To The Editor Of The Time...
Sir-In your paper of Friday last, the 6th inst., you have ad-. verte to t e observations which I offeredl at the mecting of the Bible Society at the Egyptian Hall, on the preceding day. Do me the favour to insert the few following reasons for mry dis^ sentinu from the opinions which you have therein expressed. An first as to vour question, " Why are Bibles printed in the, Irish character and language ?" In 1810, the British and Foreign Bible Society determined on printing a version of the New Testament in Irish: "t this resolu. tion," say they, "has not been adopted, without much delihera. tion, and after the most minute inquir' into the expediency of it: the doubts on this subject, which have long delayed the execu- tion of this work, are not new, as the question respestiag the use of the Bible and liturgy in the Irish tongue was amply discussed in a convocation held in Dublin, in 1684; it was deuiided in the affirmative, and the arguments admitted in favour of the propn. tition did not appear to your comamittee to have lost their w-eight when considered as applicable to the question at this time." The principal argumcnt seems to have been,that the Irish langusge inlnot a mere provincial dialect. Excepting the neighbourhood of some of the large towns and along the sea coast, it greatly prevails throughout Munster and Connaught, and in the county of Kilken. ny; it is. much spoken in Iongford, AIeath, Louth, and WVeRt eatha Ty-rone, and Donegal: and by many in Carlow and WVex. ford, t,avan, Mouaghan, and Down ; so that, including the western and other coasts, it is an underrated estimate which calculates that of seven millions of the inhabitants of Ireland, above two millions are quite incapable of holding a continued discourse, or of receivin spiritual instruction, in the English language." You assert, however, that " tbere is not one In 10,000 (if, in2eed, any at all) who can read the Irish in the Bnglish character, but who can also read English as vwell, or much better ant wYith respect to the Irish language in the Irish character, it is known only to a very few persons in Ireland, and these, too, amongst the most learni ed in the country." Atgalo-" Of the hundreds of thousands wlif sonverse fluently in the Irish tongue, not one in a thousand can read it; and of the few who can, scarcely one can read it in the Irish charaeter; whil]e a1 sho read in either, can read the English much she best of the twvo." To these assertions I reply, that the number of persons who can read the Irish tongue, and can or will read no ether, are sufficent in number to consume a large edition of the Scriptures. The Londen H?ib, nian Society bave taught 8,000 adults to read the rrish lan. gu=te in the course of one year. The Baptist Irish Society have atdded to this number.* The Irish Society, also has at present 76 schools in Ireland for instructing in, the Irish iangruage; and has qualified above 1,000 persons in the county of Mleath alone to read that language, in the short space of nine months. On the whole it may be assertedthat there are at theleast'd0Oscheols at present exist. ing in Ireland, wherein children are instructed in tbeir native tongue concurrently with Englih;h aUlof which have been established within these very few years. They are increasing rapidly; and several pe- titions from parishes tn the soatb-west of Ireland, presented to per- sons likely to forward the establishment of schools for the Irish Ian. guage are amongst the pape.s which formed the ground.work of the report of the Commnissioners of Education in 1812. It appears, too, that in all of these Rchools the Bible is used as a school-book: that reading, writing, and arithnietic are taught. Asto the use of the lsiS character, I shall observe, the very great predilectian of the people for their native language has been ad- vanced as a good reason for comlmnencing their education in that tongue; and that popularity wonld surely be very much increased were it taught in the ancient character also. For there is a pecu- liarity in the lrish language, which all Irish scholars well under- stand, whic'h renders the use of the Irish character preferable; there are compositions of letters in Irislh which cannot be expressed by English letters; and, 1s in the ease of the dagash point of the hebrew tongue, they acquire a most material alteration in sound, and in sense too, by the adldition of a point affixed. WVhen the Irish language is printed in the English charaeter, this affection of the letter is attempted, somewhat clumsily, to be expressed by the ad- dition of the letter h. Now she occurrence of this peculiarity is so frequent, being the mark of almost all the inflections of the verbs and nounsp that it actttally reruires the repetition of the letter h for every nintn letter; so that, were the Irish books to be prlnted in the Englishl characteh and using the hs, the size and expense nf the book would be increased one-ninthX besides, the following difficulty is thus thrown in the 'ra of passing fioxi Irish to Ensglish, that dh, flt, g/s, sh/. tl, and others, are pronounced in the English lan. guage, -in a nianner totallv different frm the mode in which they are pronounced wheni representing the Irish peeuliarities above. mentioned: u nd thus-is an impediment pat in the way ,Sthtbe learn- er's transition from the acquirement of instruction in one language, to the knowledge of the other; for, though the Roman letter be- comes sooner known in its form, the understandling of its powerrs is made to be more difficult by this confusion. Then as to the facility oflearning this character,be it observed that the Irish-, alphabet consists but of 18 letters, of which only five differ in formn from those of the English-viz.j, g, r?.I, apd t. I shall merely add the opinion of Lord Teignmouth, expressed in a letter from his Lordship, which is published in the second number of the Quarterly Extracts of the Irish Societv:- " There is one argument in favour of publishing the Scriptures in the Irish language and character, which to nDe was conclusive-_ viz. thatif amidstthepopalationof Ireland there are only 2oronliv 10,000 Insh who vill read the Scriptures in their native dialect uniL character, and not in any other, they ought to have it. This argu- ment is strengthened in proportion to the niua ber heyoud !hose stated; but I am no less convinced that the shortest way to teach the Irish to read English books, is to instruct them first to read their own langage, so also says the goodl Bishop of St. David's respectr ing gthe W-felsh." Influenced by these considerations, the British and Foreign Bible Society have completed an edition of 20,000 copies of the New Tes- tament, are in progress with 6,000 copies of the whole Bible, and have granted (this year) 3001. to the Hiberniian Bible Society, to. wards grinting a pocket edlition of the Bible; all thlese are in tihe Irish character and langtuage. The Prayer Book and Homily So- ciety have printed 2,000 copies of prayers selected from the Liturgv; and have in progress, in Dublin, an edition of 1,500 copies of the whole Prayer Book in the same language and character : and their lastreport states " their convIction that the Irish versions, botbi of tile Bible and Prayer Book," (by Bishop Bedell), " are pure and classical, and intelligible, by the people in every province." The British and Foreign Bible Society have also granted, this year, 43,000 Bibles and Testaments to the London Hliberilan So. ciety, 16,000 to the Sunday School Society, for Ireland. aml 12 000 to the Ulibernian Bible Society; all these are in the English ian. guage._I have the honour to be. Sir. risf',,l,, WILLIAAM ALLYWWEVANSON. VI -3. kAuKe-S, uIla-street. 8, Union Terrace, OGindeatawno Nov. 8 1824. t as nsectsesar+y f2r tthen t?o teaechl these adults that tongue, the EDngileb, io as to understanid the Scrinute in It or nca theie poor people couild hlot rceivescrIptulral intuctSio in, tor leat-e ter languae, o>r could not tSo easily acquilre it as in their owsn. Irish Alphabet. The cterewitn and yrinted are2 thle saint. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.