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III.—Phases of the Living Greek Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

Extract

I will commence by stating that three reasons have moved me to bring this subject before the Society—(1) Because I found everywhere loose and even altogether false ideas possessing the public mind on the subject; (2) because I much fear that we, the academical teachers of the Greek language, are chiefly to blame for the currency of these false ideas; and (3) because, if Greek is a living and uncorrupted language, and dominating large districts of Europe and the Mediterranean, as influentially as French on the banks of the Seine and German on the Rhine, it follows that a radical reform must take place in our received methods of teaching this noble and most useful language. Now that the current language of the Greeks in Athens and elsewhere is not, in any sense, a new or a corrupt language, as Italian is a melodious and French a glittering corruption of Latin, may be gathered even a priori; for languages are slow to die, and the time that elapsed from the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 and the establishment of the Venetian power in the Morea in 1204, to the resurrection of Greek political life in 1822, was not long enough to cause such a fusion of contrary elements as produced the English language from the permanent occupation of the British Isles by the Normans.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1892

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References

page 46 note * These are—(1) χϱόνοι for ἔτη, but used also sometimes in later Greek. (2) βασιλόπονλος for prince, where πõνλος is a common termination of Greek proper names, corresponding to son in English and Mac in Gaelic. The etymology from πῶλος, Lat. pullus, Eng. foal, is obvious. (3) ό όπõιος for ὅς, probably introduced from the Italian il quale. (4) λαχταϱει, a new formation from λαχτίζω, signifying the kicking or beating of the heart against the ribs in cases of vehement desire. (5) εἰς with the accusative, used for εν with the dative (see below).

page 47 note * τϱαγούδια Ρωμάιχα, edidit Passow, Arnoldus, Leipzig, 1860Google Scholar.

page 51 note * Αγνης Σμιθ: Βλέμματα επὶ ιοṽ Ελληνιχοṽ βίον χαὶ τὴς Ἑλληνιχῆς τοπογϱαφίας, έχ τοṽ Αγγλιχοṽ, Leipzig, 1885Google Scholar.

page 52 note * See as a striking proof of this the Νεο-ἑλληνιχή Φιλολογἰα from 1453 to 1821, by Satha, , Athens, 1868Google Scholar; or let any one take up Phranzes, the historian of the last age of Byzantine Hellenism, and judge for himself.

page 52 note † Ὁμήϱον Οδύααεια, by Polylas, Jacobus, Athens, 1875Google Scholar. Ἠ τϱιχνμία τον ΣειχσΠηιϱ, Corcyra, 1855Google Scholar. Αμλετ, Athens, 1889Google Scholar.

page 54 note * On Greek Pronunciation: Accent and Quantity, Edinburgh, 1852Google Scholar; and Essays on Subjects of Moral and Social Interest, Edinburgh, 1890Google Scholar, Appendix.