# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Greece/Part III.—Greek Language.

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PART III.—GREEK LANGUAGE.
The possession of a common language was always re garded by the Greeks themselves as the most significant and important of the bonds which united the scattered mem bers of the Hellenic nationality. Wherever there was a community speaking the Greek tongue, whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa, from Olbia on the Hypanis to Gyrene in Libya, from Salatnis in Cyprus to Alaelaca near the Pillars of Hercules, there was a portion of the Hellenic people linked to the rest by mutual intelligibility, and sharply marked off from the jabbering and inarticulate fidpfiapoL who surrounded them. The earliest written records of this speech are probably to be found in what was at the same time the most precious common possession of this great nationality, the poems that bear the name of Homer. It is possible indeed that, in the form in which they have come down to us, they are later than the fragments of the earliest elegiac and iambic poets, such as Callinus, Mimnermus, Archilochus, and Simonides of Amorgus ; but it cannot be doubted that in substance they go back to an earlier date. These, however, are in a literary language, a language which bears the most evident marks of a free combination for artistic purposes of various popular dialects, along with many reminiscences of archaic forms and usages, and not a few formations due only to false analogy. For the early history of the Greek language we are obliged to have recourse to the reconstructions of linguistic science.
Origin of the Greek Language.
Comparative philology shows us that there was a time when the ancestors of the various nations which speak what are generally known as Indo-Germanic 1 languages lived together and had a common speech. From the extent and character of the agreement between these various languages at the time when they first become known to us from written records, it is possible to a certain extent to determine which groups remained the longest in con nexion with each other, and which parted off the soonest from the common stock. Unfortunately scholars are as yet by no means at one as to the results to which this method of inquiry leads us. Schleicher, e.g., held that the agreement between the Aryan or Asiatic group of languages and the South-European (in which he includes not only Greek and Italian, but also Celtic) is closer and more significant than that between the latter and the North-European, i.e., the Teutonic and the Letto- Slavonic group. Max Miiller and Joh. Schmidt maintain that the relations of the various languages are so compli cated that it is impossible to establish any " genealogical
1 The numerous and forcible objections to the term " Aryan" have been often pointed out, and the word finds little favour with most philologists. For the most recent defence of it see Zimmer in Bezzenberger s Beitrdge, vol. iii. pp. 137-158. The name "Indo-European" is apparently, but not really, more exact. ​tree," or to determine the order in which they separated from each other (see Schmidt s Die Verwandtschafts- verhaltnisse der Indogermanischen Sprachen, Weimar, 1872). But the prevailing view is still that of Lottner, Curtius, Jolly, Fick, and Scherer, that we may with confidence assume the first division to have been that between the Aryan or Asiatic (Indo-Persian) and the European groups, and that there are sufficient points of agreement between all the European languages to warrant us in assuming that there was a period of some duration during which the European peoples remained united.
Of these points of agreement the most important are the amon following : ropean ^ r pj ie vowe j a j s f oun( j t have " S pHt " on European soil into the three vowels e, a, o, that is to say, there are numerous instances in which the European languages agree in degrading a primitive a into e or o when the Asiatic tongues either retain the a or weaken it quite independently into i. 2. The Europeans agree in softening a primitive / into I, where the Asiatics have retained r. 3. There are a large number of new words, and apparently even some new roots, common to most, if not to all, the European lan guages, of which no trace is to be found among the Indo-Persians. 1 These facts cannot be set aside by instances of agreement in inflexion or syntax between Greek and Sanskrit, for example, for it is much easier to believe that at the com paratively late date at which any Teutonic language is known to us, and much more so, at the far later date of the earliest Celtic records, the inflexions which they pre sumably once had in common with Greek had become to a large extent worn away and unrecognizable and the syn tactic constructions modified, than to suppose that such numerous instances of agreement were wholly fortuitous.
A similar course of argument fairly leads to the pre- sumption of a common Grseco-Italic nationality. The agree ment in vocabulary is still closer than that between the various members of the united European group: for in stance, while the general terms for agriculture are shared not only by Greeks and Italians, but also by Teutons, Celts, Slavs (though not by Indo-Persians), there are many special terms which are only found on Greek and Italian soil, the most interesting among them being perhaps the words for wine and oil. Other words, again, which are used with a more indefinite meaning by the Europeans generally are specialized and differentiated in Grseco-Italic (Fick, Vergl. Worterb., ii. pp. 1-288; Curtius s Principles, 230b, 234, 597, &c.). Whether we may also assume (as is done, e.g., by Professor E. Curtius, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 19) that there was a common Grseco-Italic law of accentuation is pery doubtful, in face of the arguments advanced by Corssen in favour of a freer law of accents in the earlier times, both in Greek and in Latin. It is much more probable that the rigidity of the Latin system, and the exquisite flexibility and harmony of the Greek, were developed quite separately from a more fluid state. But undoubtedly there is a fax- greater similarity in the inflexional system of Greek and Latin than can be established between either of these and any other member of the group. 2
At the time when the common Indo-European unity was first broken up, the language had reached a stage of develop- ment which may be given with some confidence as follows. The steps assumed are those which have been established by Professor Curtius in his monograph, -Zur Chronologic der Indogermanischen Sprachforschung (2d edition, Leipsic, 1873). In spite of the criticisms to which this scheme has
1 See Curtius, Ueber die Spaltung des A -Lautes, Leipsic, 1864^ Fick, Die ehemalige Spracheinheit der Indogermanen Euro-pas, Gottingen, 1873; Vergleichendes Wbrterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen, 3d edition, Gottingen, 1876, where the list of common European words fills vol. i. pp. 471-843. Compare Grundz &ge, p. 93.
2 Sclileicher s doctrine as to the close relation of the Latin and the Celtic inflexions is not now generally accepted.
been subjected, by far the most important of which are those by Max Midler and Ascoli, it may fairly be said to maintain its ground, and it is reasserted with full confidence in Curtius s admirable work on the Greek verb.
We start with the period in which roots alone were em- ployed as words. As to the origin of these roots, philology is as yet quite unable to speak with any positiveness : all that can be said is that the imitative or onomatopoetic theory has not been proved to be capable of producing all the roots which we are compelled to postulate, while, on the other hand, no theory has been generally recognized as fit to be regarded as a serious rival. It is clear, however, that we must admit an extremely early, if not an absolutely primi tive, distinction of roots into verbal and pronominal roots, i.e., (1) such combinations of sound as were significant, and carried with them a notion which was vague and general, if not philosophically abstract, and (2) such as had no mean ing in themselves, but only served to denote relations.
The second stage is that of the "determination" of roots, Roots wherein, by the addition of different phonetic elements, they "det&lt; acquired a differentiated meaning e.g., when the very vague mme ju, "join," became jii-g, "join together," ju-dh, "join in battle." (It may here, however, be open to question whether the fuller forms were developed from the shorter by addi tions, or the shorter abstracted from the group of similar fuller forms, as Max Miiller is rather inclined to hold.)
The third stage is that of the formation of verbs, by the Verbs close combination of a verbal root with one or more prono minal roots, to denote the character of the subject of the verb. It is in the nature of this combination that we find the distinguishing feature of the Indo-Germanic stock of languages. At the same time we find (1) the " strengthen ing" of the vowel of the root, by the addition of the simplest vowel-sound a, to denote repeated or continuous as distinct from momentary action; (2) reduplication, originally producing the same effect, but afterwards, in a specialized form, denoting the continued result in the present of an act done in the past ; (3) the augment, a particle, originally demonstrative in its nature, prefixed to a verb to denote that the action expressed by the verb took place at a time removed from the present, i.e., in the past, To the same stage (though possibly to a later part of it) belongs the further development of terminations, so as to mark an action as having a special reference to the subject; this produces what is in Greek conventionally called the middle voice, but what is really a reflexive formation. We may take as types of the words created during this stage such forms as da-ta, "give there," i.e., he gives; da-da-fa, "he is giving;" a-da-m, "I gave;" da-da-mai, " I give with a view to myself."
In a fourth stage we get the expansion of the root into a stem, occasioned apparently, in the first instance, by the increasing need of distinguishing the noun from the verb. The earliest method of forming a stein was by the addition of a "thematic vowel" a to the root, to convey the notion of a continuous action; thus from bhar, "carry," came bhar-a, " carrying." Sometimes the vowel of the root was "strengthened" along with the addition of the thematic vowel; thus rik, "leave;" raika, "leaving." Afterwards other similar formative elements (or pronominal roots) such as ta, na, ma, tra, &c., were added to produce nominal stems of many various kinds. There is no reason to suppose that these were at first strictly differentiated in meaning ; thus par-nu- is " filled " not " filling," but su-nu- may be taken either actively or passively, "the begetter" or "the begotten," and tap-nu-is "the burning" fever. Sub sequently the instinct of language availed itself of variations in form to distinguish various relations, especially of gender. Again, when noun-stems came to be used, as the roots had previously been used, to form verbs by the addi- ​tion of the personal terminations, this modification of the stem served to distinguish mood. Thus when the vowel a was added to a root from which a verb was already formed, the inflexions of this extended root or stem denoted an action intended to be performed, and thus acquired the force of a conjunctive mood. The addition of the vowel having thus obtained this differentiating power, it was afterwards affixed with the same force to stems already provided with a, the contraction of a + a giving d ; hence, just as han-ti is "he kills," han-a-ti, "let him kill," so we get bhara-ti, "he is carrying," bhard-ti, "let him be carrying."
