50 



G.EA 



GAELIC LANGUAGE 



It breeds in marshes, and lays from seven to nine 

 eggs. Its voice is loud and harsh. It is much 

 esteemed for the table, and is common in the 

 London market, being imported chiefly from 

 Holland. 



or GE, in Greek Mythology, the goddess of 

 the earth, appears in Hesiod as the first-born of 

 Chaos, and the mother of Uranus and Pontus. She 

 also bore the Titans, Cyclopes, Erinyes, Giants, &c. 

 As the vapours whicli were supposed to produce 

 divine inspiration rose from the earth, Gsea came 

 to be regarded as an oracular divinity ; the oracles 

 at Delphi and Olympia were believed to have once 

 belonged to her. Her worship extended over all 

 Greece, black female lambs being offered on her 

 altars. She was also the goddess of marriage, and 

 again of deatli and the lower world. At Rome 

 Gsea was worshipped under the name of Tellus. 



Gaekwar. See GUICOWAR. 



Gaelic Language and Literature. 



Gaelic is the language of the Goidel or Gael. The 

 term includes Irish and Manx as well as Scottisli 

 Gaelic, though popular usage frequently restricts 

 its application to the last alone. The tribes who 

 spoke this language were known to the Romans as 

 Scott; and native authors, especially when -they 

 wrote in Latin, sometimes made use of the word to 

 designate the people. Their principal home was in 

 Ireland, and accordingly with writers like Adamnan 

 Scotia is 'Ireland,' and lingua Scotica, 'Gaelic.' 

 About the beginning of the 6th century a fresh 

 colony of these Scots settled in Argyllshire, and 

 founded the sub-kingdom of Dalriada. They were 

 followed some sixty years later by Columba's 

 mission to lona. The people prospered in their 

 new home, and by the middle of the 9th century 

 Kenneth MacAlpin, one of their race, became king 

 of Pictland as well as of Dalriada. In after-years 

 the names Scotia and lingua Scotica followed these 

 successful colonists, and Scotland became the name 

 of the kingdom founded by them. At a later 

 period Scot and Scottis toung were applied to the 

 Teutonic tribes settled in Scotland and their speech, 

 and then it became customary to speak of Gaelic 

 as Irish, or corruptly Ersch and Erse. But to the 

 people themselves such designations are unknown. 

 With them Scotland has always been Alba, Albainn, 

 as distinguished from Eirinn, ' Ireland,' &ndSasitnn 

 ( Saxon ), ' England ; ' and a Scotsman, whether Celt 

 or Teuton, is Albannach. They themselves are 

 Gaidheil, ' Gaels, ' in contradistinction to Gaill, 

 'strangers,' a word applied of old as a general term 

 to the Norwegian and Danish invaders, but now to 

 the Lowland Scot ; their territory is Gaidhealtachd, 

 ' Gaeldom,' as distinct from Galldachd or ' Low- 

 lands ; ' and their speech Gaidhlig, ' Gaelic, ' in con- 

 trast to Beurla, formerly Belre, a word originally 

 signifying ' language ' simply, afterwards an ' un- 

 known ' or ' foreign tongue,' and now among High- 

 landers restricted to the foreign tongue best known 

 to them ' English. ' When it becomes necessary 

 to differentiate, they speak of Gaidhlig Albannach, 

 ' Scottish Gaelic ; ' Gaidhlig Eirionnach, ' Irish 

 Gaelic ; ' and Gaidhlig Mhanannach, ' Manx Gaelic. ' 

 What the language of the tribes occupying the 

 north of Scotland, and collectively spoken of by the 

 Romans as Picts, was, is not definitely ascertained. 

