STEWART, Alexander. Elements of Gaelic Grammar in Four Parts: Of Pronunciation and Orthography, Of the Parts of Speech, Of Syntax, of Derivation and Composition. Edinburgh: Printed by C. Stewart. 1812.
Interior Condition: Very Good. Second Edition (corrected & enlarged). Edinburgh, printed by C. Stewart. 16mo (12cm x 21cm). i+ a-c4, A-Z4,Aa-Bb4+i (fold out diagram tipped in between gathering Q & R, without signature), x-xxii, 1-200. Preliminaries, table of contents, and main text complete. Very minor, sporadic foxing; a historic reader (likely 19th c.) has left minor marginal notes & occasional text corrections in pen and pencil throughout. Binding condition: Fair to good. No red rot, leather is scuffed, corners show age, front cover board is slightly separated from spine though still thoroughly attached.
"I have one more request to make; that he [the reader] join his efforts with mine in serving a common cause, interesting to our country; and dear to every patriotic Highlander," writes Alexander Stewart (1764-1821).
The Presbyterian minster of Moulin, Dingwall, and Canongate, Edinburgh was also a scholar and advocate of the Goidelic Scottish language, Gàidhlig, or Scottish-Gaelic.
The suppression of the Celtic languages-- Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Manx, Cornish, and Breton-- in the British Isles and France was met with resistance. The Celtic Revival, beginning in the late 18th century into the 19th and 20th, saw a renewed interest in preserving the languages, literatures, and arts of the traditionally Celtic language-speaking peoples.
Stewart’s work, written for an Anglophone Scottish audience in order to install them with the ability to speak Scottish-Gaelic, contributes to this effort to revive and preserve the Celtic languages. Today, UNESCO reports Scottish-Gaelic as a “definitely endangered,” with some 57,000 reporting on the 2011 Census of Scotland an ability to speak Scottish-Gaelic.
"The Gaelic [language] is in manifest danger of falling into this discreditable condition, from the disuse of old idioms and distinctions, and the admissions of modern corruptions, unless means be applied to prevent its degenerating."
MB194