Lag R. Gr D863? Pronunciation of Greek
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rw R IC HA R D C LA Y A N D SO N S , Lm r LO N D O N A x n B UN G A Y THE PRO N U N C IA TIO N O F GREEK . THE e G re e k ris of the nation from its long bondage, and its v i l rapid progress in general de elopment , in pol tica importance , o t in c mmerce and in education during the last fif y years, reveal s an inherent tenacity and vigour of life whi ch has scarcely a ever been witnessed in any other people . The r pid means of communication has also brought Greece withi n easy access E r l of Western u ope, and the once distant country is readi y i v s r v sited by numerous tra ellers , either for mere plea u e , or to study the relics whi ch still attest the former supremacy in and a i of Greece art rch tecture . This new intercourse with a nation whose literature has had so much influence on the ans ci ori o world at large, and is the f g of so much of its ll al v m has a inte ectu de elop ent , led m ny scholars , especially in H ll s Germany and o and , to recon ider the question of the proper a of a a a as pronunci tion the l ngu ge , and to study the langu ge r f at present spoken and w itten in Greece itsel . The scholars of England can hardly be said to have fairly turned their U v a attention to this subject . ntil ery l tely modern Greece, l a an d a its angu ge literature, found but little f vour in the a a an d v r nks of our schol rs, e en to the present day there . exists a remarkable ignorance among us of the progress, A 2 4 PRO NU NC IA TIO N G REEK THE OF . im provement and multiplicity of the works which are constantly r t he in issuing f om press Greece . There is in Englan d a general indifference to any modern i ll an Greek l terary production , or more genera y complete ignor ce — of the existing literature the prevailing idea be ing that a f ag r modern Greek is very dif erent langu e f om ancient Greek , and that the present language is so debas ed that the an cient iz The can hardly be recogn ed in it . general use of the ex ” pression modern Greek has led to a deepening of this v who v opinion, and ery few of those ha e spent the best years of their lives in the study of Greek at the public schools and universities have any idea of the language now spo ken in the land where the great wr iters of Greek antiquity wr ote their immort al productions ; and they woul d be surprised if they were told that the lexicon of Liddell and Scott which they h v a e so often used is the best for the language now spoken , v some idioms and pro incialisms excepted . But who can tell how many idi oms and provincialisms of the best times of A ttic are n literature not contai ed in any lexicon , and perhaps are only to be found in the traditional deposits of the nation and ex pressed by the people now as they were thousands o f years ago P an l rofessor Blackie , who is exception to the genera rule in t Helios az this country , wri es in the (the mag ine of the Hellenic Society in A msterdam) I am constantly meeting with inte lli gent persons who labour under the impression that the language and n P S . C of lato hrysostom is a dead la guage , as much as Latin I n w and and Hebrew . an age when Greek ne spapers Greek v e are h books on a great ariety of subj cts publis ed every day, t he e xistence of such a notion among intellige nt persons is a ’ sad Sign of that ‘ insular ignorance with which Professor Seeley reproached the inhabitants of this tight little island ; T HE PRONU NC IA TION GREEK 5 OF . and it is a notion pardonable enough in the general public , as professional scholars unfortunately have done not a little to t gi ve currency to so gross a misconcep ion . For professors and schoolmasters, and teachers of the classical languages generally, partly from their habit of devolving their living function as of i teachers language on dead books, and partly from the r barbarous habit of m urdering the classical tongue by Latin accentuation and E n lish vocaliz ation g , have taken up a position that, so far as they and their disciples are concerned , makes the living language of Greece practically dead ; and so complete is w this deadness, that hen our young Greeklings, after it may be ’ ten years study of Greek in Eton or Oxford , make a tour to l a a the and where the l ngu ge is spoken , they find that scarce a - H u sentence in their well crammed ellenism is nderstood , and h forthwit , instead of blaming themselves and their teachers for M their barbarous treatment of the language of the uses, they ” s denounce the spoken language as barbarous . This represent i the prevail ng opinion among us, which we trust will soon be one of the past . The term modern should no more be used r - as an adjective before G eek to represent the Greek of to day, than before English or French to distinguish those languages from what they were in the fifteenth or sixteenth century . German of the present day differs more from the language of - Luther than the Greek of to day from that of classic times . N 0 romance language approaches so near Latin as the Greek of - P ff c to day to that of lato . The di erent Latin dialects , whi h are a in so now classed as langu ges in Europe , have deviated many particulars from the parent tongue that the Latin scholar has to make a separate study to acquire any one of them . The Greek f w the scholar has not this di ficulty, if he ishes to read writings of modern Greeks . He will find when he begins to study the 6 T HE PRONU NC IA TI O N OF GREE K . modern literature such a surprising resemblance as to excite his m a ha t he astonishment , and to refute the ideas he y ve had as to language being so utterly changed as to be unintelligible to the s . O cla sical scholar n the contrary , he will make the agreeable disco very that at first sight he can understand as easily as a o f t he classic l Greek most well written books , and with a few weeks ’ study he will be able to read the newspapers and T he a as v periodicals . popular l nguage , in e ery country , will ff o er more variety of dialectic form , and not be so readily a a a cquired by the cl ssical student, but is most interesting i r diffi ph lological study . The pronunciation is the p incipal hi s al culty which the Western scholar finds on arriv in Greece, and it is this which stands as a wall of separation between the and scholars of the West and those of Greece , which hangs the d a a shroud of eath around the ancient cl ssic tongue , and br nds the A ttic wit of the present day as barbaric to those who have e contented themselves with pronouncing Gr ek , a foreign tongue , wn in the same manner as their o language . This curious question of how a language should be pronounced is k a language which living , which has always been spo en and has had a continuous literature even in times when the national e is life seem d almost extinct, the one we propose to examine briefly in the following page There can be no doubt but that in a language so widely spoken as the Greek was about the time of the Christian era there must have existed many dialectic forms and varieties t of pronunciation . It is not long since persons from the differen counties of England could be readily recogni z ed by their pro nunciat io n ; some counties had more marked differences of d a a a i lect th n others , and still retain, especi lly among the lower l s m anv a c asse , of these peculiarities of pronunci tion , and also T HE P RON UNCI ATION OF G REEK . many words and expressions peculiar to their own counties ; t he a a same m ay be said of most European countries . The st nd rd of a language in form and pronunciation must b e sought for among t he e ducated and those residin g in or near the centres l v h a a a of intel ectual de elopment, w ich in most c ses is the c pit l w c m a ir a a to n of the ountry . We y fa ly ssume that fter the and z fall of Greece proper, the rise of the By antine power , C a wt t and and onst ntinople i h its statesmen, ora ors writers, A a a m l h lex ndria with its gr m arians and schools of phi osop y , would be centres of learning in whi ch the Greek language was r spoken and written with compa ative purity .