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Guide to Gaelic Conversation and Pronunciation: With Dialogues, Phrases, Vocabularies, and Forms of
Excerpt from Guide to Gaelic Conversation and Pronunciation: With Vocabularies, Dialogues, Phrases, and Letter Forms
This book is published chiefly to supply a need felt by visitors to the Highlands, the want of an english-gaelic handbook of phrases and dialogues, in which English sentences are followed by their Gaelic equivalents. In preparing the dialogues the author was guided to some extent by the numerous phrasebooks of other European languages, but the peculiar circumstances of the Highlands and the Highland tongue necessitated the introduction of new subjects and the adoption of new forms. It was also necessary on account of the large number of idioms used conversationally in both Gaelic and English, to add a pretty long list of idiomatic phrases. The vocabularies, which occupy the first fifty pages of the book (with the exception of some proper names), consist entirely of words in everyday use. As it is difficult to represent the finer shades of Gaelic vowel-sounds by any system of phonetics, it is recommended that the learner should get the pronunciation viva voce Wherever practicable. When that is not possible, the Gaelic should be read from the centre column, the third column being referred to only when the pronunciation is doubtful. In this way the student will soon acquire the habit of reading correctly from the ordinary Gaelic spelling. It is hoped that this little volume will be found useful as a handbook for strangers in the Highlands, as a book of reference for Highlanders themselves, and as the best introduction to Gaelic for those who Wish to become acquainted with that language.
This book is published chiefly to supply a need felt by visitors to the Highlands, the want of an english-gaelic handbook of phrases and dialogues, in which English sentences are followed by their Gaelic equivalents. In preparing the dialogues the author was guided to some extent by the numerous phrasebooks of other European languages, but the peculiar circumstances of the Highlands and the Highland tongue necessitated the introduction of new subjects and the adoption of new forms. It was also necessary on account of the large number of idioms used conversationally in both Gaelic and English, to add a pretty long list of idiomatic phrases. The vocabularies, which occupy the first fifty pages of the book (with the exception of some proper names), consist entirely of words in everyday use. As it is difficult to represent the finer shades of Gaelic vowel-sounds by any system of phonetics, it is recommended that the learner should get the pronunciation viva voce Wherever practicable. When that is not possible, the Gaelic should be read from the centre column, the third column being referred to only when the pronunciation is doubtful. In this way the student will soon acquire the habit of reading correctly from the ordinary Gaelic spelling. It is hoped that this little volume will be found useful as a handbook for strangers in the Highlands, as a book of reference for Highlanders themselves, and as the best introduction to Gaelic for those who Wish to become acquainted with that language.
124 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1905
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