PREFACE.
THE Grammar of Spoken Irish presents many difficulties owing to the forms peculiar to different places, but as the literary usage embraces the dialects current in different localities, save a few archaic survivals, the literary usage has been adopted as the standard of this grammer.
Modern Irish may be said to date from the end of the 16th, or the beginning of the 17th century. At the commencement of the modern period many forms are found which belong to an earlier period, and many forms which have since grown obsolete, side by side with those by which they have since been replaced. We have deemed it advisable not to introduce into this grammer any obsolete grammatical forms, how prominent soever they may be in early modern literature. However, as students preparing for public examinations are frequently required to read the works of early modern authors, we have added in the present edition an appendix containing the verb-system of early modern Irish. Such early modern grammatical forms as survive only within a small area are not given in the large type; on the other hand, those grammatical forms generally found in literature, and which are still in use in any one of the three Irish-speaking Provinces, are given in the large print in preference to those more generally used by Irish speakers, but which are not found in literary works. It is hoped that this method may help to popularise Irish literature, and to reconcile in some degree the slight discrepancies which exist between the spoken and the literary usages.
In the present Grammar the letters l, n, and r are reckoned among the aspirable consonants, and s is omitted
