INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF MODERN GREEK From the library by of Nicholas Bachtin Ph.D. (CamtJb.); Diplomid, /'&/, Naliol1a/,du Lznp.r Orimla/u, Pari.r; Benjamin O. Meritt Lk.-u-LAI. 0vav,,lauw 81'CJ)t;diwpt�µBllov iwl/Tqi Oµo.loyBi HBRACLlTtlS f� B. D. /fl� ' ..... lvJA ft. �'s � , cPl S 9- fJ>r P {3'3 PREFACE ,q;< HIS short essay is an introduction to a " Modern Greek Grammar for Classical Students " now in preparation. T This explains its tone and the treatment of material. It is intended neither for readers with no inter� at all in philological problems, nor for those already familiar with Modern Greek philology. The 6rft would find that I go into too many details in order to juftifymy assertions ; the second, that my assertions are all too often left unsupported. All I can attempt in the short space at my disposal is to indicate briefly to classical fuldents some ways of approach to present-day Greek, and to show them the inter� and profitfor their own subjed: in the ftudyof Modern Greek. Accordingly, the reader is supposed not only to have all his inter�s centred on Ancient Greek, but also to have a fuong prejudice against the Modern-Md this to a degree which, I hope, is not often found in reality. It muft then be taken as a merely methodical assumption. I am fully aware that the concluding section runs the risk of being interpreted as a somewhat partial treatment of the " language queftion " in Greece-QDd I am ready to take this risk. For I do not believe that in speaking of Modern Greek one has the right to pass over the queftion in silence, or to hide oneself behind vague and non-committal ftatements. I take this opportunity of mentioning with gratitude Prof. A. Mirambel and M. Thrasso Cutarakis, under whose Stimulating guidance I made my apprenticeship in Modern Greek at the School Printedat th• Pressof of Oriental Languages, Paris ; and also the late J. Psicharis, whom FIIA!fl< JucKn, LTD. - Birmingham 4- I had the privilege of having as my first mafter at the School. (().�� JJ,,yl,};h_ � �. U.n __k/7�. £�-�-- f� B. D. /fl� ' . ' ..... /))JA ft. � 's � c;Pl-, s 1- fk P 13'1 1'1'7<. PREFACE HIS short essay is an introduaion to a " Modern Greek Grammar for Classical Students " now in preparation. T This explains its tone and the treatment of material. It is intended neither for readers with no interdt at all in philological problems, nor for those already familiar with Modern Greek philology. The 6rit would find that I go into too many detailsin order to juftifymy assertions ; the second, that my assertions are all too often left unsupported. All I can attempt in the short space at my disposal is to indicate brieBy to classical ftudents some ways of approach to present-day Greek, and to show them the intereft and profit for their own subjea in the ftudyof Modern Greek. Accordingly, the reader is supposed not only to have all his interefts centred on Ancient Greek, but also to have a ftrong prejudice againft the Modem--and this to a degree which, I hope, is not often found in reality. It muft then be taken as a merely methodical assumption. I am fully aware that the concluding se8:ion runs the risk of being interpreted as a somewhat partial treatment of the " language queftion" in Greece-and I am ready to take this risk. For I do not believe that in speaking of Modern Greek one has the right to pass over the queftion in silence, or to hide oneself behind vague and non.committal ftatements. I take this opportunity of mentioning with gratitude Prof. A. Mirambel and M. Thrasso Cabnakis, under whose ftimulating guidance I made my apprenticeship in Modern Greek at the School Printed at tho. Pressof of Oriental Languages, Paris; and also the late J. Psicharis, whom FIIAMlt Juc1ta, LTD. - Birmingham 4 - I had the privilege of having as my firft mafter at the School. f ().�� J,,yl,ju}J_ � ,r.. � 11-- h/-f/A,\_ E�-�-- I. " HE Greeks (mo� famous of old both for Arms ande gArts, and Tevery thing that's truly valuable)are so wonderfully d enerated from their Forefathers, that in�ead ofg those excellent Qualities which shine in 'em, particularly, Knowled e, Prlllimce, and Valour; there's nothing now to be seen among 'em, but theReverse or contrary of these, and that in the highe� degree . Yea, the knowledge of theg ancientar Greek in its former Purity is not only loft among the vul sort of People, but also almoft extinguished even among those of the higheft Rank." I Thus, at the beginning of the 8th century, wrote P. Gordon the geographer. Since then the attitude of cultivated