In a fifth stage compound verbal forms make their appearance, i.e., tense-stems are produced by the union of primary verb-stems with the roots of verbs which have become simply auxiliary. That this must have been at a later stage than the preceding processes is clear from the fact that verbs only gradually lose their full meaning, and sink into auxiliaries. The verbs so used are (1) as, originally "breathe," afterwards "be ; (2) ja, "go"; (3) dha, "do." From the composition of the first with a verb-stem we get forms like those of the compound or so-called first aorist e.g., a-dik-sat, "he pointed" ( = e-Set/c-o-e-r). Here we have the union of a root (in this case acting as a noun-stem) with ths auxiliary verbs in the third parson, preceded by the augment ; a-dik-sa-t is to the earlier form a-da-t much as "turn dicens erat" is to "turn dans." These formations belong to the earliest stratum of this period, inasmuch as the stem appears in its simplest form. For a like reason we must assign to the same stratum the compounds of ja with the simple stem. This auxiliary is used to denote relations which were at first somewhat indefinite but were afterwards more precisely differentiated. There is (1) the present of duration: e.g., svid-jd-mi, "I am sweating;" (2) the passive force thus derived, as in Sanskrit ja is a sign of the passive: e.g. bodh-a-ti, " he knows," bodh-jd-te, "he is known;" (3) the tendency to do a thing, i.e., the optative mood : as in as-jd-m, the primitive form of siem (sini) and firjv. There is also to be noted, as belonging to this stage, the very important present of duration from the root as, i.e., as-jd-mi, which acquired for itself, and when affixed to roots or stems gave to them, the force of a future. With regard to the root dha, the widely varying force which its compounds have in the different cognate languages prevents us from determining with certainty the manner in which it was originally employed in composition (cf. Curtius, Das Verbum, ii. 352). To a second stratum of the same period must be assigned those compound verbal formations in which the stem is not a pure root, but has already been developed into a stem which has the character of a noun. If we com pare, e.g., bhdra-jdmi ( = c^ope-Jw-//.^, " I am bearing," with svid-jd-mi, we find in the first a nominal theme employed for composition and inflexion, in the second a simple root. It is of much importance to notice that here too the verbal formation must have preceded the formation of cases. Had the accusative bJtdra-m been in use, it would have been im possible not to employ it in connexion with a verb-form like jd-mi, just as the Romans said venum dare, datum iri, and the like, and as Sanskrit forms the periphrastic perfect of the tenth conjugation, by uniting the auxiliary verb with the accusative e.g., k orajdm k dkdra, bodhajdm babhilva, &c. We are led to the same conclusion by considering forms like a-dik-sa-nt, by which the absence of plural inflexion is not less clearly indicated than the lack of case-inflexions by bhdm-jd-mi. It has been urged, e.g., by Professor Max Miiller, that this argument is a weak one, because our ancestors must have felt the need for clearly distinguishing the plural from the singular, and the nominative from the accusative, before the need for denoting the differences between the persons. To this it may be replied (1) that the argument from what must have been is one of the most dangerous that can possibly be used in philology; conclu sions a priori have again and again been disproved by a more complete acquaintance with the facts of the history of language ; (2) that, as a fact, incompletely developed languages do find it more easy to do without distinct marks of the cases than to dispense with personal inflexions, and that this is confirmed by languages like English and French, which have returned to an uninflected state more com pletely in the case of nouns than in that of verbs ; (3) that in the inflexion of nouns the sign of the plural is added to the case-suffix and not vice versa (e.g., Xwovs = XDKOV-S = varka-m-s), so that the use of the sign of case must have preceded that of the sign of number, although the latter might have seemed to us the more indispensable. Professor Mailer s argument that composition might have taken place in times subsequent to nominal inflexion, because the stem-forms show themselves in certain cases of declension, and therefore might have remained present in the conscious ness of those using the language, breaks down upon the essential distinction between the nature of the composition of the verbal forms in primitive times and of the construc tion of compound verbs within the historical period. We may therefore safely follow Curtius in holding it as at least highly probable that verbs were already inflected according to person, tense, mood, and voice at a time when nouns were still in the state either of simple roots (e.g., rA - ) or nominal themes (bhara, akva, sumi,pati, and the like). The needs of language at this stage were probably helped out (as at present in uninflected languages) by the position of the words, by the stress of the voice, and by a free use of pro nominal roots, which may have been already acquiring somewhat of a prepositional force. But one of the most important means of expression was undoubtedly composi- tion. The form which the elements of compounds take, rarely (and apparently never in any early word) appearing with any case-inflexion of the first element (as in ov Sei/oo-wpa, Surpeff)^, d/x^opecif^opos), but presenting themselves simply as stems (Xoyo-ypa&lt;o-s, &c.), show s that at any rate the mould in which they were cast, the analogy on which later compounds were freely fashioned, was constructed at a time whon nouns were not inflected. The various relations which the factors of the compounds bear to each other point to the same fact. We find in Greek, according to the very clear and careful statement of Curtius (Grammar,^ 359 ; cf. Elucidations, pp. 172-178) three kinds of compounds : (1) determinative, in which the second factor is the principal, which, without altering its meaning, has it defined by the first; e.g., d/cpoTroXi? = aKpa 770X19; (2) attributive, where the first factor defines the second, but so as to alter its mean ing, the two combining to form anew idea ; e.g., yua/cpo-^tp = //.a/cpa&lt;; xcipas t^u&gt;v ; (3) objective, in which one of the two words is grammatically governed by the other, so that in paraphrasing one of the two must be put in an oblique case ; e.y., lyvi-OYO-s = TO, i^via e^wv, &lt;iXo-/xot cro-s = o rag Mot cras &lt;iXu&gt;v, d to-Xoyo-s = Xoyov aios, 6fo-fiafBr]&lt;; = VTTO Oeov /3e/3Xa/x/aeVo9, ^eipo-Troi ^TO-s = X C P" Tonqros. (Simi larly Max Miiller, Sanskrit Grammar, 513, gives six classes of Tatpurusha compounds, according as the first element stands in an accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, or locative relation to the second, with numerous examples.) Curtius justly calls attention to the epithet 7rarpo&lt;ov??a as applied in the Odyssey to yEgistheus in re lation to Orestes, " one who had slain his father." It is evident that composition, used as freely as forms like these indicate, could have taken very largely the place of case- inflexions.
The origin of the cases, which marks a sixth stage, presents much more difficulty than the origin of verbal flexion. But one broad division may at once be made. The voca- ​tive, nominative, and accusative are connected together much more closely than the remaining cases ; they coincide in the neuter gender, and no one of them ever interchanges with or becomes equivalent to any one of the other group. On the other hand, in Sanskrit the ablative often coincides with the genitive, and the locative (in the dual) with the genitive or dative, while in Greek the instrumental is re placed by the dative, in Latin by the ablative ; dative and genitive coincide in the Greek dual, dative and ablative in the Latin plural, and the locative always in Latin coincides in form with genitive, dative, or ablative. The vocative may be regarded as a relic of the preceding uninflected stage. The nominative and accusative are closely connected with theme-formation, and seem to have been but a new develop ment of the same principle. From a root svap, " sleep," came, as has been seen, at an early stage svap-na, "sleep ing"; from kar, "make," came kar-ta, "made." It was only an extension of the same method when the pro nominal sa and ma were added to the themes thus formed. Nominal inflexion was created as soon as it came to be re cognized that the last additions were movable, and that the same stem might, according to circumstances, appear with one or the other or with neither. The fact that -TO is found as the suffix of the nominative in some pronouns (e.g., Sanskrit aha-m = e yw-i/, tva-m = Twrj, &c.) seems to point to a time when this was used as a determinative for nominative and accusative alike ; but it soon became specialized as a characteristic of the latter. There is reason to believe that this process was facilitated, if not occasioned, by the use of the m-suffix to denote gender, or more strictly the absence of gender, in neuter nouns. It was only natural that the same suffix which distinguished the theme as a living being should be applied to mark it out as the subject or source of an action, while, conversely, that which denoted the absence of life should be used to mark the object. It is no improbable conjecture which finds in this accusative character of the sign of the neuter the ex planation of the ordinary Greek idiom which constructs a neuter plural substantive with a singular verb ; ra a&gt;a Tpe ^ei, " the animals are running." Further, the wide and varied usage of the accusative case in Greek appears to point to a time when it was the only oblique case. At a later period the second group of cases made its appearance ; this includes at least the genitive, ablative, dative, locative, instrumental, and sociative. Whether we are also to regard the various terminations which appear in some adverbs, which cannot be referred to any one of these, as originally case-suffixes is a question not easy to determine, and one which is, after all, rather one of terminology than of any real importance. The theory of the purely local force of the cases, attractive as it is at first sight from its simplicity, and its apparent conformity with the sound theory which bids us, in dealing with language, proceed from the concrete to the abstract, and not vice versa, breaks down when we come to apply it in detail. For the genitive, at any rate, it is much safer to postulate an original adjectival force, a view borne out both by striking similarity of formation in some instances (cf., e.g., Sry/xo-o-io, the earlier form of the Homeric S-^aoio, the Attic 8-^/j.ov, and S^d-o-io-?, "belong ing to the people") and by numerous analogies from various languages. It has even been conjectured, though perhaps on inadequate grounds, that the genitive had originally the final s, which was dropped only when the sense of its origin became obscured. In the ablative we have apparently a use of the pronominal element -ta corresponding to that of -sa in the genitive, and originally in the nominative, the a being afterwards dropped, so that vdk-a-s = vocis is to vdk-a-t = voce(d) as ja-s = is is to ja-t = i-d. The syntactic force of the ablative may often be represented as adjectival ; and the differentiation of the two cases may well be a product of later times. The earliest forms of the other cases, the formation of which has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained, will be pointed out below.
