thus after the negativeníor in the infinitive and imperative. Hence we havedo-béir, “he gives,” by the side ofní tábair, “he does not give,” infin.tabairt;do-gníu, “I do,”ní dḗnim, “I do not do,” infin.dḗnum. The changes caused by this alternation in addition to others due to the working of the Irish accent and to the initial and internal mutations have played havoc with the verb system and render it exceedingly difficult to reconstruct the paradigms. In the later periods of the language analogy naturally plays a great part, and many of the complicated forms are done away with, but even in the modern dialects the alternation between enclitic and orthotonic forms still survives in the commonest verbs,e.g.Irishbheir sé“he gives,”ní thabhair sé, “he does not give,” infin.tabhairt; Scottishbheir e, cha toir, toirt; Manxver eh, cha der, coyrt; Irishní sé, “he does,”ní dheanann sé, “he does not do,” infin.deanamh; Scottishnì e, “he does,”cha dean e, “he will not do,” infin.deanamh; Manxnee eh, cha jean eh, jannoo.In the early period Irish borrowed a number of words from Latin. These are mainly connected with the church or with articles of civilization which would be imported from Roman Britain. Some of these show traces of British pronunciation,e.g.O. Ir.trindóit, from Latintrinitātemwithōforā. In others again Lat. p is represented in Ir. by c, which may be due to the substitution of q as being the nearest Irish sound to the foreign p. Thus we find Ir.corcur, “purple,”casc, “Easter”;cenciges, “Whitsuntide”;cruimther, “presbyter.” In addition to these several loans were received from Norse. In the Mid. Irish period many French words came in, and during the middle and modern periods the number of English words introduced is legion. Pedersen has tried to show in hisVergl. Gramm.that a considerable number of words were borrowed from Brythonic (Welsh) at an early date.[For the Latin loan-words, see J. Vendryès,De hibernicis vocabulis quae a latina lingua originem duxerunt(Paris, 1902); Kuno Meyer has collected a number of loan-words from Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Early English, Latin and Early French inRevue celtique, xii. 460 and xiii. 505. See also Whitley Stokes,Bezzenberger’s Beiträge, xviii. 56 ff. For Celtic names in Norse see W. Stokes,Revue celtique, iii. 186 ff., and W.A. Craigie,Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil.i. 439 ff.]With regard to the dialects of Irish, there is a well-known rhyme which states the peculiarities of the speech of the four provinces, and dialectical differences must have existed at an early period, though they do not make their appearance in the literary language until the 18th century. At the present day the Irish of Leinster has vanished entirely, and we have unfortunately no records of it. But in the other three provinces the vernacular still lives, and we find the Irish of Munster, Connaught and Ulster marked off from one another by well-defined peculiarities. In general it may be stated that the south of Ireland is more conservative than the north. In Munster there is a tendency to shift the word-stress from the initial syllable to a heavy derivative syllable,e.g.-ān. This doesnot take place in Connaught, whilst in Ulster the tendency is to shorten the vowel. Again in monosyllables ending inll,nn,m, and under certain other conditions a short vowel becomes a diphthong in the south, in Connaught it is merely lengthened, but in Ulster the original length is retained,e.g.Ulsterball, “member, limb,” Connaughtbāll, Munsterbaull. Finaldh,ghin Munster are sounded asg. In certain cases the north prefers the vocalic mutation where the west and south have the nasal, thus notably in the dative singular after preposition and article,e.g.Munster-Connaughtdo’n bhfear, “to the man,” Ulsterdo’n fhear. In the south synthetic verb-forms are employed to a much larger extent than in the north.In the early part of the 19th century Irish was still the speech of more than half the inhabitants of Ireland. A German traveller reckoned that out of a total population of seven millions in 1835 four millions spoke Irish as their mother-tongue. The famine of 1846-1847 was felt most in those districts that were purely Irish, and these were the parts that were and still are chiefly affected by the tide of emigration. Add to this the fact that the influence of O’Connell and his satellites, and above all that of the Roman Catholic clergy, was against the language. In spite of the efforts of the Gaelic League (founded 1893), which have met with considerable success, the language is rapidly dying of internal decay. The speakers of Irish are chiefly confined to the following counties, where over 20% of the population speak Gaelic:—Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal. The following figures will illustrate the decay of the language since the famine:—Year.Monoglots.Bilinguists.1851319,6021,204,6841861163,275942,2611871103,562714,313188164,167885,765189138,192642,053190120,953620,189According to the 1901 census report the speakers of Irish were distributed as follows:—Leinster, 26,436; Munster, 276,268; Connaught, 245,580; Ulster, 92,858. The Gaelic movement, which has thriven largely on account of its anti-English character, would have a much better chance of galvanizing the ancient language of Ireland if it were not for the supreme difficulties of Irish spelling and phonetics. Of the hundreds of thousands of persons who attend the classes of the League not more than one or two per cent. at the outside arrive at any state of proficiency. Presbyterian Gaels in Scotland are taught to read the Bible but Irish Catholics are not encouraged to do so. The result of this is seen in the fact that, whilst many, if not all, of the local Nationalist newspapers under the pressure of the League publish badly-printed and little-read columns in Irish, there are only two regularly appearing periodicals which contain any large amount of Irish. Half the contents—and those the most important—of the weekly organ of the league,An Claidheamh Soluis(“the flaming sword”), are in English. The latter was started in 1898 under the title ofFáinne an Lae(“the ring of day,”i.e.the dawn). The other periodical is the monthlyGaelic Journal(Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge), a would-be literary magazine of very inferior quality which has led a precarious existence since 1882. In 1898 it was decided to hold a festival called theOireachtas(“hosting, gathering”) on the lines of the WelshEisteddfod. The venture was a great success and similar meetings have been held every year since, whilst each province and many of the counties have their annual local Gaelicfeis(festival). The literary output of the movement has been prodigious, consisting in the main of a number of short stories and dramas (mostly propagandist), but nothing of any particular merit has as yet been forthcoming. The best-known writers are Dr Douglas Hyde (collector of folk-stories—Beside the Fire, 1890,An Sgeulaidhe Gaedhealach, 1895 (reprinted from vol. x. of theAnnales de Bretagne),Love Songs of Connaught, 1893,Religious Songs of Connaught, 1905); P. O’Leary (author of two lengthy stories,Seadna, 1904,Niamh, 1907); P. Dinneen (author of an historical tale,Cormac Ua Connaill, 1901); P. O’Shea, better known as “Conan Maol,” author of a collection of short stories entitledAn Buaiceas, 1903.Authorities on Irish Language.—For the study of Old Irish—Zeuss,Grammatica Celtica2(Berlin, 1871); B. Güterbock and R. Thurneysen, Indices to the Irish words treated in Zeuss (Leipzig, 1881); E. Windisch published the first grammar of Old Irish in 1879 (trans. by N. Moore, Pitt Press, 1882), but Windisch’s treatment of the verb was rendered obsolete by the discovery of the laws of the Irish accent by H. Zimmer,Keltische Studien(Berlin, 1884), and R. Thurneysen,Revue celtique, vi. 309, J. Vendrèys,Grammaire du Vieil-Irlandais(Paris, 1908); R. Thurneysen,Handbuch des Alt-Irischen(Heidelberg, 1909). Mention should also be made of J. Strachan,Selections from the Old Irish Glosses(Dublin, 1904); and the same writer’sOld Irish Paradigms(Dublin, 1905),Stories from the Táin(Dublin, 1908). See also various papers on the Irish verb in theTransactions of the London Philological Societyby Strachan (1895-1902); H. Pedersen,Aspirationen i Irsk(Copenhagen, 1898); C. Sarauw,Irske Studier(Copenhagen, 1901); G.J. Ascoli,Archivio glottologico italiano, vols. v. and vi. For the study of Middle Irish—E. Windisch,Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch(Leipzig, 1880). (Other volumes in conjunction with W. Stokes.)Editions of texts by W. Stokes, Kuno Meyer and others in theRevue celtique, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, Ériu. K. Meyer has issued an exhaustive Mid. Irish glossary (A-D) as a supplement to theArchiv für celtische Lexikographie. The remainder is being published under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy. The first grammar of Modern Irish was published by Francis Molloy in 1677 at Rome under the title ofGrammatica Latino-Hibernica. Molloy was followed by Jeremiah Curtin in 1728 with a book calledElements of the Irish Language. Numerous other grammars were published towards the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, but few of them have any value. The more important of them are enumerated in the introduction to O’Donovan’sGrammarand to Windisch’sKurzgefasste irische Grammatik, and in Pedersen’sAspirationen i Irsk, pp. 29-47. We may mention W. Neilson’sGrammar(1808) as it is important for the Irish of E. Ulster. But the greatest native grammarian was John O’Donovan, who traversed Ireland in connexion with the Ordnance Survey, and published in 1854 a comprehensive grammar noting the differences between the various dialects. A little grammar published by Molloy in 1867 is instructive on account of the author’s peculiar point of view. The most useful books for the study of the living language are the series of booklets (five) published by Father O’Growney, one of the chief promoters of the present movement. Mention should also be made of J.P. Henry’sHandbook of Modern Irish, pts. i.-iv., and of the grammars by P.W. Joyce (Dublin, 1896) and the Christian Brothers (Dublin, 1901). For the northern form of Irish J.P. Craig’sGrammar of Modern Irishis useful (² Dublin, 1904). The phonetics of a Munster dialect have been investigated by R. Henebry,A Contribution to the Phonology of Desi Irish(Greifswald, 1901). The dialect of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway has been described by F.N. Finck,Die Araner Mundart, i.Lautlehre und Grammatik, ii.Wörterbuch(Marburg, 1899). G. Dottin has given an account of a dialect of North Connaught (Mayo) in theRevue celtique, xiv. pp. 97-137. A study of the speech of the north was published by E.C. Quiggin under the title ofA Dialect of Donegal, Phonology and Texts(Cambridge, 1906). For an account of the decay of Irish see H. Zimmer, “Die keltische Bewegung in Irland,”Preussische Jahrbücherfor 1898, vol. 93, p. 59 ff., and the last chapter of Douglas Hyde’sLiterary History of Ireland(London, 1901).The work of the earlier compilers of glosses will be mentioned in the literature section below. The first dictionary of the modern language of any importance was that published by J. O’Brien in 1768. Next came E. O’Reilly with hisIrish-English Dictionary(Dublin, 1817). This book contains a vast store of words gathered on no principle whatever from all manner of sources, and has therefore to be used with caution, but even at the present day it renders considerable service. A second edition with a supplement by O’Donovan was published after the latter’s death in 1864. The first trustworthy dictionary of the modern language was published under the auspices of the Irish Texts Society by P.J. Dinneen (London, 1904). English-Irish dictionaries have been compiled by D. Foley (Dublin, 1855); E.E. Fournier (Dublin, 1903); T. O’Neill Lane (Dublin, 1904).