Europe has changed but little. There was a short outburst of undiscriminating enthusiasm for the resuscitation of Greece, which brought into momentary vogue Greek popular poetry, ju� then revealed to Europe by Fauriel. But this was soon followed by a general-and rather naive-disappointment : the liberated country did not seem to embody the classical ideal in the precise way it was expetl:ed to do. And even now, to many a devout admirer of classical antiquity Modern Greece rull appearsf as an annoying oMtacle between him and the Greece of his rive ami/ier. One has to accept its regrettable exiftence on the sacred ground-it cannot be helped-one has to put up with it ; juft as of old the pious pilgrims journeying to Jerusalem had to put up with the infidels in whose power an unjuft fate had placed the Holy Land. Thank Heaven there is full the unchanged vision of land and sea, there are ruins and museums, there is a Pausanias in one's pocket to guide one's fteps ! And this suffices... But the intereft once awakened by Fauriel's Chants populairu de la Grke Modtrne (1821) did not vanish among scholars as entirely as it did among the general public. The ftudy of the living folklore of Hellenic lands has been progressing, slowly but fteadily, through­ out the laft century, and the work has been carried out not only by searchers who would merely colletl:the material or consider it ftatically 5 and in isolation, but sometimes also by classical scholars. Thus range of possibilities and limitations on the inhabitants, has aB:cd something has been done to lay bare certainliving conneaions between as a mould, shaping their fates according to the same unalterable Ancient Greece and the Greece of to-day. To quote a few in�ces pattern. It is the specific combination of low, dull, fertile plains only, Prof. R. M. Dawkins U.H.S. 1906) has shown the striking withlofty alpine pasture-lands,that has determined the vital rhythm persistence of some elements of the Dionysiac ritual in modern of the region by making a great part of the population men of a Thrace, the old home of Dionysos; Prof. A. J. B. Wace (B.S.A. double home, and tracing forever the routes of their annual migration; 1909-1910) has investigated and described other festivals, celebrated it has also set an unextinguishable feud between the sedentary dwellers over a wide area in North Greece, in which the survival of the same in the plain, who till the ground, buy and sell and work, and those or similar features is clearly traceable. One may hold different others whom every spring leads their highlands. opinions as to the importance of the evidence provided by the Viza to carnival and other similar performances, but once stated ithenceforth In Homer we read of the �ruggle between the Lapithai who cannot be--and has not been-ignored in any serious discussion of dwelt on tilth along the Peneios, and the 'mountain-haunting' the fundamental problem of the origin of Greek drama. Several Centaurs of Pelion. Men of a double home, the mountain-haunters other links between Ancient and Modern Greece have been suggested moved back and forth between the plains and the highlands-a cause in J. C. Lawson's stimulating book on Modern Greek Folklore and of trouble and a permanent menace to their sedentary neighbours, Annen/ Greek Religion (1910), and many pages in Prof. A. B. Cook's the Lapithai of the plain-" Hence was the feud begun between the Zeus demonstrate how, by pushing investigation far beyond the Centaurs and these men." Some thirty centuries later we meet with borders of the classical age and right down to our own day, a student a new version of the eternal Thessalian tale : the rude mountain­ of ancient religion can obtain valuable light on his subject. haunter-shepherd, warrior, and robber-reappears under a new name, the Kleft. The Kleftic poetry shows how a national �uggle, Thus it has appeared that some scattered treasures of the pasl: a fight for independence, becomes reshaped according to the familiar are still faithfully preserved in the memory of the people ; that pattern, and takes the form of the old feud between free unattached certain essential motives which dominated the spirit of a Greek mountaineers and those " slaves who dwell in villages, in the plain." peasant some twenty-five centurfos ago, are ru.11 active in the Greek And to-day there are the local Thessalian papers to remind us that peasant of to-day, and continue to influence his whole attitude to the feud is not over ; that rioting still goes on between the peasants things human and divine.