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Show , f j THE IRISH LANGUAGE AND ITS ORIGIN. We are glad to republish the following communication com-munication to the Xew Haven Register, inasmuch as the Mr. Eno, to whom it refers, has written sundry sun-dry articles for these pages in times past, says' the Boston Bilot. With those articles, signed by him and representing his own views on matters of language, lan-guage, we had no fault to find until he quoted from one of them in another paper and credited tho quo-taiton quo-taiton to "the Boston Pilot," thus conveying the false idea that the matter quoted was an editorial cxnrcssion of the Pilot, instead of his own personal view. It is needless to say what value any impartial impar-tial reader must place upon such an authority as that. Editor of The . Register : Sir May I ask of you space to correct a misleading mis-leading statement which appeared in your issue of ! Sunday, May 15, under the caption, "The. Irish Language," Lan-guage," and having appended thereto the signature of J. T. Eno? . . I have not the honor of J. H. Eno's acquaintance, acquaint-ance, but I regret exceedingly that it was not. possible pos-sible for him to attend the lecture on the "Origin and Language of the Gaelic Race," i. e., the Irish, which was given in New Haven on the night of May fi. -Had he done so, Mr. Eno would have received re-ceived information that would have corrected his erroneous impression and been the means of placing plac-ing him on the track to the fountain head. Judging from his subject, I believe hini to be a man of education and -some research. I wish to do him the justice of admitting in advance that he has probably labored well with the materials at his service, but has failed because, like many other antiquarians anti-quarians and philogoists, he has taken effects for causes. 1 ' As Pope remarked, "A little learning is a dangerous dan-gerous thing." In tracing put the source of a language lan-guage we have to drink deep. It is one thing to make an assertion, quite, another, in some cases, to prove it. There is much between the statement and the satisfactory Q. E. D. Passing over the first paragraph, a dictionary repetition, let mq leave this: There are six primal tongues in Europe Irish, Finlandish, Hungarian, Welsh, Biscayan, Albanic, ranging in age in this order. ": The classification, is not mine, but that of Sanson, San-son, a learned French lexicographer, Marcel, another, an-other, and Laius, men without prejudice, writing for the sake of conveying truth and enlightenment. "The nearest relative of the Irish are the Scotch Gaelic and the Manx of the Isle of Man." The Scotch are direct descendants from the Irish as are the Manx, and the further statement of the relation of the Cornwall is to be explained by the fact that tine earliest inhabitants of Ireland, who came there in 1600 B. C. from Egypt, the descendants of Par-tholan, Par-tholan, when. conquexed by the Milesians went part into Connaught aiid part into Cornwall and Devon, becoming extinct only in 1804. The extreme variation of the sounds and inflections in-flections were brought, about by succesive developments, develop-ments, just as we see how the English of today is different from that of the time of Caucer, whom Ave cannot read without a dictionary. As for the lable of numerals and their relativity, that is little consequqence. The correlation of all languages is admitted. "It is in that derivation that the question rises. Mr. Eno makes a mistake in taking his unit of comparison, from the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, lie ought to have selected the oldest and then traced down, but no matter. I see that he follows the Century Dictionary in its derivations of the numerals and I am sorry that he did not find a. better authority, for' I have found the Century Dictionary in jts references to the Irish race, its antiquity and belongings, to be singularly deficient iii rcseareeh. Example: Speaking of the language, it says, "Jt is an adaptation of the Latin." I can-ndt can-ndt see how a language that existed a thousands years before Rome was founded, ever with all repudiation re-pudiation of greater antiquity (which it ha.s) can be an adaptation. Is Greek an adaptation J Is. Egyptian? Is Hebrew? They arc all so similar to the Irish that many words are exactly alike. All derived languages are progressi-e and contain con-tain more words and letters than the one whence they came. Polyglot English has 20 letters; its cousin-general, German. 26; Latin has 22, Irish has but 1G, aud Greek and Hebrew and Irish have furnished fur-nished to us mcderns the wealth that gives us a score of synonyms for the thought that ill Irish would have but one expression. That is the ehara-actertistic ehara-actertistic of original languages; every word means exactly the thing wanted.. Dates we cannot reject. They tell us that Greece was before Rome, which had its hypothetical founding in 75G B. C'A Now, to- apply Mr. Eno's curiou system to his own logical discomfiture: Ten is deka in Greek, decern in Latin, deieh in Irish. If Mr. Eno 'understands how to pronounce Irish' he will see that the Greek and the Irish are practically the same, and the Latin different; ergo, the Irish' is vtot derived from the tongue which is different. It is related to that which is similar. Mr. Eno is not required to accept my deductions any more, than I do his. There is always authority for anything that is existent, it is not hypothesis or theory but fact in this case. : . J . |