In the seventh period assumed by Curtius we have the Advert petrifaction of some forms of particular themes with case- an d P r &lt; suffixes, which were no longer declined throughout, and P osltio: thus gave rise to adverbs and prepositions. The adverbial force was undoubtedly the earlier, as we can see from in dications in the Homeric poems ; the prepositional force came later, first perhaps in connexion with verbs, and afterwards as governing cases. To the same period pro- bably belongs the singularly interesting form of petrified cases presented by infinitives. These have long been re cognized as cases of verbal nouns (nomina actionis) no longer inflected throughout. The agreement of the cognate languages in the use of this device for extending the range of language seems to be a sufficient indication that it had been introduced before the original unity broke up. At the same time the great variety of the forms actually selected by different languages as the basis of this con struction is a clear proof that no well-defined system of infinitives had then been brought into use.
Such were the stages by which, according to our greatest living authority, that language grew which was destined to be the mother, not only of Greek and Latin, but of al- most all the tongues in which human culture has found an utterance. It is by no means impossible to reconstruct it, at least in outline, as it must have been spoken before the original unity broke up. This task has been attempted, so far as its phonetic laws and inflexional forms are concerned, by Schleicher in his well-known Compendium der ver- gleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen (3d edition, Weimar, 1871) ; and its vocabulary has been recon structed by Fick in his Vergleichendes Worterbuch already referred to, Schleicher indeed ventured to narrate a brief story in this primitive language (Kuhn s Beitrdge, vol. v. pp. 206 sqq.). 1 On particular points he may well have been mistaken. The tendency of modern philology is to admit within the period of the united national life a fuller develop ment than that assumed by Schleicher. Several scholars, working along different lines of research and entirely independently, have established the great probability of a bifurcation of the gutturals ; and it is by no means certain that the vowel system was not already becoming more rich and varied. We have probably to admit that dialectic dif ferences already existed, such as could hardly have failed to arise, even before the nation broke xip completely, so soon as it attained any considerable magnitude. And above all it must never be forgotten that we are dealing with the pro ducts of a period to which chronological limits cannot well be fixed, but which language gives us strong reasons to be lieve must have been at least as long as that to which the data of other branches of anthropology appear to point. It is impossible to be sure that all the elements which are introduced were ever strictly contemporaneous. Our review of the history of the language thus far is enough to show that one form may have begun to show traces of phonetic decay at a time when another form was not yet created. Hence M. Bre"al (Melanges, p. 376) does well to warn us against the common error of philologists in endeavouring to get more out of the reconstructed " primi tive speech " than the facts on which it is based will warrant. But used with discretion it affords a highly con venient means for stating the results to which the com parison of languages brings us. For our present purpose it will be well to mark one intermediate stage between the source of the Greek lan-
1 Mr J. P. Postgate has published a similar composition (Academy, June 14, 1879), re-written by Mr T. C. Snow (ib., June 28) on the principles of Bruginaa and De Saussure. ​guage thus revealed to us and the language itself as given in its earliest records, by noting the common Graeco-Italic modifications of the primitive speech.
The original sounds of Indo-Germanic speech may be conveniently tabulated thus :—
unds. Consonants. Vowels. Momentary. Continuous. Unaspirated. Aspirated. Spirant. Xasal. Guttural Palatal .. Surd. k Sonant. 9 Sonant. gh Surd. Sonant. j(y] r n m a i ai u au Lingual . Dental ... Labial ... t P d &(?) dh Hi S v (w)
That the later surd aspirates (kh, th, ph) were developed from the sonant by the influence of the aspiration seems to have been clearly proved by the very careful researches of Curtius. The fact that while Greek has surd (^, 0, &lt;) the Latin representatives of the same are initially the pure aspirate (k) or the spirant /and medially the correspond ing sonants (b, d, g) is enough to show that they had not lost their sonant character in Grseco-Italic times. On the whole the mutes must have remained unchanged. The numerous modifications of the k found in Greek (K, y, TT, T) are not to be traced in Latin, and although p often replaces it in Oscan and Umbrian, the fact that it rarely if ever does in Latin proves that the guttural was unchanged at the time of the separation except in the way of generating a parasitic w (v) or y (j). In the same way Latin shows no trace of the change of g to /?, though it has the parasitic v which sometimes causes the loss of the g ; thus /2ios and vivus point to a Gneco-Italic gvigva-s. It is doubtful whether the primitive language ever used b unaccompanied by the aspiration ; but Greek and Latin furnish us with sufficient words agreeing in this respect Fick quotes 25 to make it clear that this letter was so used before the separation. If Schleicher is right in denying I to the primitive lan guage and this seems very doubtful in face of the facts collected by Curtius (Principles, ii. 174) there can be no doubt that this was abundantly developed by the European unity ; and there seems to be no single instance of an r retained in Latin where Greek has A, while villus as com pared with epiov is the only case of the converse. The spirants undoubtedly remained in their full vigour. But while the Grseco-Italic consonants are on the whole the same as those of the primitive tongue, there is a highly important and significant change in the vowel-system. The original a, retained for the most part in Sanskrit, and modified in Zend only under conditions which make it plain that this is not a phenomenon of very ancient date there, has in Europe undergone a change in two directions. The very valuable paper by Curtius previously mentioned con tains five tables, from which it clearly appears that a (1) is retained in 106 Greek and Latin words ; (2) becomes e (i) in 102 ; (3) becomes o (u) in 56 ; (4) (a) is retained in Greek, becoming e (i) in Latin in 21; (b) ditto, becoming o (u) in Latin in 18 ; (c) remains in Latin, but becomes e iu Greek in 18 ; (d) ditto, becoming o in Greek in 11; while there are (e) 19 words in which Greek e (t) answers to Latin o (u), and (/) 10 in which Greek o answers to Latin e (i). Hence it is abundantly plain that the " thinning " of the primitive a to e and its " dulling " to o must have taken place in the great majority of instances during the Gneco-Italic period. The instances of agreement are three times as numerous as those of disagreement, and most of the latter are to be ascribed to the operation of well-known phonetic tendencies distinctive of the two stocks after their separation. It is worth noticing as to the other members of the European stock that, while there is a striking agree ment in the cases of the retention of the a or of its weak ening into e, this is not found with the third process, the dulling of a into o ; it is therefore legitimate to assume that the first was common to the European family, while the second was specifically Greece-Italic. Thus the numeral odo, the roots gno, "know," mo? , "die," od, " smell," olc (op), " see," and the words ovi-s, poii-s, porko-s, ovo-m, are all Grasco-Italic but not European.
The inflexion of nouns was complete before the time of inflex: the separation of languages. We have no reason to believe of nou that any new case-form was developed either in the Euro pean unity or in any individual nation after this date. The changes are wholly in the direction of loss. The cases which can be shown to have existed, and the terminations by which they were denoted, were as follows :
Singular. Plural. Dual. Nominative -s (s)a-s -(s)d(s}. Accusative -am am-s Ablative -at bhjam-s bhjdm-s. Genitive Locative -as (asja) -i (s)dm-s sva(s) aus(T). Dative -ai -bhjam-s bhjdm-s. Instrumental (i. ) Instrumental (ii. ) . . . (Sociative) Vocative . . -d bhi (no sign). bhi-s
In some cases these were modified according to the ter mination of the stem to which they were suffixed ; and the stems themselves suffered phonetic adaptation to the ter mination. Otherwise there was no distinction of declen sion, except that the fuller form of the genitive was used for the most part in the case of a-stems.
If we examine the changes which may be assumed for Grace the Grseco-Italic period we find (1) the first instrumental Italic case is retained only in a few Greek and (possibly) Latin ad- C 1W1 8 verbs, so that this may be supposed to have dropped out of ordinary flexion ; (2) the ablative is retained in Latin, and hence it was a Grosco-Italic case, though it appears in his toric Greek only in adverbs (Ka/ws, a&gt;?, &c.) ; (3) the loss of the dual in Latin makes it impossible for us to determine exactly the form of its inflexions at this period ; probably they had already become worn down to something like the form in which we find them in Greek ; (4) the existence of a final s in the nom. plur. of o-stems in some Italian dia lects (Old Latin equis, Oscan -os, Umbrian -as, Oscan fern, -as, Umbrian -as, -ar) shows that the analogy of the pro nominal declension had notyet established exclusively the -oi, -ai terminations, though these were doubtless already in use. In the flexion of adjective pronouns there is an agree ment in the nom. plur. (cf. TOI, rat, is-ti, is-ta?) which may be a Graeco-Italic development, the origin of the termin ation being obscure. In the declension of the personal pronouns it is to be noticed that the complete distinction of the stems used iu the first and second persons plural (a^,/xe- y^e-, v /x/x,e- v/j-f-, as compared with nos, ws) proves that the parallel forms asma-, nas, and jusma-, vas to which Sanskrit points as concur rently existing, were still used side by side. The comparison of adjectives was made by the employ ment of the same stem-suffixes (jans or tara, and ta, tama, &c.), though a different selection became the normal one in Greek and in Latin. The inflexion of verbs underwent far greater changes than that of nouns, after the separation, but mainly in the
​way of a fuller development. In Latin, however, we must assume a very extensive replacing of earlier formations by those of later origin ; for of many inflexions which are shown to have been Greece-Italic by the coincidence of Greek and Sanskrit, there are few if any traces to be found in Latin. The following principles of verbal flexion, the chief stages of whose development we have noticed above, had been established in the parent language :— 1. Stems were inflected by the use of suffixes denoting the three persons of the three numbers singular, dual, and plural. 2. Themes variously expanded were used instead of roots for stems, e.g., bhara-ti by the side of as-ti. Greek and Latin agree essentially in the methods used for forming present themes. 3. Middle or reflexive inflexions were developed by the side of those of the active voice. In Latin this system appears to have lost its significance by the gradual wear and tear of inflexions, and to have been replaced by one based on a wholly different principle. 4. A distinction grew up between primary inflexions, used for present and future tenses, and secondary inflexions, used for past tenses, where the increased length given to the word by the use of the augment caused the lightening of the termination, usually by the loss of the final vowel. 5. To form the conjunctive and optative moods a, and ja (i) were added to the tense-stems before inflexion. 6. A past tense was formed by the use of the augment and the secondary terminations. This became differentiated afterwards in Greek into (1) past imperfect, (2) simple aorist, according as the theme was or was not used without modification for the present tense. In Latin this tense was as a rule dropped in favour of the compounded past imperfect or perfect, but Ourtius has discovered some traces of it still in use. 7. A compound aorist was formed by the help of the verbal root as. This is also replaced in Latin by a tense of later creation the perfect ; but its occurrence in Sanskrit establishes it as Graeco-Italic. 8. A future was formed by the combination of the roots as and ja. Of this, again, there are but slight traces in Latin, the ordinary future being either a later compound with the root bhu, or an optative in origin ; but the agreement of Sanskrit and Greek establishes it for this period. 9. Participles or verbal adjectives were formed by the use of the suffixes ant, vant for the active and mana (meno), ta for the reflexive respectively. 10. The dative or (possibly) locative case of a neuter verbal substantive was used as an infinitive. It is certain that Latin in all cases adopted a substantive with the suffix as (giving -asai ere], while Greek in some instances employed one with the suffix man or an (giving -fj.fi/ai, -fvat, and perhaps in the accusative form fttv); it is not clear whether the more common Greek termination -eiv is closely connected with the Latin -ere (Ae / 7eu = Ae7e(&lt;r)ej =legese legere) as Curtius is inclined to think, or is of distinct origin. The researches of Curtius on the Grasco-Italic vowel- system enable us to determine with some confidence the phonetic character assumed by these inflexions. We may give as the common possession, not bharami, &c., but bheromi, bhcresi, bhereti, bheromes, bheretes, bheronti ; not akvos, &c., but ekvos, ekvom, ekvod, eJcvois, ekvoi, ekvdi, ekve, &c.