When we turn to the inflections we find that most of the old terminations have disappeared, but that their influence on preceding consonants is still felt and serves to distinguish one form from another; thus in the declension offer, “man,” nom. sing.fer, gen. sing.fir, dat. sing,fiur, acc. sing,fer n-, nom. pl.fir, gen. pl.fer n-, corresponding to Prim. Celt. (Gaulish)viros, virī, virō, viron, virī, viron, the influence of the following sound still differentiates the cases from one another. In the later language the initial mutations come more and more to be used for this purpose. In Middle Irish the declensions and conjugations are much simplified and the neuter gender is given up in substantives. In the verb the athematic conjugation has disappeared and the distinction of primary and secondary endings is not observed. On the other hand Irish has developed a peculiar system of absolute and conjoint inflection with different sets of endings. The conjoint endings are always used in the case of compound verbs, and in simple verbs they are employed after certain proclitics,e.g.the negative particles. Thusberid, “he bears,” is an absolute form;do-beir, “he gives,”ni beir, “he does not bear,” are conjoint forms. Further, the verb system is partly dominated by the various devices employed to express relatival function. There are three main types of conjugation in Old Irish corresponding to the Latin first, third and fourth conjugations, the Latin typesmoneoandaudiobeing difficult to distinguish in Irish. In the modern language there is in reality but one conjugation. The old Irish verb system comprises present and imperfect indicative, imperative, pres. subjunctive in-ā-or-s-with corresponding past subjunctive, future in-f-or-s-or-ē-or with reduplication along with corresponding secondary future,-s-preterite,-t-preterite, reduplicated preterite, a preterite containing a long stem-vowel, together with deponential and passive forms in-rd. This system is eked out with the verbal prefixro, which among other functions changes a preterite into a perfect or a present into a perfect. Such a cumbrous system was bound to fall to pieces. A number of isolated forms have come down, but the only tenses which have survived into the modern period are the present and imperfect indicative, the imperative, the present subjunctive, the-s-preterite, the-b-and-ē-future with corresponding secondary forms, and some of the passive forms in-r. At the same time in the modern language there is an increasing tendency to use analytical forms. Two noteworthy features of the Irish verb remain to be mentioned. The one is the use of pronouns as objects infixed between particle and verb, or in a verb compounded with a preposition between preposition and verb. There are two sets of forms according as to whether the verb occurs in a relative clause or not. Thus-m-is the ordinary infixed pronoun of the 1st pers. sing., whilst-dom-is the corresponding relative form. In the 3rd pers. sing. aspiration may be employed,e.g.ní ceil, “he does not hide,”ní cheil,“he does not hide it.” This has been given up in the modern language. Secondly in verbs compounded with prepositions the accent of the verb varies according as to whether the verb is used enclitically or not—thus after the negativeníor in the infinitive and imperative. Hence we havedo-béir, “he gives,” by the side ofní tábair, “he does not give,” infin.tabairt;do-gníu, “I do,”ní dḗnim, “I do not do,” infin.dḗnum. The changes caused by this alternation in addition to others due to the working of the Irish accent and to the initial and internal mutations have played havoc with the verb system and render it exceedingly difficult to reconstruct the paradigms. In the later periods of the language analogy naturally plays a great part, and many of the complicated forms are done away with, but even in the modern dialects the alternation between enclitic and orthotonic forms still survives in the commonest verbs,e.g.Irishbheir sé“he gives,”ní thabhair sé, “he does not give,” infin.tabhairt; Scottishbheir e, cha toir, toirt; Manxver eh, cha der, coyrt; Irishní sé, “he does,”ní dheanann sé, “he does not do,” infin.deanamh; Scottishnì e, “he does,”cha dean e, “he will not do,” infin.deanamh; Manxnee eh, cha jean eh, jannoo.

In the early period Irish borrowed a number of words from Latin. These are mainly connected with the church or with articles of civilization which would be imported from Roman Britain. Some of these show traces of British pronunciation,e.g.O. Ir.trindóit, from Latintrinitātemwithōforā. In others again Lat. p is represented in Ir. by c, which may be due to the substitution of q as being the nearest Irish sound to the foreign p. Thus we find Ir.corcur, “purple,”casc, “Easter”;cenciges, “Whitsuntide”;cruimther, “presbyter.” In addition to these several loans were received from Norse. In the Mid. Irish period many French words came in, and during the middle and modern periods the number of English words introduced is legion. Pedersen has tried to show in hisVergl. Gramm.that a considerable number of words were borrowed from Brythonic (Welsh) at an early date.

[For the Latin loan-words, see J. Vendryès,De hibernicis vocabulis quae a latina lingua originem duxerunt(Paris, 1902); Kuno Meyer has collected a number of loan-words from Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Early English, Latin and Early French inRevue celtique, xii. 460 and xiii. 505. See also Whitley Stokes,Bezzenberger’s Beiträge, xviii. 56 ff. For Celtic names in Norse see W. Stokes,Revue celtique, iii. 186 ff., and W.A. Craigie,Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil.i. 439 ff.]

With regard to the dialects of Irish, there is a well-known rhyme which states the peculiarities of the speech of the four provinces, and dialectical differences must have existed at an early period, though they do not make their appearance in the literary language until the 18th century. At the present day the Irish of Leinster has vanished entirely, and we have unfortunately no records of it. But in the other three provinces the vernacular still lives, and we find the Irish of Munster, Connaught and Ulster marked off from one another by well-defined peculiarities. In general it may be stated that the south of Ireland is more conservative than the north. In Munster there is a tendency to shift the word-stress from the initial syllable to a heavy derivative syllable,e.g.-ān. This doesnot take place in Connaught, whilst in Ulster the tendency is to shorten the vowel. Again in monosyllables ending inll,nn,m, and under certain other conditions a short vowel becomes a diphthong in the south, in Connaught it is merely lengthened, but in Ulster the original length is retained,e.g.Ulsterball, “member, limb,” Connaughtbāll, Munsterbaull. Finaldh,ghin Munster are sounded asg. In certain cases the north prefers the vocalic mutation where the west and south have the nasal, thus notably in the dative singular after preposition and article,e.g.Munster-Connaughtdo’n bhfear, “to the man,” Ulsterdo’n fhear. In the south synthetic verb-forms are employed to a much larger extent than in the north.

