The Scottish Celtic Review

Abstract

THIS is a quarterly review of which the first number has just appeared, published by Mr. Maclehose of Glasgow; but the name of the editor is not given, nor of the writers of the articles. The work however is done in a way which shows that there are at least a few persons in the North who feel a deep interest in Celtic philology and the language and literature of the Scotch Highlands. The programme is an excellent one, and embraces among other things the application to the study of Gaelic of those methods of investigation which have been so fruitful in the fields of English and German philology. It is intended also to help, by means of translations, to make English readers better acquainted with Gaelic literature, and to collect for publication all fragments of unwritten literature which still may happen to linger in the Highlands, as well as to afford room for the discussion of questions relating to Gaelic grammar and orthography. This last, it seems to us, is a subject with which the Gaelic scholars of the Highlands trouble themselves a great deal too much. Modern Gaelic orthography, whether in Ireland or in Alban, is simply incorrigible, and had better be left alone for the rest of the natural lives of the surviving dialects. This involves no great inconvenience; for no scholar who wants to understand the history of a Gaelic word ever thinks of being guided by any of the modern spellings which may be in use, but goes back to the Irish of the Middle Ages, or farther still, to what is technically known as Old Irish. It is some consolation to Englishmen to know that English orthography is not quite the worst in the world, and that Tonald seldom writes, but that when he does he spells more outrageously than the most wayward spelling-book ever known in the land of the Southron.

The Scottish Celtic Review.

No. 1, March, 1881; pp. 80, 8vo. (Glasgow: James Maclehose.)