It was at this stage of inflexional development, and with a stock of roots and words which can still be ascertained with some approach to completeness, that the Greek language started on its separate career and commenced its independent history. The shape which it has assumed when it first becomes known to us from literary and epigraphic records is due to the action of its characteristic laws, some purely phonetic, and some due rather to the intellectual tendencies of those who used it. Of the phonetic laws four are especially distinctive : 1. Loss of Spirants. This is most extensive and important in its results : / (y) has entirely disappeared from the written language, and its existence is only to be detected from isolated traces in Homer, and perhaps in some inscriptions where / is probably used to denote it; v (w) in the form of f is found on some of the older inscriptions, and its introduction into the text of Homer is often required by the metre; but it is unknown to the ordinary written language ; s remains when final, and when in immediate contact with mutes, and also when it has assimilated to itself another consonant ; but before vowels it passes into the rough breathing, and between vowels it is as a rule entirely dropped. Instances of the effect of this loss of the spirants abound ; as an example we may take the primitive navasja, which becomes vtfoajo, veoio, veoo, and so veov. 2. Softening of the Gutturals by Labialism. It has been calculated that not less than one-sixth of the roots originally containing k or g present TT or ft in Greek. Hence the reduplicated past tense (1st sing.) from vak, "speak," a/cavakam, in Greek becomes ffefe-rrov, the Homeric eeiirov, Attic elirov. 3. Lightening of the Endings. Greek allows no consonants to end a word except s, v, and p, and shows a marked preference for vowel endings. Hence we often find one or more consonants dropped at the end. This gives a liquid flow to the language in which it has few rivals. 4. Eich Development of the Vowel System. In this again Greek is almost unrivalled. "While Latin shared with it the original splitting of the a, by its tendency to the loss of the diphthongs this language soon impaired the variety and expressiveness of its vocalisation, while Greek retained the full range undiminished. This was an advantage not merely for the euphony of the language, it added greatly to its expressiveness. Curtius has shown by many examples (Comparative Philology and Classical Scholarship, p. 33^.) how easily distinctions in meaning were given by this variety of vowels, which are expressed far more clumsily in other languages. We may notice here also the wide influences of zetacism. This is not limited to Greek, as Schleicher showed in the essay which first set forth its importance properly ; but it is more operative in Greek than in any language owing to the more complete disappearance of they, which coalesces with some other consonant, usually a d, original, modified, or parasitic, to produce it. Thus sad-ja-mai became fc/xai, varg-ja-mi, peo&gt;, &c.
While these laws act naturally, and, so to say, mechanically, we must ascribe to the intellectual character of the Greeks another marked feature of this language, the enormous development given to their verbal system. Six fonns wholly new tenses were created after the separation from the Italian stock, the future perfect, the compound pluperfect, two passive aorists, and two future passives. Besides, the whole system was worked out with wonderful completeness ; so that while an ordinary Latin verb has 143 possible inflexions, a corresponding Greek verb has no less than 507. In some instances we can see the creative process still at work, as, e.g., in the case of the perfects in -κα, which are all but unknown to Homer,
The Historic Stage of Greek.1
The legend of the sons of Hellen, as we find it in Apollo- Divisiodorus, is of course entirely destitute of historical authority, of the but it serves as an indication of what the Greeks felt to be Greek a natural division of their race ; and from this point of view race it is largely confirmed by language. The story runs that Hellen left his kingdom to ^Eolus his eldest son, while he sent forth Dorus and Xuthus, the father of Ion, to make conquests in different lands. We see from this that the vEolic dialect was regarded as the oldest representative of Hellenic speech, that the Dorian came next to it, and that the Ionian, out of which the Attic subsequently sprung, was regarded as belonging properly to a later period. On the whole this view is not misleading ; but it requires some qualification. In the first place this division is more satisfactory for literature than for history ; the names vEolic, Doric, Ionic, and Attic cover well enough the written literature of Greece, but are hardly comprehensive enough for all the spoken dialects. These were literally innumerable, we are told that the tiny island of Peparethus had three clearly distinct, and they shaded off one into another by
1 In dealing with this part of the subject no attempt has been made to record the ordinary forms of inflexion as given in grammars, a knowledge of which is assumed. For the Greek alphabet reference may be made to the article Alphabet, vol. i., especially pp. 609-610. Much which is closely connected with the history of the language finds its place more properly under the head of Literature. ​slight gradations. The influence of mixed populations is often seen to tell upon their language ; and sometimes race distinctions do not tally with those of dialect ; thus the ^Eolians of the Peloponnesus adopted a dialect essentially Dorian, while the Dorians of Halicarnassus spoke Ionian. It is often a matter of dispute under which head a partic ular dialect shall be placed, and whatever division may be made, connecting links are sure to be found between mem bers of different groups.
Æolic.—This is usually subdivided into four chief dialects : (1) Lesbian, (2) Thessalian and (?) Macedonian, (3) Bœotian, (4) Elean and Arcadian. It has been maintained by some high authorities, e.g., by Kirchhoff, that Lesbian alone ought to be considered Mblic, and that not only Elean and Arcadian, which Ahrens admits come nearer to Doric, but even Boeotian and Thessalian ought to be ranked as Doric. On the other hand, Professor E. Curtius denies to /Eolic the character of a dialect, and holds that it is rather a name for those remains, preserved in different localities, of the more ancient form of the language, and that everything which was not Doric or Ionic was called by the ancients JEolic. We shall find, however, that some of the distinctive features of the Lesbian dialect, which has the fullest right to be called ^Eolie, were certainly not primitive, but of later origin, so that we can hardly accept this view. The extent to which various dialects admit of being grouped together will be best examined after a survey of their special characteristics.