 As in their blood, so in the speech of these people, 

 there was probably a dash of pre-Celtic. That the 

 language was largely a Celtic dialect is proved by 

 such names as Caledonia, the root of which we have 

 still in coill, in origin as in meaning the equivalent 

 of holy ; Clota, now Cluaidh, ' the Clyde, ' a word 

 equated by Whitley Stokes with cluere, ' to wash ; ' 

 Orcades, ' isles of ore ; ' or, restoring initial p, ' isles 

 of pore ' i. e. ' pigs ' or ' whales ' a whale being 

 stiu in Gaelic a ' sea-pi?. The idioms of Pictland 



in those days seem to have been, in so far as Celtic, 

 more closely allied to the Brythonic than to the 

 Goidelic dialects (see CELTS); but the Dalriads, 

 powerfully backed by the Columban clergy, after- 

 wards made Gaelic the ruling speech over the whole 

 kingdom. It was the language of the court until 

 Malcolm Canmore's day. The political and ecclesi- 

 astical ideas which Queen Margaret favoured were 

 hostile to Gaelic, which from her time has been retir- 

 ing steadily though slowly north and west. We get 

 a glimpse now arid again of its retreating footsteps. 

 Gaelic was the vernacular of Buchan in the 12th 

 century, probably much later. The ability to speak 

 the language is one of the accomplishments credited 

 to James IV. by the distinguished Spanish ambass- 

 ador, Don Pedro Pueblo. It was spoken in Gallo- 

 way in Queen Mary's reign, and the echoes of the 

 old tongue lingered in the uplands of Galloway and 

 Carrick down to the 18th century. It was the 

 mother-tongue of George Buchanan, Scotland's 

 greatest scholar, born at Killearn in Stirlingshire. 

 Captain Burt mentions that until shortly before 

 the Union, when the farmers of Fife sent their 

 sons as apprentices to the Lothians, it was made 

 a condition of indenture that the boys should be 

 taught English. The sweeping measures taken to 

 punish the Clans who took part in the rebellion 

 of 1745 ; the introduction of sheep-farming into the 

 north ; the spread of education ; facilities of com- 

 munication by steam and rail ; the extension of the 

 suffrage all have in their way been the means of 

 introducing the use of the English tongue into even 

 the remoter parts of the Highlands, though without 

 largely contracting the Gaelic-speaking area. This 

 venerable language is still spoken over the whole 

 of Arran, Argyll, Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland ;: 

 in considerable portions of Perth and Caithness ; 

 and in the upland corners of Dumbarton, Stirling, 

 Aberdeen, and Banff'. According to the census of 

 1891 the number of persons who spoke Gaelic only 

 in Scotland was 43,738, while 210,677 spoke both 

 Gaelic and English. Emigrants from the High- 

 lands carried their mother-tongue to America and 

 Australia. In the end of last century Gaelic took 

 root in Carolina; but the use of it in the United 

 States and in Australia is largely on the wane. 

 The language is, however, preached to large and 

 flourishing congregations throughout wide tracts- 

 of the Dominion of Canada. Through the exer- 

 tions of Professor Blackie a Celtic chair was 

 founded in 1882 in the university of Edinburgh ; and 

 by the deed of foundation the professor is bound to 

 make ' provision for a practical class in the uses 

 and graces of the Gaelic language, so long as that 

 language shall be a recognised medium of religious 

 instruction in the Highlands of Scotland. ' 



From the Dalriadic immigration until the Nor- 

 wegian and Danish invasions, a period of 300 years, 

 Ireland and Gaelic Scotland may be looked upon 

 as one. The language and literature of both were 

 the same. The Norwegian settlement caused a 

 temporary dislocation. The Hebrides were placed 

 under one government with the Isle of Man, and 

 to this day a Manxman finds Gaelic more intel- 

 ligible than Irish. During this period Scottish 

 Gaelic, separated from the parent tongue, and sub- 

 jected on the one side to Norse, on the other to 

 Pictish influence, developed certain characteristics 

 which are still traceable. But, when things settled 

 doM'n, the old ecclesiastical and literary relations, 

 between the Highlands and Ireland were resumed,, 

 and maintained until the Reformation. A com- 

 mon literature checked the tendency of the two- 

 dialects to diverge. Accordingly, the differences 

 between Scottish and Irish Gaelic may be regarded 

 as mere variations of dialect, which in the spoken? 

 tongues shade into each other. In point of lan- 

 guage Ulster is as far removed from Munster as from. 