In the early part of the 19th century Irish was still the speech of more than half the inhabitants of Ireland. A German traveller reckoned that out of a total population of seven millions in 1835 four millions spoke Irish as their mother-tongue. The famine of 1846-1847 was felt most in those districts that were purely Irish, and these were the parts that were and still are chiefly affected by the tide of emigration. Add to this the fact that the influence of O’Connell and his satellites, and above all that of the Roman Catholic clergy, was against the language. In spite of the efforts of the Gaelic League (founded 1893), which have met with considerable success, the language is rapidly dying of internal decay. The speakers of Irish are chiefly confined to the following counties, where over 20% of the population speak Gaelic:—Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal. The following figures will illustrate the decay of the language since the famine:—

According to the 1901 census report the speakers of Irish were distributed as follows:—Leinster, 26,436; Munster, 276,268; Connaught, 245,580; Ulster, 92,858. The Gaelic movement, which has thriven largely on account of its anti-English character, would have a much better chance of galvanizing the ancient language of Ireland if it were not for the supreme difficulties of Irish spelling and phonetics. Of the hundreds of thousands of persons who attend the classes of the League not more than one or two per cent. at the outside arrive at any state of proficiency. Presbyterian Gaels in Scotland are taught to read the Bible but Irish Catholics are not encouraged to do so. The result of this is seen in the fact that, whilst many, if not all, of the local Nationalist newspapers under the pressure of the League publish badly-printed and little-read columns in Irish, there are only two regularly appearing periodicals which contain any large amount of Irish. Half the contents—and those the most important—of the weekly organ of the league,An Claidheamh Soluis(“the flaming sword”), are in English. The latter was started in 1898 under the title ofFáinne an Lae(“the ring of day,”i.e.the dawn). The other periodical is the monthlyGaelic Journal(Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge), a would-be literary magazine of very inferior quality which has led a precarious existence since 1882. In 1898 it was decided to hold a festival called theOireachtas(“hosting, gathering”) on the lines of the WelshEisteddfod. The venture was a great success and similar meetings have been held every year since, whilst each province and many of the counties have their annual local Gaelicfeis(festival). The literary output of the movement has been prodigious, consisting in the main of a number of short stories and dramas (mostly propagandist), but nothing of any particular merit has as yet been forthcoming. The best-known writers are Dr Douglas Hyde (collector of folk-stories—Beside the Fire, 1890,An Sgeulaidhe Gaedhealach, 1895 (reprinted from vol. x. of theAnnales de Bretagne),Love Songs of Connaught, 1893,Religious Songs of Connaught, 1905); P. O’Leary (author of two lengthy stories,Seadna, 1904,Niamh, 1907); P. Dinneen (author of an historical tale,Cormac Ua Connaill, 1901); P. O’Shea, better known as “Conan Maol,” author of a collection of short stories entitledAn Buaiceas, 1903.

Authorities on Irish Language.—For the study of Old Irish—Zeuss,Grammatica Celtica2(Berlin, 1871); B. Güterbock and R. Thurneysen, Indices to the Irish words treated in Zeuss (Leipzig, 1881); E. Windisch published the first grammar of Old Irish in 1879 (trans. by N. Moore, Pitt Press, 1882), but Windisch’s treatment of the verb was rendered obsolete by the discovery of the laws of the Irish accent by H. Zimmer,Keltische Studien(Berlin, 1884), and R. Thurneysen,Revue celtique, vi. 309, J. Vendrèys,Grammaire du Vieil-Irlandais(Paris, 1908); R. Thurneysen,Handbuch des Alt-Irischen(Heidelberg, 1909). Mention should also be made of J. Strachan,Selections from the Old Irish Glosses(Dublin, 1904); and the same writer’sOld Irish Paradigms(Dublin, 1905),Stories from the Táin(Dublin, 1908). See also various papers on the Irish verb in theTransactions of the London Philological Societyby Strachan (1895-1902); H. Pedersen,Aspirationen i Irsk(Copenhagen, 1898); C. Sarauw,Irske Studier(Copenhagen, 1901); G.J. Ascoli,Archivio glottologico italiano, vols. v. and vi. For the study of Middle Irish—E. Windisch,Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch(Leipzig, 1880). (Other volumes in conjunction with W. Stokes.)

Editions of texts by W. Stokes, Kuno Meyer and others in theRevue celtique, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, Ériu. K. Meyer has issued an exhaustive Mid. Irish glossary (A-D) as a supplement to theArchiv für celtische Lexikographie. The remainder is being published under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy. The first grammar of Modern Irish was published by Francis Molloy in 1677 at Rome under the title ofGrammatica Latino-Hibernica. Molloy was followed by Jeremiah Curtin in 1728 with a book calledElements of the Irish Language. Numerous other grammars were published towards the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, but few of them have any value. The more important of them are enumerated in the introduction to O’Donovan’sGrammarand to Windisch’sKurzgefasste irische Grammatik, and in Pedersen’sAspirationen i Irsk, pp. 29-47. We may mention W. Neilson’sGrammar(1808) as it is important for the Irish of E. Ulster. But the greatest native grammarian was John O’Donovan, who traversed Ireland in connexion with the Ordnance Survey, and published in 1854 a comprehensive grammar noting the differences between the various dialects. A little grammar published by Molloy in 1867 is instructive on account of the author’s peculiar point of view. The most useful books for the study of the living language are the series of booklets (five) published by Father O’Growney, one of the chief promoters of the present movement. Mention should also be made of J.P. Henry’sHandbook of Modern Irish, pts. i.-iv., and of the grammars by P.W. Joyce (Dublin, 1896) and the Christian Brothers (Dublin, 1901). For the northern form of Irish J.P. Craig’sGrammar of Modern Irishis useful (² Dublin, 1904). The phonetics of a Munster dialect have been investigated by R. Henebry,A Contribution to the Phonology of Desi Irish(Greifswald, 1901). The dialect of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway has been described by F.N. Finck,Die Araner Mundart, i.Lautlehre und Grammatik, ii.Wörterbuch(Marburg, 1899). G. Dottin has given an account of a dialect of North Connaught (Mayo) in theRevue celtique, xiv. pp. 97-137. A study of the speech of the north was published by E.C. Quiggin under the title ofA Dialect of Donegal, Phonology and Texts(Cambridge, 1906). For an account of the decay of Irish see H. Zimmer, “Die keltische Bewegung in Irland,”Preussische Jahrbücherfor 1898, vol. 93, p. 59 ff., and the last chapter of Douglas Hyde’sLiterary History of Ireland(London, 1901).

The work of the earlier compilers of glosses will be mentioned in the literature section below. The first dictionary of the modern language of any importance was that published by J. O’Brien in 1768. Next came E. O’Reilly with hisIrish-English Dictionary(Dublin, 1817). This book contains a vast store of words gathered on no principle whatever from all manner of sources, and has therefore to be used with caution, but even at the present day it renders considerable service. A second edition with a supplement by O’Donovan was published after the latter’s death in 1864. The first trustworthy dictionary of the modern language was published under the auspices of the Irish Texts Society by P.J. Dinneen (London, 1904). English-Irish dictionaries have been compiled by D. Foley (Dublin, 1855); E.E. Fournier (Dublin, 1903); T. O’Neill Lane (Dublin, 1904).

(b)Scottish Gaelic.—Scottish Gaelic is the form of Goidelic speech which was introduced into Scotland by the Dalriadic Scots who came over from Ireland in the early centuries of our era. We possess practically no early monuments of the language. We have one or two inscriptions in Latin characters, such as that at St Vigeans and the Ogams mentioned above, which have not yet been solved. In theBook of Deirthere is a colophon of a few lines probably written by an Irish scribe in the 9th century, and as the language of these lines differs in no wise from the Irish of the period, we do not know if they accurately represent the Gaelic of Scotland or if they may not be pure Irish. In the same MS. there are further Gaelic scraps belonging to the 11th and 12th centuries. The word-forms in these entries are identical with those current at the time in Ireland, but the historical orthography seems to show more signs of decay than is the case in Irish. The medieval Scottish MSS. in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh are only just being published, but they seem either to hail from Ireland or to be written in pure Irish. The end of the 15th century brought a change. The Lordship of the Isles, the great bond between Ireland and Scotland, was broken up. The Gaels of Scotland, thrown on their own resources, advanced their own dialect to the position of a literary language and tried to discard the Irish orthography. TheBook of the Dean of Lismore, compiled about 1500, is written in a kind of phonetic orthography which has not as yet been sufficiently investigated. The language of those poems which are not directly ascribed to Irish poets, and which may therefore be regarded as representing the literary language of the Highlands at the time, seems to occupy a position midway between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. But until the beginning of the 18th century the Highlands wereunder the literary dominion of Ireland, so much so that Bedell’s Irish version of the Scriptures was circulated in Scotland with a glossary from 1690 to 1767, and Bishop Carsewell’s version of Knox’s Prayer-book (1567) is pure Irish. The language of the people is poorly represented in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the orthography is not fixed until we reach the 18th century.