Lesbio-Æolic.—The sources for this dialect are (1) inscriptions, and (2) the statements of grammarians, based mainly upon quotations from Alcseus and Sappho. Of the former, there are only three of great importance, one found at Mytilene, recording the return of some exiles in the time of Alexander the Great (Corpus Inscrip. Grccc., No. 2166); another found at Pordoselena, an island close to Lesbos, of a few years later (ib., 2166c) ; and a third, of the same date as the first, found at Eresus and edited by Conze and Sauppe. The poets are of great value, because they appear to have written in the pure dialect of their country, and not to have framed a conventional language for themselves. The 28th and 29th idylls of Theocritus, called by the scholiast ./Eolic, are naturally a more suspicious source. The grammarians with one accord lay stress upon the tendency to barytone pronunciation as a mark of holism. The word is accented on the last syllable : for ffo(p6s, 6v/j.6s, AxAAeus, /3apvs, and the like, the Lesbians said adcpos, OV/AOS, AxiAAevy, ftdpvs. This tendency has often been adduced, along with the loss of the dual, to prove a closer connexion of ./Eolic than of any other Greek dialect with Latin ; it is rather a striking proof of the danger of drawing such deductions from phenomena of purely independent origin (cf. Schrader in Curtius s Studien, x. 259). The grammarians also tell us that /Eolic did not use the rough breathing. The in scriptions date from a time when the aspirate was not written ; and the MSS. are not sufficiently trustworthy to give us much help. But there are instances enough in which a tennis preceding a syllable which in ordinary Greek begins with the rough breathing appears in /Eolic as an aspirate Ahrens quotes nine, besides the article and the demonstrative and relative to show that aspiration was not unknown. It is to be noticed that in all these instances the rough breathing represents a primitive s or j. The same authorities assert that /Eolic was distinguished by its retention of the digamma, and hence this letter is called by Quintilian and Priscian "/Eolium digammon ;" but inscriptions show that, though more common in /Eolic than in Ionic, it was much less faithfully retained in the former than among the Boeotians and Dorians. Before p it was commonly hardened into j3, between vowels vocalized into v. Of the distinctively /Eolic phonetic laws, the following deserve special notice. When in other dialects has originated in Sj, it usually appears as er8 ; /3pi&lt;r8a = /$i a. Liquids are very frequently doubled, usually as a result of assimilation: e.g., vvvff or &lt;rv, as eyevvaro, urtwas, /j.-fjufos (cf. mcnsis), e/x/ii, &pyevvos ; vv = vj, as Ktvvos, KK IVVW (so rpBeppw); vv = vf, as y&vvos = yovv6s. 2cr is retained, where primitive, while Attic often drops it : peffffos, f&lt;r&lt;rovTai, JWos. IT assimilates a following p. instead of being assimilated by it: 6inrara ! =i &gt;/j.^.ara (oV-yUara), yp6irira.Ta.= ypd/jL/AaTa. (ypa.rj&gt;-fj.aTa). Before ff, v generally passes into i, forming a diphthong with a preceding vowel : TaAais, Att. raAas for Ta.Xa.v-s ; irais, Att. iras for TTO.VT-S , SO irpeiroiaais = irpeTrovT-iav-s, ff6&lt;pa.is, Att. ffo&lt;f&gt;a.s for crofidv-s, tyotffi, Att. Ae yotxn. Of the vowels, a is sometimes retained, when it has been "dulled" in Attic, e.g., 8ra. (=**ore), vird=vir ; but more commonly it passes into o, especially when in contact with liquids, e.g., ffrpSros, t&lt;pQop- 6at, bfjivdaQ-riv (^dva^vrjffQ^vai} this may be regarded as a char acteristic mark of holism ; o often becomes v, e. g, #&lt;r8os = oos ; so d.irvS6fj.evai ; a is retained as in Ionic, when Ionic has 77, but TJ has its proper place where it has originated in a lengthened e, e.g., afj. ir6tv, ffrdav ( = arr-f]i]v). For ei and o TJ and co are commonly used : ffvfj.&lt;f&gt;epr)v, xtp, KTJVOS, lapavos, K&pos. The t of diphthongs is often omitted : &ddea = a.ji6tia ; Aax^c for Aaxohjv (cf. the popular Attic TroeiV). In contraction ao becomes a, KpoviSa; eo ev, /SeAevs ; oo co, avdpuirw. The apparent diseresis of diphthongs is sometimes due to a retention of the uncontracted form ; some times, as in 6 iSa in Alcajus, & i in inscriptions, it is real. In noun-inflexion, besides the changes produced by these phonetic laws, we may notice the loss of the dual, and also a tendency to metaphrastic forms, especially the accusative in v from consonantal stems. In verb -inflexion there is a 2d sing, in -ado, fXfffQa, but not the Doric 1st plur. in -fj.es ; the 3d plur. ends in -icn (as noticed above); and contracted verbs commonly follow the earlier conjugation in -pi, &lt;f&gt;ir)/j.i, So/ci yuco/u (the grammarians add, but probably incorrectly, yeaifj.i). The general character of /Eolic was much less hard and vigorous than that of Doric ; it was distinguished by a quick tripping utter ance, as contrasted with the Doric slow deliberateness ; the verse of the /Eolic poet abounds in dactyls and anapaests. To the Athenians the language of Lesbos seemed somewhat outlandish, so that, though it was doubtless an exaggeration, it was not an absurd one, for Plato (Protag., 341c) to represent Prodicus as saying of Pittacus are AeV/Sios $iv /cat ev (fxavfj Papfidpu Tf6pafj.[j.ti&gt;os.
The Thessalian dialect is known only by a few inscriptions, the most important of which were discovered by Leake and Rangiibe. It forms a kind of link between Lesbian and Boeotian, doubling liquids, changing a into o, and dropping the j of diphthongs with the former, but agreeing with the latter in the use of an infinitive in -/j.ev. It is also characterized by the use of on for a ; e.g., Airovv for Air^AAcoi , ovdovfj.a. a.vd(i}fj,a ; cf. dTrb Tas rovv rayoTiv yvovfj.as; and the genitive sing, ends in -01 (for oto) instead of -on ; e.g., AvTiyfveioi favTos, Ato"xuAts ^arvpot. The general character of the dialect confirms the tradition that the earlier common home of the Lesbians and the Boeotians was in Thessaly.
The Bœotian dialect is knownmainly from inscriptions. The scanty Booot fragments of Corinna have come down to us mixed with Ionic forms ; and the specimens of the Boeotian dialect given by Aristophanes in the Acharnians and Eubulus inhis Antiopa are still more corrupted by an intermixture of Attic. The Boeotians differed from the Lesbians in many not unimportant points. (1) They had no tendency to throw the accent back. (2) They liked the rough breathing. (3) They retained an earlier r, or changed it into 0, where the Lesbians had a: (4) A Lesbian &lt;r8 ( = ) appears in Boeotian as 85. (5) The Lesbian doubling of liquids and change of vs to is are unknown in Boeotian. (6) In inflexion Boeotian retains -ao and -au&gt;v, which Lesbian contracts. (7) The Boeotian genitives are e /xovs, reovs, iovs, the Lesbian ep.e0ev, &lt;re6ev, tOev. Further, Boeotian changes to t before vowels, v to ou, TJ to ei, ei to i, and 01 to u, all which changes are unknown to Lesbian ; cf., e.g., Boeot. Oi6s, novves, ovfj.es, avedeiKf, iroe iTas, fiacriXios, TV Sdfj.o, fvKid, &c. As against these numerous differences there are but few points of resemblance, except such as would be shared by all the Dorian dialects. A few peculiar words shared by both are noticed by Beerman (Curt., Stud., ix. p. 85), and he lays stress upon their agreement in -fj.ev (1 plur.) as contrasted with the Doric -fj.es, on the feminine terminations -is and -co ("Aeis, 2aVc/&gt;co, Mai/rco, &c. ), and on the common use of patronymic adjectives instead of the genitive of the father s name. But it may fairly be said that these Avould not have been regarded as sufficient indications of a close connexion, unless the traditional evidence in its favour had been so strong. We must assume that the Lesbian emigrants changed their language more rapidly than those who had moved less far from their earlier home.
The Elean dialect is represented by Strabo (viii. p. 333) as being also JEolic. This tradition is decidedly rejected by Ahrens, and is very doubtful. The most recent discussion of the question (by Schrader in Curtius s Studien, x. 267 sqq. ) advocates the theory that the Eleans separated from the rest of the Greeks at a time ante cedent to the distinction between JEolic and Doric. This practically coincides with the view of Ahrens that, while it has many points of contact with Doric, and especially with Laconian, it is really a dis tinct dialect, and is confirmed by the inscriptions, of which the most important are the ancient bronze plate brought back from Olympia by Sir W. Gell (C. I. G. 11) recording a treaty between the Eleans and the Herseans, and the recently discovered inscription of Damocrates, edited by Kirchhoff (Archccol. Zcit., 1876). It agrees with Lesbian in the nom. sing. masc. in a, reAe crra, and the ace. plur. masc. in ois (-oip) for ov-s. It resembles the northern Doric in the use of ev with the ace. , in the apocope of irepl to trap, and in a heteroclite dat. plur. in -ois (aycavotp), and Laconian in a complete retention of the digamma, (changed in the later inscrip tions to /3), in the change of final s into p (e.g., Toip, &oip, n-po^ffoip, fSoiKiap^FoiKias), and in the change of a medial s into the rough breathing (iro-fiaorffcu = iroiTi(ra(T9ai). The last two, and also the use of /3 for f, are much less usual in the early than in the later inscriptions ; and the same is the case with Laconian ; hence the phenomena point rather to a later action of one dialect upon the other than to a close original connexion. Much light may be ​expected to be cast upon the Elean dialect by the researches at Olympia, which are bringing to light almost every week forms of , great philological interest.
The Arcadian dialect rests almost wholly upon inscriptions, of which the most important is one found at Piali near Tegea in 1859, edited by Bergk, and afterwards by Michaelis, with valuable notes by Gurtius. The very careful examination of this dialect by Schrader (Curtius s Studien, x. 273-280) shows that it has more points in com mon with Doric than with ^Eolic, indeed that there is no single point in which it agrees with all the dialects of the latter, where it does not also agree with the former. Its agreement with Lesbian especially is only on minute points, which seem to be of independ ent origin. Hence its ^Eolic character may be definite^ given up. Among the more interesting phenomena which it presents, we may notice -au for the gen. sing. masc. of a-nouns, -01 as the dative (or possibly locative) sing, of o-nouns, lv used for els and ev, -rot as the inflexion of the 3d sing, middle (e.g., yivjroi, 8aTo&lt;)and -r^.tvos as the ending of the participle of verbs in -e o&gt; (dSi/cT^uei/os ; cf. a8a- Tjfj.fi cf = KaTa.8ir]ovfj.vc l i iii the Elean treaty ; Lesb. KaArj/xeyos, &c.).
The Cyprian dialect may be mentioned here ; for the results of its examination entirely confirm the statements of Herodotus (vii. 90) and Pausanias (viii. 5, 2) that Arcadians were among the colonists of Cyprus. This was first asserted by Bergk on the strength of a few glosses ; but recently the inscriptions have been deciphered by Dr Birch, followed with more complete success by Brandis, Schmidt, and Deecke and Siegismund. They are not written in Greek characters, but in an alphabet of their own, which is syllabic in its character, i.e., each sign represents a consonant followed by a vowel. Of these signs there are 56 as yet identified ; there is no distinction between tenues, medials, and aspirates, nor is there any mark of rough or smooth breathing ; the signs therefore stand for a, e, i, o, y, ka, ke, ki, ko, ky, pa, &c., ta, &c., ma, &c. , na, &c. , ra, &c., la, &c. , sa, &c. , and fa, &c. The number is made up by ja, je, ji (jo and jy not having yet been discovered), sse, za, and zo. If a word ends in a consonant, the sign of that consonant when followed by e is used ; but an article or a preposition is often treated as coalescing with its noun. When two consonants come together, the first is denoted by the sign of that syllable which it makes either with the vowel attached to the second consonant (e.g. , po-to-li-ne = ir-roiv) or with the preceding vowel (e.g., a-ra-ky- ro = apyvp(ji). A nasal is always omitted before an explosive (a-to- ro-po-sc = &vQp&lt;inros}. Cyprian agrees with Arcadian in the geni tive in -an, in airv for air6 (sometimes followed in both by the dative), in the preposition lv (often with ace.), and in many less important points.
