Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1894 — THE ERSE LANGUAGE. [ARTICLE]

THE ERSE LANGUAGE.

A Mellifluous Tongue Still Spoken by ITp J ward of 2,000,000. We are glad to notice as an event of literary importance, soys the New York Sun, tbe recent organization in Providence, R 1., of a Celtic society, the object of which is to revive interest in the mellifluous and influential tongue of Ireland. No other language, having itself no great masterpiece of literature, has had such effect on modern literature as the Celtic. To it we owe many of the fairy tales of our childhord; some of Shakspeare’s plays, some of the incidents detailed in the Arthurian poems, even some of those in the Devine Comedy, are drawn from Celtio sources. It was said of Washington: “Nature made him childless that he might be the father of his country;” so it might almost be said of the Celtio language, “Nature left it childless that it might be the mother of other literatures. ” The Celtic language is not a dead language. One-sixth of the population of the Emerald Isle (in round numbers, 800,000 persons) understand Erse; (iu,ooo persons there know no other language than it; one-third of the territory of Ireland is still Celtic, so far as the ability to understand the language is concerned, and upward of 2,Oix\OjO in this country and Canada are familiar with the tongue. The path of the new society and of its predecessors is uphill, but the ascent has an end. A century ago the Welsh language was really in worse case than the Erse is now, but by the exertions of scholars and the local clergy of Wales it was rescued, and to day is vigorous both in Wales and America. That similar success may await the Celtic sccletieß of this country in their patriotic labors we sincerely hope.