Irish and Scottish Gaelic differ considerably in point of vocabulary, but there are also important divergences in phonetics and inflections. In the first place, Scottish Gaelic as written has entirely given up the nasal mutation (eclipse),e.g.Scottishar bò, “our cow,” Irishar m-bó; Scottishnan tìr, “of the countries,” Irishna d-tír. It should, however, be observed that in Skye and the Outer Isles the nasal mutation has been partly restored and in some places there are even parallels to the Welsh nasal mutation ofc, p, ttongh, mh, nh.Secondly, post-vocalicc, p, tare commonly preceded by a breathed sound not represented in writing, thusmac“son,” is pronouncedmahk;slat, “rod,” asslaht. Again there is a tendency to insert a sibilant in the grouprt, thusceart, “right,” is soundedkearšt, and the distinction between palatalized and non-palatalized sounds is not so rigidly observed as in Irish. The groupchtis in Scotland pronounced as ifchk. We may also mention that Scottish Gaelic preserves an olděin a number of words where Irish now hasă, thus, Old Ir.fer, Scottish G.fěr, Irishfăr, but in both cases the spelling isfear(in this respect Scottish Gaelic goes hand in hand with Manx and the almost extinct Irish of Down). Similarly, we find that in Scottish Gaelic and Manx stressed vowels preceding a palatalized consonant have not undergone palatalization to the same extent as in Irish,e.g.in Irelandduine, “man,” <*dunjo-, is pronounceddin’ð, but in Scotlanddun’ð(in Manx writtendooinney). A further peculiarity of Scottish Gaelic is that it substitutes lenes or voiceless mediae for the voiced stops, and evenl, r, nsounds show a great tendency to give up the voice. Scottish Gaelic goes farther even than Irish in the confusion of vowel-sounds,e.g.Lat.coxa, Ir.cos, “foot,” Sc.cas; Ir.codal, Sc.cadal. When we turn to the inflections we find that analogy has here played a much greater part than in Irish. There is a tendency to make the plural of all substantives except masculine monosyllables end in-an. In the conjugation the synthetic forms have with one or two exceptions entirely disappeared and the present forms have become momentary in force. Hence in ordinary grammars it is stated that the present has become a future, thusni mimeans “I shall do.” The past participle chiefly ends in-teas against Irish-the, -te, or-tha, -ta, according to the quality of the preceding sound. The present (future) and past subjunctive (conditional, representing both the imperfect indic. and secondary future of Irish) supply the place of the Irish consuetudinal forms. In idiom also Scottish has diverged very considerably from Irish,e.g.in the use oftha(Ir.tá) foris.It seems now to be agreed that the various dialects of Scottish Gaelic fall into two main divisions—northern and southern. Mackinnon states that the boundary between the two passes roughly up the Firth of Lorne to Loch Leven, then across country from Ballachulish to the Grampians. The country covered by the northern dialect was of old the country of the Northern Picts, whilst the portion of Argyllshire south of the boundary line, together with Bute and Arran, made up the kingdom of Dalriada. The Gaelic district south of the Grampians belonged to the Southern Picts. The southern dialect is commonly regarded as the literary language. It approaches more nearly to Irish and preserves the inflections much better than the speech of the north.The following characteristics of the northern dialects may be mentioned:—(1) The diphthongization of openētoiais carried much farther in the north than in the south. (2) The vowelaoin the north is more regularly the high-back-narrow-unrounded vowel-sound, whereas the south in many cases has a low-front-wide-round sound. (3) The north hasstrin initial position where the south preferssr. Further, the northern dialects go very far in dropping unaccented final vowels. It may be remarked that in the reduction of derivative endings containing long vowels Scotland goes hand-in-hand with Ulster Irish, thus Connaughtarān, “bread,” is in Ulster and Scotlandarăn. Again, Scottish agrees with North Irish in the loss of synthetic verb-forms and in using as negativecha, Mid. Ir.nico, nocha. But, on the other hand, Scotland, with the exception of South Argyll and some of the Isles, diphthongizes accenteda, o, e, in monosyllables, beforell, nn, m, thus resembling the speech of Munster. In South Argyll the original short vowel is half lengthened.As to the southern limits of Gaelic speech in Scotland, the boundary between Gaelic and English in medieval times was the so-called Highland line, and at the War of Independence it is probable that it extended to Stirling, Perth and the Ochil and Sidlaw Hills, the Inglis being limited to a very narrow strip along the coast. Dr J.A.H. Murray traced the linguistic frontier in 1869-1870 with the following results. The line started about 3 m. west of the town of Nairn on the Moray Firth and ran in a south-east direction to the Dee, 4 m. above Ballater. On the other side of the Dee it began 4 m. above Balmoral and followed the boundary of Perth and Forfar as far as Glen Shee, where it went off to the south-west as far as Dunkeld. After passing Birnam Hill it turned due west until the upper part of Glen Almond was reached, where it bent to the southward, passing through Comrie and along the braes of Doune to the Teith, 3 or 4 m. below Callander. Thence it ran along the north shore of Lake Monteith to Gartmore, and from there to Rowardennan on the east side of Loch Lomond. On the west side it passed through Glen Douglas down Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde, leaving Bute and Arran to the west. At the present day this boundary has probably receded to the extent of several miles, and even in 1870 there were districts such as Bute and the region round Dunoon where Gaelic was only spoken by the oldest natives and the immigrant population. The language is not found in the north-east of Caithness, the boundary running, according to Murray, roughly from a little north-east of Lybster to the mouth of the Forss. Celtic was driven out of Shetland and Orkney by Scandinavian some time during the middle ages. (See further J.A.H. Murray,The Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, London, 1875;Revue celtique, vol. ii. pp. 180-187.)Until the 18th century Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and on the uplands of Ayr and Lanark. The following figures from the census returns illustrate the decrease in the number of persons who speak Gaelic:—Monolinguists.Bilinguists.1881No return231,594 (this includes Gaelic monolinguists)189143,738210,677190128,106202,700In the last-mentioned year it appears that nearly one-half of the speakers of Gaelic are reported from the counties of Inverness and Ross (23,893 monolinguists and 82,573 bilinguists). From about 1300 we find Scottish emigrants filtering into the glens of Antrim, where the Gaelic that is spoken is still unmistakably Scottish. There have long been local societies of Highlanders for the cultivation of their native tongue, the most important one beingAn Comunn Gàidhealach(founded 1891). This society holds an annual gathering called theMòd(= Eng. “moot”) on the lines of the Welsh Eisteddfod, and recently the Scottish Education Department has countenanced the teaching of Gaelic in Highland schools. But the political element plays little or no part in the language movement in Scotland, and the latter is not likely to assume the proportions of the Gaelic League in Ireland. As a rule, however, Highlanders are better able to read their own language than Irish Gaels, for, the majority being Protestants, they are encouraged to read their Bibles. There are only two periodicals which devote half their space to Gaelic. The one isAn Deo-Greine(“the sunbeam”), founded October 1905; and the other is the Catholic propagandist quarterlyGuth na Bliadhna(“the voice of the year”), started in 1904. Up to 1905 a fortnightly newspaper printed wholly in Gaelic appeared in Prince Edward Island, under the title ofAn Mac-talla(“the echo”), and efforts have been made to revive it. A weekly newspaper wholly in Gaelic was started in 1908 by R. Stuart Erskine under the title ofAlba.Authorities on Scottish Gaelic.—The first grammar of Scottish Gaelic was compiled by W. Shaw (An Analysis of the Galic Language, 1778). The most useful one was that published by Alexander Stewart,Elements of Gaelic Grammar(Edinburgh, 1801). A revised edition of this work with many additions and corrections was published by H.C. Gillies, London, 1902. This book is rather spoilt by the author’s attitude, and requires to be supplemented and corrected. G. Henderson and C.W. Robertson have published important papers on the modern dialects in theZeitschrift für celtische Philologie, theCeltic Reviewand theTransactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness. The most useful work on Gaelic philology is Alexander Macbain’sEtymological Gaelic Dictionary(Inverness, 1896) (a later edition by W.J. Watson). The chief dictionaries areDictionarium Scoto-Celticum, published by the Highland Society of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1828); R.A. Armstrong,Gaelic Dictionaryin two parts (London, 1825); N. McAlpine,Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary(Edinburgh, 1847) (this book gives the pronunciation of Islay); Macleod and Dewar,Gaelic and English Dictionary(latest edition, Edinburgh, 1901);Faclair Gàidhlig, published by E. Macdonald, Herne Bay, appearing in parts since 1902.