Doric.—The Dorian dialect was divided by Ahrens, following the Greek grammarians, into two main groups (1) the severer Doric, (2) the milder, the one being more closely connected with ^Eolic, the other with Ionic. To the former belonged the speech of Laconia, Crete, Gyrene, and the Greek colonies in Italy; to the latter the lan guage of Argolis, Messenia, Megara, and northern Greece, and the colonies of Asia Minor and Sicily. The basis of this distinction is the use of o&gt; and TJ in the severer as against ov and i in the milder dialect. But the division can hardly be maintained in practice, and hence it is abandoned by most modern scholars. The northern Doric, for instance, which is ascribed by Ahrens to the second di vision, has been shown by Merzdorf (Sprachtvissensch. Abhandl. &c. Leipsic, 1874, pp. 23-42) to form a bridge between ^Eolic and Doric. Again, while we find ov in use at Thera, at Gyrene, a colony of Thera, u is retained ; hence this cannot point to a deep division. We may notice first the authorities for the particular dialects, and then the characteristics of Doric generally.
The Laconian dialect is known from few and unimportant in- criptions, from the fragments of Alcman, which, however, are in a language much modified for poetic purposes, and from the specimens in the Lysixtrata of Aristophanes and in other Attic comedies. There are also a large number of Laeonian glosses in Hesychius, and Thucydides (v. 77) gives a treaty in the Spartan dialect. Our knowledge is largely supplemented by the famous tables of Heraclea, a colony of Tarentum, which itself was founded by Sparta. These were found in the bed of the river Cavone in 1732 and 1735, and are now partly in the Museo Borbonico at Naples and partly in the British Museum.
From Crete there are numerous important inscriptions, chiefly treaties between various towns. It is curious that some of the most valuable of these were found in the ruins of the splendid temple of Dionysus in the island of Teos ; this temple enjoyed the rights of an asylum, and the inscriptions are mainly treaties acknowledging these rights on the part of various Cretan cities. They contain some highly interesting archaisms of form.
For Thera there is an important inscription containing the will of a wealthy lady Epicteta (C. I. G., 2448); for its more famous colony, Gyrene, there are only brief and fragmentary records.
The Argolic dialect appears on a very ancient helmet found at Olympia (C. I. G., 29) and on an inscription very recently dug up at the same place, as well as on several others of less importance.
From Messenia there is a long and very interesting inscription found at Andania, dealing with the cultus of certain deities ; it is of comparatively late date (probably 93 B.C.) and in a much modified Doric, but it contains some striking forms.
The Corinthian dialect is learnt mainly from inscriptions at its colonies of Corcyra and Syracuse, both of which cities supply some very ancient and valuable records. In the same way the Doric of Megara is preserved most fully on Byzantine inscriptions. For this we have also the Megarian in the Acharnians of Aristophanes.
For the Locrian dialect Ahrens had but few and fragmentary in scriptions and no literary evidence ; recently a bronae tablet con taining a treaty between Chaleion and (Eantheia (of the 4th century B.C.) has been dug up at the latter place; and also a tablet contain ing the regulations for founding a colony at Naupactus (cf. Curt., Stud., ii. 441-449, iii. 205-279). These throw much new light on. the dialect, and enable us to set it down with confidence as a link between Doric and ^Eolic.
The general character of the Doric dialect was that of a slow, deliberate, and emphatic speech ; it is the speech of the warrior and the ruler, not of the orator or merchant. The Tra.reia&lt;rfj.6s, which the ancient authorities ascribe to the Dorians, is not distinctive of them, but was shared by the Boeotians and other .(Eoliaus ; it is to be re garded rather as a mark of an earlier stage of the language, which was retained like many other similar characteristics by the Dorians much more extensively than by contemporary lonians. It is quite the exception for any Doric characteristic to be of recent origin. A natural hypothesis finds in the full and broad sounds of the dialect of these " men of the mountain-forests " signs of the chest strength ened by mountain air and mountain life. To pass to details : In accentuation Doric showed no inclination to the barytone pro nunciation of Lesbos ; on the contrary, it has more oxytone forms even than Attic. In many words the Doric accent is of especial in terest as bearing valuable testimony to the origin of the inflexions ; we find not only ayyfoi, avdpunroi, and rvTn-0/j.fvot, but also eKtyov, e vcrav, ircu Sey, TTTCO/COS-, and d/iTreAoy (ace. plur. ), these forms all pointing back to a time when the final syllable was long, and thus demanding from philology an account of this length. In vowels a short a is often retained where Attic has e (lapos, rpd&lt;f&gt;&lt;a, T-paxco) or o^cucari cfcocrt): v in Laeonian became ov, but probably only as an indication that the earlier pronunciation of the vowel was retained, when in ordinary Greek it had sunk into ii. Wherever TJ in Ionic has come from an earlier d, Doric retains a, but where it has ori ginated in e, 77 is retained as in Lesbio-^Eolic (irar-fip, Bceot. irareip) ; it is also retained in augments (^px^^av), and as a contraction for ae (eVi/c?;). On the other hand ao and aw contract into a ( ArpttSa, yeAaV). The contractions of eo, eo, vary much in different dialects. The severer Doric gives t for ei and CD for ov. $s for efs, 3/j.fv for efffj-tf, &yiao~a, Maj&lt;ra, fyfi] r}6(oi ri = t^fiKt}6&lt;i)0 i, jSaiAa (Lesb- &6a), Kwpos, &c. A noteworthy phenomenon is presented by the shortening of long final syllables, almost exclusively where the length is due to compensatory lengthening in the place of a lost consonant (Sri/jLords, Kara rbs v6fj.os, irpd^ds, Tr6s [ = 7ro8-s], Ae -yes, TJKTEJ , re/cej ); of all forms of the dialect the Cretan especially favoured this. Of the consonants, the digamma was retained longer by the Doric than by any other dialect, but we find it gradually disappearing. It is used in the old Laeonian, Argolic, Corinthian, and Corcyrseaii inscriptions, but not in the Cretan, with the exception of the proper name /ct|ioi ; on the Heraclean tables it is very common, but there are some strange exceptions, as oiicid, fpydofj.ai, and &&lt;pepy&lt;o ; some have held that it is there wrongly inserted in /e|, but this is really a valuable confirmation of the labial spirant to which other lan guages also bear witness. The digamma is often changed to (as in Elean), but never before p, as in Molic; whether it ever actually passed into y, or whether the numerous forms which give this in the place of an earlier digamma are all due to the mistakes of copyists, is a question still xmder discussion (Curtius s Princ., ii. 229 T). T is constantly retained, where the lonians have weakened it into o", especially in TI : (pa.ri^=&lt;prio"l ; so TvirTovTt =TVTrTovo~i, Ti6evTi = Te6etcri , cf. TrAoYios, irAourios, Sciris, SeAivownoi.
Three changes characteristic of Laeonian came in at a comparatively late date ; for they do not appear in the Heraclean tables, and consequently they must be later than the foundation of Tarentum. (1)0 becomes o- ; this is very common in the Spartan of the Lysistrata e.g., &lt;r&lt;=Ae&lt;, ffiy^v ( = 6iyiiv o~i6s ( = 0e&lt;k) ; cf. TW ffiu&gt; 0-vfj.a.Tos (Time. v. 77), ffe~tos av-fip (Ar., Eth. Nic., vii. 1). (2) Final s becomes p ; this is still later, and does not appear in Aristophanes, but is very common in the more recent inscriptions. (3) Medial a between vowels becomes ; this is found in Aristophanes (Mia, tract, &c.) and in later inscriptions (nooiSavt), but not in Alcman.
