CONTENTS. Introduction. First Part. The Doctrine of the Word. Section the First; Prosody, or, the Doctrine of Sounds. Page 1) The Nasal and the Liquid sounds (m, n, l, r) 2) The Lipsounds (p, b, f, ph, v, w) Page Transposition of Sounds, or, Metathesis Assimilation of Different Words and Double Forms of the same Word. INTRODUCTION. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The English language, at present diffused not only over Great Britain, Ireland and the surrounding islands, but also throughout the English colonies out of Europe, as well as throughout the commonwealth of North America, is a peculiar mixed language, formed within Great Britain. Its most essential constituent, the Anglosaxon, after the expulsion of the Celtic language, coalesced with Normanfrench elements, and has established itself as its formative power. The primitive inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland were Celts. Immigrant Belgic populations, which, even before Julius Caesar's time occupied the coasts of Britain, were likewise of Celtic stock, the most civilized among them being the inhabitants ot Kent. The Celtic language, peculiar to the whole of western Europe when the Romans took possession of Britain, is still spoken, as the language of the people, in Ireland, in the highlands and islands of Scotland, where subsequent immigrants from Ireland in the third century (Picts and Scots) displaced the ancient Caledonians from the West onwards; also in Wales and in the Isle of Man, as well as in French Lower Brittany. The Celtic literature of the druidical era has perished; a modern one has arisen only under the influence of foreign culture; its monuments extend up to the eighth and ninth centuries, but only in our own age have they become the subject of research. L. Dieffenbach and Zeuss, among the Germans, have devoted to it most comprehensive investigations (Celtica, in two parts. Stuttgart 1839 and Grammatica Celtica. Leipzig 1852. Two parts) while its modern idioms have been variously explored by English and French scholars. Even in antiquity a distinction was drawn between the two main branches of the Celtic tongue, the Gaelic (the same as Gaedelic, with a mute d) and the British. To the Gaelic branch belong: first, the present Irish, frequently called Erse; secondly, the Highland-Scotch, or Erse, commonly called the Gaelic; and, thirdly, the Manx. To Mätzner, engl. Gr. I. ༢ 1 |