It seems now to be agreed that the various dialects of Scottish Gaelic fall into two main divisions—northern and southern. Mackinnon states that the boundary between the two passes roughly up the Firth of Lorne to Loch Leven, then across country from Ballachulish to the Grampians. The country covered by the northern dialect was of old the country of the Northern Picts, whilst the portion of Argyllshire south of the boundary line, together with Bute and Arran, made up the kingdom of Dalriada. The Gaelic district south of the Grampians belonged to the Southern Picts. The southern dialect is commonly regarded as the literary language. It approaches more nearly to Irish and preserves the inflections much better than the speech of the north.

The following characteristics of the northern dialects may be mentioned:—(1) The diphthongization of openētoiais carried much farther in the north than in the south. (2) The vowelaoin the north is more regularly the high-back-narrow-unrounded vowel-sound, whereas the south in many cases has a low-front-wide-round sound. (3) The north hasstrin initial position where the south preferssr. Further, the northern dialects go very far in dropping unaccented final vowels. It may be remarked that in the reduction of derivative endings containing long vowels Scotland goes hand-in-hand with Ulster Irish, thus Connaughtarān, “bread,” is in Ulster and Scotlandarăn. Again, Scottish agrees with North Irish in the loss of synthetic verb-forms and in using as negativecha, Mid. Ir.nico, nocha. But, on the other hand, Scotland, with the exception of South Argyll and some of the Isles, diphthongizes accenteda, o, e, in monosyllables, beforell, nn, m, thus resembling the speech of Munster. In South Argyll the original short vowel is half lengthened.

As to the southern limits of Gaelic speech in Scotland, the boundary between Gaelic and English in medieval times was the so-called Highland line, and at the War of Independence it is probable that it extended to Stirling, Perth and the Ochil and Sidlaw Hills, the Inglis being limited to a very narrow strip along the coast. Dr J.A.H. Murray traced the linguistic frontier in 1869-1870 with the following results. The line started about 3 m. west of the town of Nairn on the Moray Firth and ran in a south-east direction to the Dee, 4 m. above Ballater. On the other side of the Dee it began 4 m. above Balmoral and followed the boundary of Perth and Forfar as far as Glen Shee, where it went off to the south-west as far as Dunkeld. After passing Birnam Hill it turned due west until the upper part of Glen Almond was reached, where it bent to the southward, passing through Comrie and along the braes of Doune to the Teith, 3 or 4 m. below Callander. Thence it ran along the north shore of Lake Monteith to Gartmore, and from there to Rowardennan on the east side of Loch Lomond. On the west side it passed through Glen Douglas down Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde, leaving Bute and Arran to the west. At the present day this boundary has probably receded to the extent of several miles, and even in 1870 there were districts such as Bute and the region round Dunoon where Gaelic was only spoken by the oldest natives and the immigrant population. The language is not found in the north-east of Caithness, the boundary running, according to Murray, roughly from a little north-east of Lybster to the mouth of the Forss. Celtic was driven out of Shetland and Orkney by Scandinavian some time during the middle ages. (See further J.A.H. Murray,The Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, London, 1875;Revue celtique, vol. ii. pp. 180-187.)

Until the 18th century Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and on the uplands of Ayr and Lanark. The following figures from the census returns illustrate the decrease in the number of persons who speak Gaelic:—

In the last-mentioned year it appears that nearly one-half of the speakers of Gaelic are reported from the counties of Inverness and Ross (23,893 monolinguists and 82,573 bilinguists). From about 1300 we find Scottish emigrants filtering into the glens of Antrim, where the Gaelic that is spoken is still unmistakably Scottish. There have long been local societies of Highlanders for the cultivation of their native tongue, the most important one beingAn Comunn Gàidhealach(founded 1891). This society holds an annual gathering called theMòd(= Eng. “moot”) on the lines of the Welsh Eisteddfod, and recently the Scottish Education Department has countenanced the teaching of Gaelic in Highland schools. But the political element plays little or no part in the language movement in Scotland, and the latter is not likely to assume the proportions of the Gaelic League in Ireland. As a rule, however, Highlanders are better able to read their own language than Irish Gaels, for, the majority being Protestants, they are encouraged to read their Bibles. There are only two periodicals which devote half their space to Gaelic. The one isAn Deo-Greine(“the sunbeam”), founded October 1905; and the other is the Catholic propagandist quarterlyGuth na Bliadhna(“the voice of the year”), started in 1904. Up to 1905 a fortnightly newspaper printed wholly in Gaelic appeared in Prince Edward Island, under the title ofAn Mac-talla(“the echo”), and efforts have been made to revive it. A weekly newspaper wholly in Gaelic was started in 1908 by R. Stuart Erskine under the title ofAlba.

Authorities on Scottish Gaelic.—The first grammar of Scottish Gaelic was compiled by W. Shaw (An Analysis of the Galic Language, 1778). The most useful one was that published by Alexander Stewart,Elements of Gaelic Grammar(Edinburgh, 1801). A revised edition of this work with many additions and corrections was published by H.C. Gillies, London, 1902. This book is rather spoilt by the author’s attitude, and requires to be supplemented and corrected. G. Henderson and C.W. Robertson have published important papers on the modern dialects in theZeitschrift für celtische Philologie, theCeltic Reviewand theTransactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness. The most useful work on Gaelic philology is Alexander Macbain’sEtymological Gaelic Dictionary(Inverness, 1896) (a later edition by W.J. Watson). The chief dictionaries areDictionarium Scoto-Celticum, published by the Highland Society of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1828); R.A. Armstrong,Gaelic Dictionaryin two parts (London, 1825); N. McAlpine,Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary(Edinburgh, 1847) (this book gives the pronunciation of Islay); Macleod and Dewar,Gaelic and English Dictionary(latest edition, Edinburgh, 1901);Faclair Gàidhlig, published by E. Macdonald, Herne Bay, appearing in parts since 1902.

(c)Manx.—Our sources of information with regard to the language of the Isle of Man are even more scanty in the early period than they are in the case of Scotland. There are a number of references to the island in Irish literature, but the earliest monument of the vernacular we possess is the version of the Book of Common Prayer made by Bishop Phillips in 1610. In this translation the traditional Irish orthography is not followed. The spelling resembles the orthography which was employed in Scotland by the compiler of theBook of the Dean of Lismore. How far this system was used is a question which it is difficult to decide. In Scotland the Irish orthography has prevailed in a slightly modified form, but Manx writers adhered to a mode of spelling which was as phonetic as any system based on English, or, probably more correctly Anglo-Scottish, orthography could be. This fact, combined with the rapid phonetic decay of thelanguage, makes it extremely difficult to discover what sound-values are to be attached to the various symbols. At the beginning of the 18th century English was not understood by two-thirds of the natives, and in 1764 the S.P.C.K. issued a paper containing this statement: “The population of the Isle is 20,000, of whom the far greater number are ignorant of English.” But from this time English gradually crept in. The last edition of the Manx Bible was issued in 1819, and of the New Testament in 1840. The present writer’s great-grandmother refused to speak English, his grandfather (b. 1815) preached in Manx and English, and his father (b. 1844) only spoke English. The following figures illustrate the rapid decline of the language:—