The traditional change of y into S is denied by Ahrens and Curtius, who altogether reject, with very good reason, the asserted identity of Sa and 7?}. The appearance of | in the future and compound aorist of verbs in -&&gt; (e.g., ooKifj.d&vTi, f^fpi^av, &c. in the Tabb. Hcrad., jutxn |ai in Aristoph. , Lysist.) has been rightly explained by Curtius (Princ., ii. 248) as a hardening of the original spirant y (j) before the er, the only possible alternative to its complete loss, which we find in the ordinary Greek SoKifido-w. The change of into o-S, ascribed by the grammarians to Doric, is more ​properly Lesbian, and is unknown to pure Doric ; here f is as a rule retained, but in the Laconian dialect when initial it becomes 3 (8a&gt;yu.Js=a&gt;yu&lt;k), when medial 58 (/j.vari5$ta = /j.v6ifa, iror65Sei = 7rpo&lt;r6fi). A double a is retained where this is the more ancient form, changed in ordinary Greek into a ; thus the Heraclean tables give o&lt;Tffos, neffffos, effcrovrai, &c. The crff often found in Dorian inscrip tions (and sometimes La the earlier Attic also), where there is no historical explanation of its presence, seems to be an attempt to represent the sound of the earlier sibilant san, which was retained by the side of sigma. For the earlier guttural Tcoppa, the distinctive sign p is found in old inscriptions, almost, but not quite exclusively before o, e.g. , f&gt;opivd66fi&gt;, oppos. We may notice finally a free use of assimilation especially in Laconian (irov/j.fAa. irv y/j.-l), Kdppuv=Kpttffo (ey,i.C.,Kaprioiv, a.KK&p = a.&lt;rtt6s) , and on the other hand the retention of vs by the Argives and Cretans (r6vs, yucWa, eVs, n6fvs, lipvvs, &c.). The characteristic Dorian inflexions are almost entirely such as are due to these phonetic laws, or to the tendency to metaphrastic or heteroclite formations, already noticed,
Ionic.—The Ionic dialect is commonly divided into three stages, the Old Ionic or Epic dialect, the New Ionic, represented most com pletely by Herodotus and Hippocrates, and the Attic. This division is not satisfactory ; for, in the first place, the Epic is a mixed dialect or more properly a style, and cannot be taken as a faithful represen tative of a spoken language ; and, in the second place, Attic is not a later stage of the New Ionic, but in many respects remains faithful to forms in which even the Old Ionic has departed from the earlier usage. The three sub-dialects, however, agree on the whole much more closely than any one of them does with either YEolic or Doric, and they may therefore be grouped together. We know from an express statement of Herodotus (i. 142) that there were many sub ordinate varieties of the ordinary Ionic ; he mentions four within a comparatively narrow extent ; but neitherjjthe extant inscriptions nor the statements of grammarians enable us to distinguish these with any precision. It is probable that the differences lay rather in slight shades of pronunciation than in any extensive variations, and that, on the whole, the varieties closely resembled each other. As the general character of Doric is due, at least in a measure, to the hardy mountain life of the Dorians, so the Ionic type was determined by the easier and more effeminate life of the lonians. All harshness is carefully avoided ; the spirants, especially the /, were dropt here earlier and more completely than in any other dialect ; the a is more extensively changed into e and o ; aspiration is frequently lost or transposed so as to be easier to pronounce ; r, especially before i, regularly passes into &lt;r ; gutturals are replaced by dentals or labials. The vowel-system is especially rich and free ; sometimes an easy flow is given by the avoidance of contraction ; sometimes again a full colouring is produced by the variety of the diphthongs. The varied literary activity of the lonians in different directions gave a manifold development to their language, which makes it especially well adapted to poetry, and adds not a little of poetical charm even to their prose.
Epic Dialect.—The language of the Homeric poems is doubtless based upon the popular spoken dialect of the district in the midst of which they grew up. But as every scholar would now admit that they were constructed out of a large mass of previously existing material, however widely opinions may differ as to the person or school to which they owe their present form, and as much of this material must have dated from a great antiquity, it need not sur prise us to find in the midst of a dialect, which is of a much more recent type than ^Eolic or Doric, traces of archaisms, earlier in some respects than anything to be found elsewhere. It is one of the greatest services which comparative philology has done for the in terpretation of these poems, that it has enabled us to recognize as relics of an older language much which had been previously set down as poetic licence, or held to be inexplicable. One of the most interesting of these relics is the effect produced by the earlier existence of a spirant, no longer written, upon the quantity of a preceding syllable. As late as the time of I. Bekker all such cases were unhesitatingly ascribed to the digamma; and this accounts for many instances ; but in others the cognate languages point to cr or j : e.g., we find not only (pia fei/j.ara SiKTai, ovrca 877 /oi/co^Se, and hundreds of similar cases (La Eocho gives 84 Homeric words with the digamma), some of very common occurrence, but also Oebs (j)&s, /oi /caSe (j)i(j)en4vur t en yap ((r)tx ov eA/cea vypd, vUi ff&lt;f (cr)e7rd ( urjj , els aAa (ff)a.ro, and many other instances. On the other hand, the occasional neglect of the digamma, even in words for which it is most certainly estab lished, points, not necessarily, as some have argued, to a later origin of those lines in which this occurs, but to a fluctuating usage, akin to though much more extensive than our own poetic use of forms like loveth and loves, formed and form d, my and mine. In the form in which the poems now appear, it is often of much importance to remember that they must have been tran scribed at a comparatively late date from the earlier into the later Ionic alphabet (see ALPHABET, vol. i. p. 610), and that doubtless many words were inaccurately represented. The limits of this sketch do not admit of a statement of the characteristic epic forms. They will be found given with very full references in the introduc tion to LP Eoche s school edition of the Iliad (Berlin, 1870), and with admirable clearness and scientific exactness in the sketch of Homeric grammar prefixed by Mr D. B. Monro to his edition of the First Book of the Iliad (Oxford, 1879).
The New Ionic dialect is found first in the writings of the iambic New elegiac poets, Archilochus, Callinus, and Mimnermus (where the digamma has already entirely disappeared), and is known more completely from Herodotus and Hippocrates. We are told that the language of the former was varied (TTOIKI ATJ) as compared with the pure (/caflap?/) Ionic of preceding logographers ; this seems to refer to the occasional introduction of epic forms and expressions, which give a delightful poetic tinge to his language (cf. Quintil., ix. 4, 18, Turn ipsa SiaAe/cros habct cam iucunditatem,ut latentcs ctiam numcros complexa videatur) and not to any dialectic variations. Besides the general tendencies of Ionic mentioned above we may notice the retention of the earlier /c for TT in interrogative and relative words (KO!OS, (5/coVos, &c. ), the interchange of ej and ot; with the simple vowels (ftpofi.su, KetfSs, ^eivos, but /j.e^uf, 5eo&gt;, ra^ea ; and /J.DVVOS, ovvofj.a, rb ovpos, vovffos), the contraction of or; into w (Pupat, (fiuOtf, fvv&ffus}, the use of TJI for ei (/Sao-iArj hj, fiavT^ iov), the Ionic crasis in wvrip, wAAoi, &c., the entire absence of the appended v, the gen. plur. in -tuv for Homer s -a.&lt;av, Att. -lav, and the use of -a-rat, -aro for -VTO.I and -vro wherever these are added directly to the tense- stems (cf, fffKfvdoaTat, tin marai, ySe/SAeorai, riGearai, ayotaro, &c. ). The dialect of Herodotus has been most fully discussed by Bredow, Quccstionum criticarumde dialecto Herod, libri duo, 1846); there are some excellent remarks upon it by Mr Woods in an introduction to his edition of Book i. pp. 40-45. The text of Hippocrates is in too unsettled a state, and the genuineness of many of the treatises ascribed to him too doubtful, to make it possible for us to build much upon his authority. From inscriptions but little can be gained. See Erman in Cudius s Studien, vol. v. pp. 250 ff.
The Attic dialect may be regarded as on the whole a slightly modified representative of the Ionic spoken before the foundation of the Ionic colonies. It is not so much a daughter of Ionic as its mother, as Bergk justly calls it. In Ionic the tendency to soften the lan guage which had already commenced before the separation went on its way unrestrained in the luxurious life of the Asiatic cities 1 . In Attica, possibly owing to the free admission of non-Ionic citizens by Solon and Cleisthenes, this tendency was checked, and there arc even some signs of a reaction in the direction of the earlier and more vigorous speech. There is a celebrated inscription found at Sigeum in the Troad (C. I. G., 8), the antiquity of which, though attacked by Boeckh, has been established by Kirchhoff ; this is in two parts, the upper in Ionic dialect, the lower (which is probably a little later, but also belonging to the time of Pisistratus) in Attic, and we can already see the reaction at work. The Attic dia lect thus adapted itself admirably to the character of the Athenian people, which knew better than any other Hellenic community how to unite energy and dignity with grace and refinement, to preserve the ffefjLv&rt]s of the Dorian without sacrificing the x^P LS f the Ionian. The Attic of the inscriptions may be most conveniently divided according as these are written in the old alphabet of sixteen letters or in the so-called Ionic alphabet of twenty-four. The latter was introduced for public documents inthearchonshipof Euclides(403 B.C.); the inscriptions written before that date have been collected and edited by Kirchhoff in the first volume of the new Berlin Corjnw Inscriptionum Grcccarum, and their linguistic peculiarities well com mented upon by Cauer in Curtius s Studien, vol. viii. pp. 223-301 and 399-442. The Attic of literature is divided into the Old and the New, the point of division being earlier than the archonship of Euclides, and coinciding more nearly with the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.). The division is, however, not strictly a chronological one, for, while Thucydides and the tragedians adhere to the older forms, contemporary comic writers adopt the later ones; in Plato both are found side by side ; but in the orators the change to the new is fully established. The difference is not deeply marked, and lies for the most part in minute details. In some cases these seem to point to the adoption in literature of popular forms which had always been current, and which were really older than the forms that (probably owing to the influence of the Ionic poets and historians) had become fashionable with older writers. Thus the TT which in New Attic supplants &lt;r&lt;r cannot possibly have come from this weaker sound 2 ; they are both independent modifications of an earlier KJ or ij ; and the inscriptions show clearly (cf. Cauer, p. 284 sq. ) that era was never used except under Ionic influence. In other cases there are undoubtedly indications of the weakening
1 The tablets of Styra, engraved not later than 480 B.C. (Kirchhoff, Zur Geschichte der Griech. Alph., p. 139 sq.), give an interesting example of Ionic of a Jess complete development.
2 Ou this question, however, the arguments of Ascoli deserve careful consideration. They have considerably modified the judgment of Curtius in the fifth edition of the Urundzwje, cf. pp. 666 ff. ​of sound which marks the ordinary course of language : e.g., avv for |ui/, pp for ptr ; the same is probable in the instances where a simple vowel represents an earlier diphthong, as in dei, der^s, e Aace, and TroeiV, and in the tendency to allow ee (?) to sink into ei (ei), e.g., /3a&lt;nAe4s, KeWpov, Avei, efccafoj/, and the duals &lt;r/ceAej, feiryej f r cr/ceATj, &vyrj. It is less easy to account for the change of ijv ( av) to &v.
