CHAPTER VIII.

THE CELTIC DIALECTS AND THE PROBABLE CHARACTER OF THE PICTISH LANGUAGE.

THERE is a fallacy which lurks in many of the arguments regarding the ethnological character of the old Celtic nations, based upon the modern languages. In arguing from the modern languages, it is always assumed that the language of each branch of the old Celtic race must be represented by one or other of the modern Celtic dialects. This fallacy pervades the writings of almost all of our ethnological writers, who argue as if, when a classical writer states that a difference existed between the language of two divisions of the old Celtic people, and when there is reason to suppose that the language of the one resembled the Welsh, then it must of necessity follow that the language of the other was the Gaelic. But this by no means follows; nor is it at all self-evident that these modern Celtic languages represent all the ancient dialects. On the contrary, analogy and experience would lead us to a different conclusion. The ruder a language is, the more multiplied are its dialects; and the great medium for reducing their number is its cultivation. Before the introduction of writing, the means of such cultivation were to a great extent wanting. The Christian church was the great

civiliser; and it was through its agency that these dialects received their cultivation, and one of their forms raised to the position of a written language. In the ante-Christian period of the Celtic language, the diversity of dialects must have been very great, and there may be many which have no direct representative among the modern languages. There may be many lost dialects on the Continent; and one such certainly existed, as we have seen in our own island, which has long ago disappeared-viz. the Pictish.

There run, however, through the whole of the modern Celtic languages two great distinctive dialectic differences, which lie deep in the very groundwork of the language, and must have existed before their entrance into Great Britain, if not before their entrance into Europe. These differences separate these languages into two classes, each consisting of three of the spoken tongues. The one class, which we shall call the Cymric, consists of the Breton, the Welsh, and the Cornish; the other, which we shall call the Gaelic, consists of the Irish, the Manx, and the Scotch Gaelic. The three Gaelic dialects are much more closely allied to each other than the three Cymric dialects; but each of the dialects composing the one class possesses in common those great distinctive differences which separate them from the three dialects composing the other class.

But while this great diversity exists, there are also analogies so close, vital, and fundamental, as to leave. no doubt that they are all children of one common parent. Their vocabulary is, to a great extent, closely

allied. A distinguished Welsh scholar of the present day estimates that two-thirds of the vocabulary of the six dialects are substantially the same; and I believe this conclusion to be correct. A number of the primitive adjectives expressing the simplest conceptions are the same. It is a peculiarity of both classes that the irregular forms bear a smaller proportion to the regular forms than is usual; but these irregular forms, which are, in fact, the deposit of an older stage of the language, bear a very remarkable analogy to each other.

The great and leading peculiarity in both classes of the Celtic languages, however, is the mutation of initial consonants; and while these initial mutations exist in each class, and are governed by the same laws, and thus afford additional evidence of their common origin, they at the same time present us with a means of discriminating between the different dialects, and distinguishing their mutual position as such, quite as effectual as Grimm's law has been among the German dialects. The consonants most readily affected by initial mutation are the mute consonants; and the following tables will show what the initial mutations in Welsh and Irish are:

TABLE I-INITIAL MUTATION OF MUTE CONSONANTS.

But while these consonants thus undergo a change according to fixed laws within the limits of the language itself, there is also a similar interchange of sounds between the different spoken languages; and it is obvious that if the changes which the same words undergo in different dialects follow regular laws, the phonetic laws of these languages are of the utmost importance in discriminating their dialectic differences. The phonetic law which governs the relations of Welsh and Gaelic, so far as regards the mute consonants, is this-Each mute consonant in Welsh has two changes in Gaelic, either into its own middle sound, or into another consonant of the same character, but of a different organ. Thus the labial p passes into its middle sound b, as in

This latter change is deeply rooted in Welsh and Gaelic, and enters into the very life of the language, of which we have two very remarkable instances. The word Pascha, for Easter, can only have entered these languages after the establishment of the Christian church, when the languages, under the influence of its teaching, were passing into the fixed form of a written and cultivated speech; but while in Welsh it becomes

pasg, in Gaelic, under the operation of this law, it becomes casg. On the other hand, St. Ciaran, an Irish saint, and the founder of Clonmacnois, passed over, in the sixth century, into Cornwall, and had no sooner put his foot on Cymric ground than he became St. Pieran.

In the next class of the mutes the converse takes place, for the Welsh guttural g either disappears or passes into the dental d, as in

There is here, however, a slight deviation from the general rule g in Welsh is usually combined with w, and is in this combination the Welsh digamma; but instead of passing into w, according to the law, it becomes in Gaelic f; that is, the guttural in Welsh passes into an aspirated labial in Gaelic, as in

This is sufficient to illustrate the law of this double change; but it is rather remarkable that while the one change is into a different character of the same letter, and in strict accordance with the phonetic change within the language itself, the other change is from a letter of one organ to that of another, as from labial to guttural, and guttural to dental. The operating cause