The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1880-01-06
.nlY that the Gaelic words were spelle.


THE PECULIAR GAELIC WAY,
but that poor Saxon Of theotisc wor
were spelled in the same fashion. TIL
pecnliarity of the Gaelic is in the use o
Of the figure Ecthlipsis. Originally tina
Language was marked by the use Of tbs
cultural CD and Oh at the termination o
syllables, but by refinement subsequently
introduced the final h Is not only not pro
nounced itself, but eclipses or renders
mute the letter before 1t. So Tighernaghl
one OF the most illustrious Of the famous
Irish annualists, is pronounced Tierndl
now modernized into Tierney, o vel
known family whose pride Of descent COM
pletely %extinguishes the comparatively
mushroom nobility that boast Of coming
into England with William the Norman.
So in the war.cry ERIN 90 bragh!" (Glo.
ty Tor the AryanJ the Oh Of bragh is entire
ly mute. So In the other war.cry ''Faugt
a braghm Onward, We SONS Of Bali, the
pronunciation Is tdE a bdlid, which is
very soft and %melodious, and not ut oil In
keeping with a bris,ling array OF gutturals,
Now, this system is applied to the Eng.
fish language. Plough" now spelled
"plow" by American lexiCograghers, was
spelled "ploHgh" originally because the
true pronunciation was really pioh or pIOo,
that being the genuine Anglo.Saxon word.
There was another reason, which will be
adyerted TO afterward. Daughter" ia a
Gaelic word, and so is daughter but the
pronunciation OF the latter is the effect Of
second element. Cough" which is prop
erly pronounced coth, ought, indeed, to be
spelled SO, for Goth, or cOthu, was the origi.
nal Saxon word, and was general for q dis
ease; SO fol Goth meant foot disease, heart
Goth heart-disease, brpc Goth the falling sick.
ness or epilepsy. Nigh" Is
NOT SAXON,
but is probably Gaelic. Flight is truly
Saxon, but it was originally spelt .fAi, the
use and power Of theh being to elongate
the /. The present sh is absolutely mean.
ingless, but is a survival OF the Gaelic
eclipse. So bright is purely Saxon, but it
was originally spelled britt. The fact is
that the rules were much more capable OF
expressing the various sounds OF the the
otisc than the Latin letters which the
monks introduced with the Christian re-
ligion. There were no less than forty
characters in the Anglo-Saxon runic syS.
TEN, and these have been very poorly re-
placed by the twenty.six Latin characters.
Originally there was no necessity for such
n use OF the h as occurred in flint, britt,
and similar words, for this was but an ex-
pedient rendered necessary by the faulty
character Of the new alfa6et. Almost all
the yagaries OF spelling can be traced to
.,n "a tnta tIttnFro-kl1a atfnRto nj thn A ~
glo.Saxons to make their religious alfabet
answer to their noble, their glorious, po-
etic, sonorous. lovable language; and the
subsequent efforts Of the English, when
literature dropped its Latin robe and as.
sumed a national one, to define their pro-
nunCiation. Being in a great measure
Gaelic, they did this in Gaelic way. 1t
must be understood that the language
called Anglo.Saxon was not developed in
England, for the most noble efforts OF the
literature, the Song OF Beowulf and the
Travellers Song, are purely continental,
and were written perhaps, ages before the
DAYS Of the systematic.
IrvAsloSs OF britain.
These so-called barbarians, these rude
Saxons and Franks, had q literature sec
ond to none, before yer they set foot on
British soil. And 1t is within the bounds
OF possibility that the pride OF Germany,
the great Niebelungen Lied, is but q late
faint, and shadowy rendering OF that su-
perb epic poetry Of which the world at
large is so profoundly ignorant, but which
sprang into existence at an unknown
period on the southern shores OF the Bal
tic in that part OF Europe which is now
Prussia. This was the true Anglo-Saxon
land, and here was elaborated that peer
less language which in England has been
a triile marred by Gaelic spelling. The
other element in the English genealogical
system is the Slavonic. Such linguists and
ethnologists as Schafarik have demonstrate
ed beyond q peradventure the Slavonic
character OF the names OF some places In
England. There is Beltisioi in Lincolnshire,
Clackmannan, OF which the old name was
Krakaba (Cracow), S%orbiodanum fold Sa-
RUM the fortified hall OF the children OF
the Serbs, Windermere the Lake OF the
Winds, Vindeglodia (Winchester) the City
of Winds, Venedotia Nomenclature the
Province OF the Winds, Stoke Pogis the
City of God, Will OF the Wisp, villa or
Spirit OF the Marsh. The slayonic religion
consisted in a worship OF tho Godhead
Bog, refined into the dual principleoi good
and evil, Belti-bog the good or white god,
Czernibog the black or bad god. After
these the twain Slavons adored the villas,
or spiritual
FORCES OF HI UNIVERSE,
as, for example, the Villas of water in the
running stream, the mountain lake, the
still pool, or the gushing stream. All the
delightful literature Of nymphs aud river
gods had a Slavonic basis. All the fairy
folklore dates from Slavonic authorship.
So we find rivers called Wiley, and VIII
aine, and wilma. For the same reason the
letter W was their sacred and favorite
latter. The Gothic race adopted this letter