id, in Remark 89, is sometimes used; as, dorrid (darkness); and ynrice (upright, or sincere); ynrickys (uprightness), &c.
94. For sake of abridging the work, the reader is desired, in reference to derivative verbs and their conjunction into pronominals, with the auxiliary verbs shall, will, would, &c., to look to the radical verb, as the letter placed at the end of the explanation shows the initial from which the branch-word is derived; and the figures of reference under the radical answer the meaning in the same manner.
Of PECULIARITIES.
95. There are several principles peculiar to the idiom or phraseology of the Manks language, when compared with the English; such as the unnecessariness of the indefinite article a, in general.
96. One peculiarity is, that the Manks possesses a plural article, ny (the); as, ny deiney (the men); ny claghyn (the stones): y and yn are the singular definite articles. The collective nouns, such as, ollagh (cattle); sleih (people); lught-thie (household or family); maase (kine), &c., are, as in the English, not reckoned plural nouns; therefore, have only the definite article yn preceding them.
97. A grand principle in Manks is the adjective being placed after the noun or substantive. In English, the adjective has precedence; therefore the quality of a thing is mentioned before the thing itself; but in Manks, (more agreeable to reason and common sense) the substantive precedes the adjective; as, cabbyl mie (a good horse); booa ghoo (a black cow); magher mooar (a big field). There are a few exceptions.
98. In possessing a plural adjective, the Manks again has an advantage over the English, (there being no difference in the adjectives of singular and plural in that language); as, deiney mooarey (big or great men); croink ardey (high hills); thieyn beggey (little houses), &c.
99. Another, is the derivative adjective, as I have called it, of or belonging to a thing. My reason for distinguishing this class of adjectives from others is, that there are some nouns that have two adjectives which differ materially in their meaning; for instance, the sun; as, laa grianagh (a sunny, or sun shiny day), which I have left a common adjective; but greiney, I have marked an adjective derivative, of or belonging to the sun; as, chiass greiney (the heat of the sun, or the sun's heat); and glion (a glen or valley); glionnagh (having glens or valleys); glionney (of or belonging to the valley; as, fiee ny glionney (the ravens of the valley); and cassagh (having feet, or footed); as, maase eiar cassagh (four footed kine); coshey (of the foot or feet). The English of this class of adjectival words are aspen, hempen, oaken, baptismal, &c.
100. Another principle is, the language not making plural until three; the numbers of twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred, a thousand, &c. These are not twenty or forty men, but, literally twenty-man, &c. And I think the yn to shiaghtinyn redundant, as in Daniel ix. 25 26.
101. Another and grand principle is, the emphatic: some instances of this are given in the work; but any substantive, &c. may be made emphatical by adding 's, which requires to be sounded es to the substantive, &c.; as, dty chree's (thy heart, emphatically); dty obbyr's (thy work, emphatically), &c. In the English, the reader is left at sea without a compass, if he has not learned where to lay the emphasis, as few of the words differ in their form in that language for being emphatic; when unemphatical, thy is to be sounded the, and my, me, &c.
102. The substantives being all masculine or feminine, is another; there being no such anomaly in Manks as a neuter gender; we have however a few nouns, pronouns, and pronominals common to both genders. Some will have it that every word in the language is either masculine or feminine.
103. The verbs running into auxiliary terminations and pronominals; as, agh, ail, al, eil, ey, in, ins, it, yn, yms, and ys, as are shown by the remarks of reference throughout the work, is another principle.
104. The adjectives and participles throughout the language requiring to be brought under the letter s', to show the degrees of comparison, as set forth in the 58th Remark, are exemplified in the work under that letter, is another.
105. The greatest difficulty to attain, by a person that did not learn it when young, is the changing of the initials of mutable consonants, and of vowel letters, or the pronunciation of secondary mutes or aspirations. There is very little occasion for such changing in the English; but to give an English scholar some idea of it, it may be necessary to show him something similar in his own language. The words from home require no change; but let him say at home, and he can hardly say home without a hiatus, or longer stop than ought to be; he will be very apt to say at tome: this is changing the h to t in speaking. Or let him say at all, and if he be not very careful he will say at tall, or a tall, this is changing the a to t. Or let him say the words, make haste, and he will be very apt to say make kaste: this is changing the h to k; and it is, he will be apt to say it tis; this is changing i to t.
106. And the article an, which is nothing more than the article a with an n to come between it and the word initialled by a vowel, if it were placed before the vowel in the word would amount to nearly the same thing; then an egg would be a negg; and an awl would be a nawl; an eye would be a neye, &c. &c.; these are somewhat like the changing of the initials in the Manks.