Monolinguists.Bilinguists.187519012,340 (out of a population of 41,084 exclusive of Douglas)1901None4,419Manx stands in a much closer relation to Scottish Gaelic than Irish, and fishermen state that they could understand a good deal of what is said in South Argyll, though they are quite at a loss at Kinsale. Manx exhibits the same tendency as Scottish to use analytical and periphrastic forms in the verb, thusjannoo, “to do,” is used like Scottishdeanamhwith an infinitive to express the past and future. The present has acquired a momentary (future) signification, and the past participle ends in-it(Scottish-te). The negative ischaas in Scotland and Ulster. Manx goes as far as northern Scottish in dropping unstressed final vowels,e.g.chiarn, “lord,” Irish,tighearna;-ynis the favourite plural ending in substantives. The nasal mutation has been partly given up. Old Irish stressedĕis frequently retained,e.g.fĕr, “man,” Irishfăr(speltfear), and the vowelsŏandăare confused as in Scottish,e.g.Manxcass, “foot,” Scottishcas, Irishcos. Manx is divided in itself about the treatment of short accented vowels beforell, nn, m. According to Rhys the south side lengthens, whilst the north side diphthongizes;e.g.Irishcrann, “tree,”clann, “offspring,” S. Manxkrōn,klōn, N. Manx,kroun,kloun(writtencroan,cloan). In the matter of stress Manx is quite original, going farther even than the dialects of the south of Ireland. Not only does it shift the stress in the case of heavy derivative suffixes like-ānand reduce the preceding vowel,e.g.Ir.fuarān, Sc.fuaran, Manxfrān, “spring,” but even in cases likecaghláa, “variety,” Sc. Ir.caochladh, O. Ir.coimmchloud;coráa, “voice,” Ir.comhradh. The Mid. English stress on the final is further retained in words from the French such asashóon, “nation,”livréy, “deliver.”As other features peculiar to Manx we may mention the following. An intervocalicsorshshows a tendency to become lisped and voiced tod. In monosyllables post-vocalic finalm,n, are often preceded by an intrusiveb,drespectively, thusben“woman,” may be heard asbedn. Ir.abecomes more palatal and is oftenæ. Ir.scbecomesst,sht,e.g.Ir.fescor, “evening,” Manxfastyr; Ir.uisce, “water,” Manxushtey.Authorities on Manx.—The place and personal names of the Isle of Man have been collected by A.W. Moore inManx Names²(London, 1903) (33% of the proper names are Scandinavian). The chief source of information about the spoken language is J. Rhys,The Outlines of the Phonology of Manx Gaelic(London, 1895) (the book has unfortunately no index and no texts). The only serious attempt to represent spoken Manx graphically is the transcription of a song by J. Strachan in theZeitschr. für celtische Philologie, vol. i. p. 54. The native grammarian is J. Kelly, who in 1803 publishedA Practical Grammar of the Ancient Gaelic or Language of the Isle of Man, usually called Manks. This book was republished by W. Gill for the Manx Society in 1859, and a facsimile reprint of this latter was made for Quaritch, London, 1870. A useful little book entitled,First Lessons in Manxwas published by Edwin Goodwin (Dublin, 1901). There are two dictionaries, one by A. Cregeen, Douglas 1835, which is now being reprinted forAn Cheshaght Gailckagh, a Douglas society which is endeavouring to encourage the use of Manx and to get it introduced into the schools. The other dictionary is by J. Kelly in two parts—(i) Manx and English, (2) English and Manx, published by the Manx Society in 1866. Kelly also prepared a Triglot of Manx, Irish and Gaelic, based upon English, which has never been published. A useful paper on the language appeared in theTransactions of the London Philological Societyfor 1875 by H. Jenner, “The Manx Language: Its Grammar, Literature and Present State.”

Manx stands in a much closer relation to Scottish Gaelic than Irish, and fishermen state that they could understand a good deal of what is said in South Argyll, though they are quite at a loss at Kinsale. Manx exhibits the same tendency as Scottish to use analytical and periphrastic forms in the verb, thusjannoo, “to do,” is used like Scottishdeanamhwith an infinitive to express the past and future. The present has acquired a momentary (future) signification, and the past participle ends in-it(Scottish-te). The negative ischaas in Scotland and Ulster. Manx goes as far as northern Scottish in dropping unstressed final vowels,e.g.chiarn, “lord,” Irish,tighearna;-ynis the favourite plural ending in substantives. The nasal mutation has been partly given up. Old Irish stressedĕis frequently retained,e.g.fĕr, “man,” Irishfăr(speltfear), and the vowelsŏandăare confused as in Scottish,e.g.Manxcass, “foot,” Scottishcas, Irishcos. Manx is divided in itself about the treatment of short accented vowels beforell, nn, m. According to Rhys the south side lengthens, whilst the north side diphthongizes;e.g.Irishcrann, “tree,”clann, “offspring,” S. Manxkrōn,klōn, N. Manx,kroun,kloun(writtencroan,cloan). In the matter of stress Manx is quite original, going farther even than the dialects of the south of Ireland. Not only does it shift the stress in the case of heavy derivative suffixes like-ānand reduce the preceding vowel,e.g.Ir.fuarān, Sc.fuaran, Manxfrān, “spring,” but even in cases likecaghláa, “variety,” Sc. Ir.caochladh, O. Ir.coimmchloud;coráa, “voice,” Ir.comhradh. The Mid. English stress on the final is further retained in words from the French such asashóon, “nation,”livréy, “deliver.”

As other features peculiar to Manx we may mention the following. An intervocalicsorshshows a tendency to become lisped and voiced tod. In monosyllables post-vocalic finalm,n, are often preceded by an intrusiveb,drespectively, thusben“woman,” may be heard asbedn. Ir.abecomes more palatal and is oftenæ. Ir.scbecomesst,sht,e.g.Ir.fescor, “evening,” Manxfastyr; Ir.uisce, “water,” Manxushtey.

Authorities on Manx.—The place and personal names of the Isle of Man have been collected by A.W. Moore inManx Names²(London, 1903) (33% of the proper names are Scandinavian). The chief source of information about the spoken language is J. Rhys,The Outlines of the Phonology of Manx Gaelic(London, 1895) (the book has unfortunately no index and no texts). The only serious attempt to represent spoken Manx graphically is the transcription of a song by J. Strachan in theZeitschr. für celtische Philologie, vol. i. p. 54. The native grammarian is J. Kelly, who in 1803 publishedA Practical Grammar of the Ancient Gaelic or Language of the Isle of Man, usually called Manks. This book was republished by W. Gill for the Manx Society in 1859, and a facsimile reprint of this latter was made for Quaritch, London, 1870. A useful little book entitled,First Lessons in Manxwas published by Edwin Goodwin (Dublin, 1901). There are two dictionaries, one by A. Cregeen, Douglas 1835, which is now being reprinted forAn Cheshaght Gailckagh, a Douglas society which is endeavouring to encourage the use of Manx and to get it introduced into the schools. The other dictionary is by J. Kelly in two parts—(i) Manx and English, (2) English and Manx, published by the Manx Society in 1866. Kelly also prepared a Triglot of Manx, Irish and Gaelic, based upon English, which has never been published. A useful paper on the language appeared in theTransactions of the London Philological Societyfor 1875 by H. Jenner, “The Manx Language: Its Grammar, Literature and Present State.”

(E. C. Q.)

(ii).Brythonic.The term Brythonic is used to denote the Celtic dialects of Wales, Brittany and Cornwall. Unlike the Goidels the Brythonic peoples have no common name for their language. Forms of Brythonic speech were doubtless current throughout England and Wales and the Lowlands of Scotland at the time of the Saxon invasion. The S.E. of Britain may have been extensively Romanized, and it is not impossible that remnants of Goidelic speech may have lingered on in out-of-the-way corners. No literary documents dating from this period have been preserved, but some idea of the character of Brythonic may be gathered from the numerous inscriptions which have come to light. In the middle of the 6th century Brythonic was confined to the western half of Britain south of the Clyde and Forth. The colonization of Britannia minor or Armorican Brittany during the 5th and 6th centuries will be described later. In the latter part of the 6th century the W. Saxons pushed their conquests as far as the estuary of the Severn, and from that time the Brythons of S.W. Britain were cut off from their kinsmen in Wales. Early in the 7th century the Brythons of Strathclyde were similarly isolated by the battle of Chester (613). The kingdom of Strathclyde maintained a separate existence until the 10th century, and it is generally stated that Brythonic speech did not die out there until the 12th century. The question as to how far Brythonic names and words have survived in these districts has never been properly investigated. Certain it is that Brythonic numerals survived amongst shepherds in Cumberland, Westmorland and N.W. Yorkshire down to the second half of the 19th century, just as herrings are still counted in Manx by Manx fishermen otherwise quite innocent of the language. Accordingly, from the 7th century onwards Brythonic became gradually limited in Great Britain to three districts—Strathclyde, Wales, and Cornwall and Devon. During the 7th century the Brythons of Wales and Strathclyde often fought side by side against the Angles, and it is from this period that the name by which the Welsh call themselves is supposed to date,Cymro < *Combrox, pl.Cymry < *Combroges,i.e.“fellow-countrymen” as opposed to W.allfro, Gaul.Allobroges, “foreigners.” We have no means of determining when Celtic speech became extinct in the petty states of the north which retained their independence longest.

