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I.—On the Philological Genius and Character of the Neo-Hellenic Dialect of the Greek Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

Extract

Proposition I.—All spoken language is a growth, subject, like the creature who uses it, to a constant course of mutation; it is a living organism, developed according to certain laws, partly inherent, partly superinduced; and, though it is liable to decay, disintegration, and death, this disintegration, except in special cases of extermination, becomes the soil of a new growth, and this death the cradle of a new life. The historical action of this process of mutation is to produce either new varieties or dialects of one language, or new species of one family of languages.

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Transactions
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1873

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References

page 5 note * The lines in Italian—

“ In mare irato, in subita procella,

Invoco te, nostra benigna stella,”

often quoted (C. Lewis' “Romanic Languages,” 2d edit., p. 246) to prove the nearness of Italian to Latin, are no proof of the rule in that language, but are altogether exceptive, as any one may perceive by taking a stanza of Ottava rima either in Tasso or Ariosto, and counting how very few words in the eight lines have retained the unaltered form of the Latin from which they are derived.

page 7 note * (1.) Koraes, ἄτακτα.

(2.) Sophocles', Glossary of Byzantine Greek. London, 1860.Google Scholar

(3.) Gerasimi, Thesaurus quatuor Linguarum. Venet. 1723.Google Scholar

(4.) Kind, , Handbuch der Neu-grechischen Sprache. Leipzig, 1841.Google Scholar

(5.) De Heque. Paris, 1825.Google Scholar

(6.) Λϵξικόν Έλληνικὸν καὶ Γαλλικόν. By Byzantius. Athens, 1846.

(7.) Λϵξικόν τρίγλωσσον. By Bentotes and Blante. Venice, 1820.

(8.) Nova Methodus Linguae Græcæ vulgaris; auctore Thoma, . Paris, 1709.Google Scholar

(9.) Methode pour etudier la langue Grecque moderne, par David, . Paris, 1821.Google Scholar

(10.) Grammatica linguæ Græcæ recentioris. Franz, Romæ, 1837.Google Scholar

(11.) Sophocles', Modern Greek Grammar. Hartford, 1842.Google Scholar

(12.) Grammatik der Griechischen Vulgar sprache. Mullach. Berlin, 1856.Google Scholar

(13.) Analekten der Mittel und Neu Griechischen Litteratur, Ellisen. Leipzig, 1855.Google Scholar

(14.) Zeni, Djemetrii; Paraphrasis Batrachomyomachia, Mullachius. Berolini. 1837.Google Scholar

(15.) Collection de monuments pour servir à l'Etude de la langue Neo-Hellenique, par le Grand, Emile. Paris, 1869.Google Scholar

(16.) Mediæval Greek texts; the Philological Society's extra volume. By Wagner, W.. London, 1870.Google Scholar

(17.) Association pour l'encouragement des Etudes Grecques en France; Annuaires. Paris, 1868-71.Google Scholar

page 7 note † (1.) Pashley, ; Travels in Crete. London, 1837.Google Scholar

(2.) Tozer, ; Researches in the Highlands of Turkey. London, 1869.Google Scholar

(3.) ViscountStrangford, on the Cretan Dialect in Spratt's travels in Crete. London, 1865Google Scholar.

See also collected works of Viscount Strangford. London, 1871.

(4.) Clyde, ; Romaic and Modern Greek compared. Edinburgh, 1855.Google Scholar

(5.) Donaldson, ; Modern Greek Grammar. Edinburgh, 1853.Google Scholar

(6.) Geldart, ; The Modern Greek Language in its Relation to Ancient Greek. Oxford, 1870.Google Scholar

(7.) Professor Felton published a collection of pieces in modern Greek, which was once in my possession, but of which I cannot now recover the title.

page 14 note * The highest peak of Mount Ida in Crete is now called Psiloriti, or High-mount.

page 15 note * The following examples from Italian illustrate the same tendency to initial curtailment in languages set free from the control of strict literary aristocracy:—

page 15 note † The historic steps in the process were παιδίον, παιδίν, παιδί, the intermediate form appearing generally in Theodorus.

page 17 note * Travels in Crete, by Captain Spratt. London 1865.

