356 EMERITUS PROFESSOR J. S. BLACKIE ON 



materials for supplying a satisfactory answer, viz., whether is the extremely 

 vocalic structure, and the weakness of the consonantal element observable in 

 the language of certain savage or semi-savage peoples, owing to the attrition of 

 time, or to an original defect in the lingual organisation of the race ? 

 Analogy leads to the former alternative ; but both answers are possible j and 

 local record alone, in the form of old inscriptions, or translations by missionaries 

 in early times, could supply materials for deciding definitely on one side rather 

 than on the other. 



XVIII. The peaceful disturbance of the national process of growth, in any 

 language, by the process of quiet decay and obliteration, takes place when a 

 small people with an inferior literature finds itself in close geographical con- 

 junction and in overpowering social connection with a people vastly superior in 

 number, in wealth, in intelligence, in policy, and in every element that consti- 

 tutes a highly developed social organism. In this case the language is doomed 

 to a slow, it may be, but to a certain death ; for as certainly as coals will be 

 imported from Newcastle or Fife or Mid-Lothian by those who have none in 

 Ross-shire or Caithness, so certainly will English ideas and English speech 

 penetrate into the remotest glens of the Celtic Highlands ; and though, as in 

 Ireland, from obvious causes, the people may assert a distinct and well-marked 

 nationality, the language in which their most cherished traditions have been 

 handed down will not be able to maintain its ground. Not that there is any- 

 thing desirable in the extinction of an old and venerable form of speech ; quite 

 the contrary. Let dying languages be preserved with pious care by those who 

 love them, and those to whom they belong ; there is no reason why we should 

 kick our grandmother into her grave merely because she is old; let her tell her 

 old stories and sing her old songs, nothing could be better — better even than 

 sermons sometimes ; but however good they may be, they can serve only for 

 our occasional recreation, not for our daily food. The Celtic languages in 

 Europe, with the miraculous facility of communication now everywhere to be 

 found, Avill certainly die out in a very few generations ; first in Ireland, strangely, 

 where the Celtic blood is most hot; second, in the Scottish Highlands ; and, lastly, 

 in Wales. The Scottish language, again, though daily dying out, even among 

 the lowest classes, as a medium of social intercourse, has a better chance of sur- 

 viving, in its lyrical Avatar, as the Doric dialect of the English, if only the 

 Scottish people would be true to themselves, and not submit so tamely to the 

 process of Anglification which, from obvious causes, is spreading so rapidly 

 over the land. A very little decent attention to the national music in our 

 highest as well as in our lowest schools would act powerfully in preserving in a 



n old age the most pleasant manifestation of our existence as a separate 

 people ; but the mass of men in all countries are lazy and cowardly — ol 7ro\\ol 

 kclkoI — and incline always to swim with the current rather than to ask whither 