The chief features which distinguish the Brythonic from the Goidelic dialects have already been enumerated. In the course of the 6th and 7th centuries final short vowels disappeared. In compound names the final vowel remains in the first component until the 7th century. Short vowels in other than initial syllables when immediately preceding the stress (on the historical penultimate) disappear, whilst long ones are shortened,e.g.Welshcardawtfrom Lat.caritātem. Other vowels in unstressed position are apt to be reduced, thusŏ,ŭ, giveiin O.W. (Mid. W.y). A marked characteristic of Welsh as distinguished from Cornish and Breton is the treatment ofăunder the influence of a followingī. In Welsh the result isei, in Corn. and Bret.e,e.g.Welshseint, “saints,” Bret.sent, sing.sant. The mutations seem to have started in the second half of the 6th century in the case of the tenues.

See J. Loth,Les Mots latins dans les langues Brittoniques(Paris, 1892); J. Loth,Chrestomathie bretonne(Paris, 1890).

(a)Welsh(Cymraeg).—It is usual to divide the history of the Welsh language into three periods—Old, Middle and Modern. To the oldest period belong the collections of glosses, the earliest of which go back to about 800. The middle period extends from 1100 to 1500.

As a rule the medial mutation of the tenues and mediae is not denoted in O. Welsh. Intervocalicgis sometimes retained but generally it has disappeared, whilst afterrandlit is still written. In the course of the 9th century initialw(v) becomesgu(latergw). As the O. Welsh documents consist almost entirely of isolated words, we know scarcely anything about the morphology of the language during this period. To the middle period belong the ancient poems from the Black Book of Carmarthen, but the language of these compositions is evidently much older than the date of the manuscript (12th century), as it preserves a number of very archaic features. Other important sources of information for this period are the O. Welsh Laws contained in a MS. of the 12th century. To a somewhat later date belong the Mabinogion (14th century MS.), and the prose versions of French romances published by R. Williams (15th century). In Middle Welsh the consonant mutations are in general denoted in writing, though not consistently, and from this period dates the introduction ofwandy(O.W.u,i) to denote vowel sounds. The symbolllto denote a voicelesslwas already employed in Mid. W. butrh(= voicelessr),dd(= Eng.thin “thou”) andf(=v) either do not appear or only become regular during the modern period In Mod. W. the orthography is regularized and does not differmaterially from that of the late medieval documents. In O.W. the old stress on the final syllable (the historical penult) appears to have been preserved, but during the middle period the accent was shifted to the penult. In consequence of this changeaw(<ā) in final syllables is reduced tooin Mod. W.,e.g.Mid. W.pechawt< Lat.peccātum, Mod. W.pechod.The comparative wealth of inflection preserved by O. Ir. has almost entirely disappeared in Welsh. There are only the faintest traces of the case forms, the dual and the neuter gender. Compared with the Irish nominal declension according to-o-(-jo-),-ā-,-i-,-u-,-s-, guttural, dental and nasal stems, Welsh only distinguishes the nom. sing. and plur., the latter sometimes retaining an old formation. Thus masc.-o-stems show palatal modification,e.g.corn, “horn,” plur.cyrn< *kornī; the plural ending of-u-stems, O. Gaulish-oves, gives O.W.-ou, Mid. W.-eu, Mod. W.-au,e.g.penneu, “heads.” The termination-onesof the-n-stems appears as-on. The infixation of pronominal objects between a verbal particle and the verb itself continues in use down to the present day as in Breton. In the third person sing. of the pres. ind. there are instances in the oldest Welsh of the peculiar alternation between orthotonic and absolute forms which characterize the Irish paradigms,e.g.pereid, “it endures,” butny phara. The several types of conjugation represented in Irish have become obscured, traces remaining only in the endings of the third sing. of the pres. ind., the pret. ind. (Mid. W.-as,-es,-is) and the pret. passive (Mid. W.-at,-et,-it). The verb system of Welsh comprises the following tenses: indic. present (also used as future), imperative, imperfect, preterite (in Mid. W. forms withshave become prevalent as in Irish, but forms corresponding to the Irish preterites intor with reduplication or unreduplicated with long vowel are not infrequent in the early poetry), pluperfect (a new formation), pres. and pret. passive. In the subj. early W. distinguishes pres. and past, but the latter comes to be replaced by the pluperfect indicative. The sign of the subj. is-h-

The comparative wealth of inflection preserved by O. Ir. has almost entirely disappeared in Welsh. There are only the faintest traces of the case forms, the dual and the neuter gender. Compared with the Irish nominal declension according to-o-(-jo-),-ā-,-i-,-u-,-s-, guttural, dental and nasal stems, Welsh only distinguishes the nom. sing. and plur., the latter sometimes retaining an old formation. Thus masc.-o-stems show palatal modification,e.g.corn, “horn,” plur.cyrn< *kornī; the plural ending of-u-stems, O. Gaulish-oves, gives O.W.-ou, Mid. W.-eu, Mod. W.-au,e.g.penneu, “heads.” The termination-onesof the-n-stems appears as-on. The infixation of pronominal objects between a verbal particle and the verb itself continues in use down to the present day as in Breton. In the third person sing. of the pres. ind. there are instances in the oldest Welsh of the peculiar alternation between orthotonic and absolute forms which characterize the Irish paradigms,e.g.pereid, “it endures,” butny phara. The several types of conjugation represented in Irish have become obscured, traces remaining only in the endings of the third sing. of the pres. ind., the pret. ind. (Mid. W.-as,-es,-is) and the pret. passive (Mid. W.-at,-et,-it). The verb system of Welsh comprises the following tenses: indic. present (also used as future), imperative, imperfect, preterite (in Mid. W. forms withshave become prevalent as in Irish, but forms corresponding to the Irish preterites intor with reduplication or unreduplicated with long vowel are not infrequent in the early poetry), pluperfect (a new formation), pres. and pret. passive. In the subj. early W. distinguishes pres. and past, but the latter comes to be replaced by the pluperfect indicative. The sign of the subj. is-h-

We have seen already that Wales began to exist as a separate entity roughly at the end of the 6th and beginning of the 7th centuries. In the second half of the 8th century the Welsh were confined in pretty much their present limits byHistory and extent.Offa, king of Mercia, who constructed the Dyke going by his name, which has approximately remained the political boundary between England and Wales ever since. From this time onwards the bitter feeling against England which we find expressed in the fervid compositions of Iolo Goch and other political bards served to prevent any serious inroads of English on Welsh-speaking territory. With the advent of the Tudors, however, there came a great change. Henry VII. owed his throne in large measure to the support he had received from Wales and he prided himself on his Welsh ancestry. A consequence of this was that throughout the 16th century Wales received exceptionally favourable treatment at the hands of the English sovereign and parliament. In 1562 a decree was issued ordering a translation of the Bible to be made into Welsh. All this could naturally not be without effect on the attitude of the leaders of the people towards England. The change is already apparent in the poems of Lewis Glyn Cothi and others. And the striking difference in the manner in which the Reformation was regarded in Ireland and Wales is worthy of remark. During the Stuart wars the Welsh nobles fought invariably on the Royalist side, and there is plenty of other evidence that the aristocracy of Wales was becoming thoroughly anglicized both in sentiment and language. At the same time the practice of the Tudors was reversed in many particulars. Thus it became the custom to appoint Englishmen ignorant of the national language to the Welsh bishoprics. In this manner it is not a matter for surprise that a feeling of estrangement should grow up between the bulk of the population, who only knew Welsh, and the clergy and nobles, their intellectual leaders. The neglect of the national language is evident from the large number of English words which have even crept into such classical works as Prichard’sCanwyll y Cymryand Ellis Wynn’sGweledigaethau y Bardd Cwsg. It is stated that, of the 269 works published by Welshmen between 1546 and 1644, 44 were in Latin, 184 in English and only 41 in Welsh, and of these 37 consist of works of piety. Thus at the beginning of the 18th century there seemed a fair chance that Welsh would soon become extinct like Cornish.