page 20 note * Pathologia Græci Sermonis. Lobeck, Konigsberg, 1853.

page 20 note † This prosthetic i appears regularly in Italian when the previous word ends in a consonant, as con isdegno for con sdegno. But this is only the occasional form of the word for the sake of euphony ; the rule is, that while in Italian the initial e or i in such cases is never added, but regularly rejected, in Provencal, Spanish, and early popular French, it is always prefixed, even where no traces of it are found in Latin. Cornewall Lewis on the “ Romanic Languages,” 2d edit., p. 107.

page 21 note * Mr Geldart (c. 4) remarks that, “in ancient Greek we may regard αίνω as a strengthened formof έω, and άνω, as a strengthened form of άω.” This may be quite true; only in such verbs as λενκαίνω, the ν is retained throughout all the parts of the verb, whereas in the modern σκοίόνω, and such like, it belongs only to the present indicative.

page 22 note * Cornewall Lewis, in his essay on the Romanic Languages (2d edit., 1862, p. 91), while tracing this tendency to prefer the accusative case through all the Romanic languages, says that “ he is unable to suggest any very satisfactory explanation ” of the phenomenon. The explanation seems simply to be that, in the case of most nouns, which are not agents, we think of them regularly as objects of our thoughts and feelings, that is, grammatically, we generally use the objective case; and even in the case of agents, we feel more strongly, and have to express more frequently, our action on them than their action on us, as, I like him, I hate him, I tell him, I order him, I forbid him, &c.

page 27 note * See Cornewall Lewis, ch. v., for an analysis of the French, Italian, and Provencal prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions.

page 27 note † For the detailed proof and illustration of this, I must refer to my paper on the Power and Place of Accent in Language, Transactions of Royal Society, Edinburgh, March 1871.

page 27 note ‡ Non possumus esse tam graciles ? Simus Fortiores.—Institut. Orat. xii, 10.

page 28 note * Accentus est anima vocis.—Diomede. “ Pulsch. Gr. Lat. Auct.,” p. 425.

page 29 note * Sergii, ὕμνος ἀκάθιστος τῆς Θϵοτόκου. Anthol. Græca Carminum Christianorum. Christ et Paranikas. Lips. 1871, p. 140.

page 31 note * Passow: Popularia Carmenia Græcorum, ix. 2, lxxxii. 12, xcvi. 6.

page 31 note † Kind, : Neugrichische Anthologie, p. 72. Leipzig. 1847.Google Scholar

page 34 note * Of this barbarism, the name of an illustrious Fanariot family, Maurocordato— black-hearted, is a familiar example.

page 34 note † How much, of the peculiarities of the Alexandrian Greek has passed, either directly, or through the influence of the Church and the Alexandrian translation of the Old Testament, into modern Greek, the student of the Septuagint will readily convince himself. It is notable also, that not a few of the rare words used in the Septuagint, though unknown to Attic Greek, are found in Polybius, Herodotus, and Diodorus, as Schleusner, and other Biblical lexicographers, have been careful to note. The Biblical Greek which issued from Alexandria is, in fact, a sort of half-way house between Attic Greek and Romaic; and in this view it is certain that a familiarity with the living dialect of Greece would be of more value to our young theologians than many of the branches of philology which at present occupy their attention.

page 34 note ‡ On the peculiarities of the dialect of the Tzacones, which Mullach identifies with the Caucones of the ancient topographers, see Mullach, “ Grammar,” p. 94, and “ Das Tzakonische von Prof. Moriz Schmidt in Studien zur Griechischen und Lateinischen Grammatik, herausgegeben von Georg Curtius,” vol. iii. p. 347.

page 35 note * Ahrens, De Dialecto Dorica.

page 35 note † “On Cretan and Modem Greek,” in the Appendix to Captain Spratt's “Travels in Crete,” vol. i.

page 36 note † In the winter of 1872 a representation was made to the British Government on the evils arising from the appointment to judicial situations in Wales of barristers unacquainted with the language of the natives; and the Government pledged themselves to have respect to the representation in future, in so far as it might he possible to do so with a due regard to the legal knowledge of the persons appointed, i.e., that a Welsh-speaking barrister should in future be preferred, if his abilities and learning were equal.