the Book of Leacan, in which the names of the letters are bor- 

 rowed from trees. ;vti> t-ms b ; , 



The 3d chapter contains Remarks on the letters of the Irish 

 Alphabet.— Ill this chapter the commutability of the letters is treated 

 of; and it is stated that this property is not peculiar to Irish alone, \t^ 

 being common to all the other ancient languages. The sounds of the 

 letters, and the denominations and classes in Prosody to which 

 each letter belongs, are also mentioned. .;,"';' ! 



The 4th chapter treats of Pronunciation and Orthography. He re- 

 futes the objections preferred against the pronunciation of our Lan- 

 guage, as many words are pronounced differently from their ortho- 

 graphy. He shews the mutability of pronunciation, and that 

 letters are arbitrary signs, which alter in sound when they change 

 situation or become associated with others of different power and oiv- 

 gsmU'U He asserts the superiority of the Irish over all the other Celtic 

 dialebts in tracing the Etymologies of words, as it preserves the ra- 

 dical letter of the word in inflection. 



The 5th chapter treats of the modern Alphabet. It shews the 

 number, order, names and pronunciation of the Letters. The 

 Vowels witli their classification and correspondence in orthography, 

 and their combination into Diphthongs and Triphthongs. — He shews 

 that the vowel terminations of the Irish Language are twenty-three. 

 He then treats of the consonants, their number, sounds and classifi- 

 cation into mutable and immutable. The Pronunciation of the se- 

 condary mutes or mutable consonants, called also aspirated, is next 

 pointed out. Lastly, Double Letters, Eclipsis and Suppression of 

 Consonants are treated of. In these he has followed the Gramma- 

 rians who preceded him, viz. the Author of the Uraicept, O'Molloy, 

 Lluyd, Mac Curtin, and Doctor O'Brien in his remarks on the let- 

 ters throughout his Irish-English Dictionary. 