An extraordinary change was brought about by the Methodist movement in Wales. The preachers, in order to get hold of the masses, addressed them in the vernacular, and their efforts were crowned with enormous success. At the same time a minister of the Established Church, Griffith Jones, went about Wales establishing lay schools to which young and old might come to learn to read the Welsh Bible. Between 1737 and 1761 3395 such schools sprang up, at which no fewer than 158,238 persons of all ages learned to read their native language. After Griffith Jones’s death this work was carried on by others, notably by Charles of Bala (1755-1814), who passed over to Calvinistic Methodism and whose schools were transformed after the model of the Sunday schools instituted in 1782 by Robert Raikes. Charles of Bala was largely instrumental in the founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and Wales was provided with 100,000 copies of the Bible and Testament at very moderate prices. Bishop’s Morgan’s version of the Scriptures made in 1588 (final revision 1620) represents the speech of North Wales which had remained more or less free from English influence, so that the language of the Welsh Bible is rightly regarded as the literary model. Three-fourths of the inhabitants of Wales belong to the various Nonconformist sects, and therefore pass almost without exception through the Sunday school, where they are drilled in its sole object of study, the Welsh Bible.

With the increasing employment of Welsh owing to the Nonconformist movement there was also awakened a new interest in the past history of the principality. A society calling itself theCymdeithas y Cymmrodorionwas founded in London in 1751, and during the succeeding half-century two periodicals exclusively in Welsh were started, the one,Trysorfa y Gwybodaeth, in 1770, the other,Cylchgrawn Cymraeg, in 1793. The year 1792 witnessed the creation of an important society, theCymdeithas y Cymreigyddion, in London, in which the moving spirits were William Owen (Pughe), Owen Jones and Edward Williams. The results of their indefatigable search for ancient Welsh manuscripts were published in three volumes under the titleMyvyrian Archaiology(London, 1801-1807). Owen further published an edition of the greatest medieval Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, and also the first copious dictionary. But this was not all. In Goronwy Owen (1722-1769) a poet had arisen whose works could stand comparison with the compositions of the medieval writers, and it was owing to the efforts of the three men above mentioned that the national Eisteddfod (= session, fromeistedd, “to sit”) was revived. The origin of these literary festivals is shrouded in obscurity. It is recorded that a S. Welsh prince, Gruffydd ap Rhys, held a festival lasting forty days in 1135 to commemorate a victorious campaign at which poets and minstrels competed for gifts and other rewards. Gruffydd’s son Rhys ap Gruffydd is reported to have instituted a similar contest in 1176, at which the successful competitors received a chair whilst the others were given presents. It would seem that after the loss of Welsh independence a carefully graded order and a system of jealously guarded rules came into existence. Similar national festivals were held under royal patronage under Henry VIII. in 1523 and again under Elizabeth in 1568. From 1568 until 1819 no general eisteddfod for all Wales was held. Since 1819 the national festival has been held annually and every little town has its own local celebration. Hence the Nonconformist Sunday school, the pulpit and the eisteddfod may be regarded as the most potent factors in resisting the inroads of English. The whole question of the vitality of Welsh and what may be called the political and social history of the language is treated in great detail by H. Zimmer, “Der Pan-Keltismus in Gross-britannien und Irland,” i., inPreussische Jahrbücher, vol. xcii. (1898). In elementary schools in Wales the use of Welsh has been permitted since 1893.

With regard to the extent over which Welsh is spoken a detailed map is given in J.E. Southall’sWelsh Language Census of 1891(Newport, 1895). A line drawn from the southern end of the estuary of the Dee about 2 m. W. of Connah’s Quay to Aberthaw in Glamorgan would practically include all those districts where Welsh is spoken by 60% of the population, and considerable deductions would have to be made for parts of Flint, Montgomery, most of Radnor and the N. part of Brecon. Little is spoken in the southern half of the Gower peninsula or in S. Pembrokeshire. Over much of Anglesey 97½% of the population spoke Welsh and in parts of Cardiganshire 98.3%. Of a total population in 1901 of 2,012,876, 929,824 were returned as speakers of Welsh, of whom 280,905 were monoglots. That Welsh is a very living language may be gathered from the following statistics. Between 1801 and 1898 no fewer than 8425 volumes were published in the vernacular, whilst in 1895 there were appearing regularly 2 quarterlies, 2 bi-monthlies, 28 religious and literary monthlies and 25 weekly papers. In 1909 the number was probably greater. The danger for Welsh lies rather in the direction of internal decay. The speech of the people is saturated with English words and idiom, and modern writers like Daniel Owen submit to the same influence instead of returning to the classical models of the 17th century.

Much remains to be done as regards the classification of the modern Welsh dialects. It is usual to divide them into four groups—(1) Powys (N.E.); (2) Gwynedd (N.W.); (3) Dyfed (S.W.); (4) Gwent (S.E.). One of the chief points on which N. and S. diverge is the pronunciation of the vowelsi,u,y, which in the S. all tend to becomei. The difference between N. and S. was noticeable as early as the time of Giraldus Cambrensis. See M. Nettlau,Beiträge zur cymrischen Grammatik(Leipzig, 1887), alsoRev. celt.ix. pp. 64 ff., 113 ff.; T. Darlington, “Some Dialectal Boundaries in Mid-Wales,”Trans, of the Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorion, 1900-1901. The only scientific description of a living dialect is “Spoken N. Welsh,” by H. Sweet,Trans, of the London Phil. Soc., 1882-1884.

Authorities on Welsh Language.—For the study of older Welsh:—J.C. Zeuss,Grammatica Celtica(Berlin², 1871)—an index to the O. Welsh glosses cited in this work was compiled by V. Tourneur,Archiv f. celt. Lexikographie, iii. 109-137; J. Strachan,An Introduction to Early Welsh, with a Reader (Manchester, 1909); J. Rhys,Lectures on Welsh Philology(London², 1879). Editions of texts—The Black Book of Carmarthen, facsimile edition by J. Gwenogvryn Evans (Pwllheli, 1906); J. Rhys and J. Gwenogvryn Evans,The Text of the Mabinogion(Oxford, 1887);The MyvyrianArchaiology of Wales(1801-1807; reprinted Denbigh, 1870); W.F. Skene,The Four Ancient Books of Wales(2 vols., Edinburgh, 1868); Aneurin Owen,Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales(London, 1841); facsimile edition by A.W. Wade-Evans,Welsh Medieval Law(Oxford, 1909); K. Meyer,Peredur ap Efrawcwith glossary (Leipzig, 1887); R. Williams,Selections from the Hengwrt Manuscripts(London, 1876-1892); J.E. Southall,Wales and Her Language(Newport, 1892). The earliest Welsh grammar was published as long ago as 1567 in Milan by Griffiths Roberts, reprinted in facsimile as supplement to theRevue celtique(Paris, 1883). An account of the language was prefixed to Owen Pughe’s Dictionary (1803). During the 19th century many manuals of indifferent value saw the light of day. The most authoritative works are:—T. Rowland,A Grammar of the Welsh Language(Wrexham, 18531, 18764), (still the most complete work), the same author also published a companion volume ofWelsh Exercises(Wrexham, n.d.); W. Spurrell,A Grammar of the Welsh Language(Carmarthen3, 1870); E. Anwyl,A Welsh Grammar for Schools, (i.) Accidence, (ii.) Syntax(London2, 1898). Other useful manuals for the beginner:—T. Jones,A Guide to Welsh, pts. i. ii. new ed. (Wrexham, n.d.); S.J. Evans,The Elements of Welsh Grammar(Newport3, 1903). Dictionaries:—The first Welsh dictionary was compiled by William Salesbury (London, 1547; facsimile reprint, London, 1877); W. Owen Pughe,A Dictionary of the Welsh Language(2 vols., London, 1803; reprinted Denbigh, 1870); W. Spurrell,Welsh-English and English-Welsh Dictionary(Carmarthen6, 1904); a smaller one by W. Richards in 2 vols. (Wrexham, n.d.), and many others. A dictionary on a large scale was planned by D. Silvan Evans and subsidized by the government. Only A-Dd has, however, appeared (Carmarthen, 1893-1906), cp. J. Loth inArchiv. f. celt. Lex.vol. i. for additions and corrections. A survey of Welsh periodical literature is contained in T.M. Jones’sLlenyddiaeth fy Ngwlad(Treffynnon, 1893). For Welsh folklore see J. Rhys,Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx(Oxford, 1901). H.H. Vaughan,Welsh Proverbs(London, 1889), alsoRev. celt.iii. 419 ff. See also G. Dottin,Revue de synthèse historique, vi. 317 ff.; H. Zimmer and L.C. Stern inKultur der Gegenwart, Teil 1, Abt. xi. 1.

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