In the New Attic the Greek language may be said to have reached ts zenith of grace, expressiveness, and symmetry ; and hence this is the proper , place for a few remarks on the qualities which have confessedly made the Greek language quite unrivalled as a means for the expression of human thought. In the first place we may notice its purity and consequent trans parency. The Greeks felt themselves to be sharply marked off from the barbarians around them, and in consequence rarely allowed their language to be contaminated by foreign influences. Latin teems with borrowed words, often ill-adapted to the genius of the language ; Greek has very few, and these almost invariably Hellenized in form. Hence the etymologist feels himself to have a far firmer footing in Greek than on Italian soil. Hence too the or ganic structure of Greek retains its regularity, and the orthography is well established and rarely fluctuating. Then there is the phon etic harmony of the language. Dissonance was everywhere avoided; there is no undue predominance of consonants, as in Latin and still more strikingly in Etruscan. The endings of the words are light, no linal consonant being endured, except the liquids v and p and the spirant s. The brightest of the vowels, a, c, o, are far more common than the harder and thinner i and u, Greek here again contrasting sharply with Latin. The abundance of diphthongs practically lost in the modern pronunciation of Greek gives a rich variety of sound, besides supplying admirable means for the differentiation of mean ings. The careful observation of accent, by the side of and quite dis tinct from the due marking of quantity, lent a varied modulation to the rhythm, which the rapid utterance of the Athenians especially prevented from ever becoming wearisome. The range of different forms at the disposal of poets and the freedom allowed in the order of words permitted the writer to choose the rhythmical effect most conducive to the harmony of his period. With regard again to the expressiveness of the language, the completeness of the verbal inflexion enabled various shades of meaning to be expressed with unrivalled precision and terseness. It is perhaps impossible to estimate with any approach to accuracy the extent of the vocabulary of a language known to us only from a literature which, in some of its most im portant branches, has come down to us in a sadly fragmentary state; but some approximation may be made from the fact that Herodian is said to have determined the accent of 60,000 words. But the free power of word-formation and composition to which this marvellous richness was largely due was no mechanical process. It sprang from the lively fancy of the most poetic of nations, a fancy which shows itself alike in the significant individual names borne by every Greek citizen, which contrast so sharply with the obscure, trivial, and stereotyped hereditary labels of the Romans, arid in the charac teristic and often sportive appellations of plants and animals. Nor can we omit that which was according to Aristotle the despair of the barbarian of old, as it is of the modern schoolboy, the exquisitely exact and delicate use of the particles. Of all the qualities which make Greek really untranslatable, even into German, the only one of modern languages which approaches it in this respect, perhaps the most characteristic is the abundance of these tiny atoms of speech, not one of which can be neglected with impunity, while it is impossible to reproduce them all except at an expenditure of our means of expression which ruins the lightness and grace of the sen tence. The history of the development of the period, that device in which the symmetry of form is inseparably wedded to the artistic balance of thought, a device which is found in no language which has not derived it directly or mediately from Greece, belongs to the region of literature rather than language. But many a construction, for which formal syntax finds it hard to discover a name and a classi fication, can only be understood aright if we look upon it as the utterance of a national life unrivalled in its bold and vivid freshness, delighting in variety, and shaping at its will a language still fluid and plastic.
With regard to the pronunciation of Greek, the best modern scholars are at one in regarding the modern pronunciation, advocated at the revival of learning by Reuchlin, as wholly misleading for an earlier period. On the other hand, the current pronunciation in England is hardly more correct than the conventional pronunci ation of Latin , and even the Continental pronunciation, as estab lished by Erasmus, needs to be modified on many points. The vowels and consonants present no difficulty : o, o, 77, e, I, "i, u, o were undoubtedly pronounced as the corresponding vowels are now in French, German, or Italian ; v and u were the French 4 and &, i.e., very nearly the German lie. The consonants may be pronounced as in English, 7 being however always hard, and being dz, while, as noticed already, the aspirates &lt;/&gt;, 0, x^P-h, t-h, c-h. It is much more difficult to determine the pronunciation of the diphthongs. Undoubtedly they were originally strictly diphthongal, i.e., the two vowels were each pronounced, but ran rapidly one into the other : cf. ircus and the Homeric irais, ols and 6 is. But at an early period the diphthongal pronunciation was lost, and in modern Greek the sound i is given alike to at, , and 01. This cannot be correct for the Attic period ; it probably began to creep in in the time of the Dia- dochi ; ot at this date began to pass into ii, and much later sank into i ; ov had always the force of our oo, and is used even when the syllable is short : e.g. , in Boaot. Kovves it was pronounced as u in " put." It is altogether erroneous to pronounce i in diphthongs as v, as is done in modern Greek ; vi was doubtless pronounced much as wee, but with more stress laid on the first element.
The dialects long continued to exist in the mouths of the common people ; but the influence of extended commercial intercourse, and especially of the commanding position which Athens had gained as the centre of education and the home of science, literature, and philosophy, gave an increasing predominance to one, the Attic dialect. The Ionic was the first to disappear ; there are but few traces of this after the Peloponnesian War ; the Molic and the Doric are found, but always in diminishing extent, as late as the time of the Roman emperors. But Attic lost in purity as it gained in range ; new words and constructions crept in especially from the increasing influence of the East ; until at last the grammarians gave the dis tinctive name of f) nowr) StaAe/cros to the language popularly current. The rise of the Alexandrian school of critics gave a new stimulus to the study of literary Attic ; on the other hand the vulgar speech continued its own course of free combination and assimilation from various quarters. Thus in the Roman times we have three main divisions of Greek : (1) the revived Attic of the schools, the purity of which was jealously guarded by grammarians such as Phrynichus ; (2) the common (KOIVTI) literary language, employed by such writers as Polybius and Plutarch ; and (3) the popular spoken language, which much more freely absorbed foreign elements than the KOIJ/TJ, and which may be described as Hellenistic. This is the basis of the diction of the Septuagint and the New Testament. Of course the dividing lines cannot be sharply drawn. Of the authors belonging to this period some, like Lucian, en deavoured to approach as closely as possible to the standard of pure Attic ; others, like Babrius, came nearer to the popular diction. The peculiarities of this stage of the language consist rather in new words and new inflexions than in extensive syntactical changes. The former are too numerous to Btate here (cf. Winer s Grammar, part ii. pp. 69-128, ed. Moulton) ; of the latter we may notice 1. A negligent use of the moods with particles : e.g., Srav with a past indicative, el with the conjunctive, iva. with the present indicative. 2. A construction of verbs with cases unknown in Attic : e.g., yfvtffBai with accusative, irpoffKvveiv and irpofftpwvelv with dative, &c. 3. The extension of the genitive of the infinitive (rov iroieiv) beyond its original and natural limits. 4. The use of the conjunctive for the optative after past tenses, and the gradual disuse of the latter mood, which has wholly dis appeared in modern Greek. (Ib., p. 38.) Under the Greek empire, the language of literature was -still based upon an artificial and often a lamentably unsuccessful imitation of Attic ; and an interesting parallel might be worked out in detail between the Greek and the Latin writers of this period. But, just as in the Western empire, the popular dialect went on its way, for the most part unrecognized in literature, but constantly exerting its effect upon the written language, and from time to time coming to the surface. The first writer who boldly adopted the popular dialect was Theodorus Ptochoprodromus, a monk of Constantinople who lived under the emperor Manuel Comnenus (1143-1180) ; his language, though with some traces of the more ancient forms, is essentially modern Greek. To the same period belongs Simon Sethos, a chronicler, the first prose writer of the modern language. In the 14th century we have the romance in verse, Bdtlmndros and Chrysantza, a work highly spoken of for imaginative power and free command of the language in its new form. The poems of Gorgilas (cent, xv.), Chortakes and Kornaros (cent, xvii), and Rhegas (cent, xviii. ) suffice to show that the popular language never entirely ceased to be used as an organ of literary utterance. An epoch in the history of modern Greek is marked by the long and fruitful activity of the illustrious scholar and patriot Coraes (1748- 1833). He made it his object to purify the popular dialect, not by an artificial resuscitation of the ancient Attic, but by a strenuous endeavour to preserve and to render current all classical forms not wholly extinct, and to replace foreign and barbarous words by genuine Greek ones, often freshly coined for the purpose. Greece now can number poets, historians, scholars, and orators who bring forth from their native language no feeble echoes of the immortal notes with which its prime was made musical for every age.
Authorities.—For all that concerns the formation and history of the Greek language the writings of Professor G. Curtius of Leipsic are unrivalled in sound sobriety of judgment and full mastery of all the results of modern philological science, which owes to him some of its most important advances. The chief are Grundzüge der
Griechischen Etymologie (5th edition, Leipsic, 1879, translated into English by A. S. Wilkins and E. B. England, 2 vols. 1875-6); Das Verbum der Griechischen Sprache (vol. i. 2d edition, 1877, vol. ii. 1876 ; English translation in one volume, 1880); a School Grammar (8th English edition, 1876) and Elucidations of the same (2d English edition, 1876). The fullest storehouse of the facts of inflexion and of syntax is Kühner's Ausführliche Grammatik (2d edition, 1871). For the Greek dialects Ahrens's De Græcæ Linguæ: Dialectis (2 vols. 1839, 1843) remains the best work ; but recent discoveries have made it necessary to supplement it in many places ; indispensable material for this is furnished by the series of monographs in Curtius's Studien zur Griechischen und Lateinischen Grammatik (10 vols. Leipsic, 1868-78) and in many scattered programmes and dissertations. Mr Merry's Specimens of Greek Dialects (Clarendon Press, 1875) contains admirably clear and useful introductions for junior students. Bergk's Griechische Literaturgeschichte contains much that is useful, but needs to be used with caution. For modern Greek the standard works are Sophocles's Glossary of Later and Byzantine Greek (Boston, 1870), and Mullach's Grammatik der Griechischen Vulgarsprache, (Berlin, 1856).
(A. S. W.)