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PA 1063 
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 ROMAIC AND MODERN GREEK 
 
 COMPARED WITH ONE ANOTHER, 
 
 ANCIENT GREEK. 
 
 tX 
 
 JAMES CLYDE, M.A. 
 
 v* 
 
 EDINBURGH : SUTHERLAND AND KNOX. 
 LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. 
 
 MDCCCLV. 
 
MURRAY AND GIBB. PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
TO 
 
 J. S. BLACKIE, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 By your public declarations that a language worthy 
 of the Greek name survives, my attention was called two years 
 ago to the dialects spoken and written by the modern Greeks : 
 the specimens of the Athenian periodical press, with which you 
 answered my first inquiries, convinced me that, antiquities apart, 
 a residence in Athens would amply reward the student of Greek ; 
 and, when you found me there in the spring of 1853, your enthu- 
 siasm was my encouragement to prosecute the investigations 
 begun. 
 
 To you, therefore, as to a benefactor, I gratefully dedicate the 
 following pages, in which is exhibited the result of eight months' 
 observation and inquiry on the spot, being well persuaded that, if 
 they elucidate in any measure the fortunes and prospects even of 
 non-classical Greek, they will find an approver and patron in 
 one who has given a new impetus to Greek studies in our native 
 country, and, in particular, who first dared to assume before the 
 British public the responsibility of recommending Modern Greek 
 to the attention of classical students. 
 
 I unite my wishes to those of a whole generation of Grecians, 
 that you may long preside over the Greek studies in our metro- 
 politan University, and reap the glory due to your abundant and 
 enthusiastic labours. 
 
 I am, 
 
 Your most obedient Servant, 
 
 JAMES CLYDE. 
 
 Edinburgh, December 1854. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 The following pages contain such an account of Romaic and 
 Modern Greek as may exhibit to the classical student what 
 has really become of the Greek language, once generally 
 supposed to be dead, and now alleged by some to survive. 
 This account will materially assist the inquiries of those who 
 would enter on a detailed examination of the surviving dialects, 
 whether by reading at home, or by visiting Greece; whilst 
 the merely curious will find in it that summary of infor- 
 mation and examples which they desiderate. 
 
 A disquisition has two advantages in the present case over 
 a grammar. From the multiplicity of dialects in Romaic, 
 and the diversities of style in Modern Greek, both have a 
 Protean character, and what is thus really manifold and un- 
 settled, is apt to be represented as single and definite in a 
 grammar, which presupposes the construction of model para- 
 digms. Then, into a disquisition can be introduced with 
 greater propriety the critical and historical matter which the 
 subject demands. Whilst for these reasons the form of a 
 grammar has been avoided, few grammatical peculiarities of 
 Romaic or Modern Greek have been left unexplained, so 
 that the attentive reader, who is already a tolerable Greek 
 scholar, will find himself qualified to peruse works in either. 
 
 No question is raised in the following pages concerning the 
 
VI TO THE READER. 
 
 ancient mode, or the mode now practically best, of pronouncing 
 Greek, because justice has been lately done to these- subjects 
 in special treatises, by Pennington in England, and by Pro- 
 fessor Blackie in Scotland. Neither are such questions enter- 
 tained as the following : Of what advantage is a knowledge 
 of Modern Greek to the classical student ? At what stage of 
 scholarship should the student's attention be called to Modern 
 Greek ? Is it desirable that our teachers of Greek accustom 
 their pupils to conversation in the modern dialect? Of such 
 questions some are answered by the mere exhibition of what 
 Modern Greek is, and others must wait for solution till British 
 scholars in general acquire more accurate and definite notions 
 of Modern Greek than they yet possess. At present such 
 questions can be neither intelligently entertained nor fairly 
 answered by the great majority interested in them ; and a 
 warfare of extreme views is all that can result from precipitat- 
 ing their discussion. 
 
 A considerable array of facts regarding Modern Greek has 
 been set before the British public of late years, especially 
 by Mr Corpe in London, Mr Donaldson in Edinburgh, and 
 the several reviewers of Trikoupes' History of the Greek Re- 
 volution. The present is a contribution of the same kind, 
 but with this peculiarity, that an attempt is made to dis- 
 tinguish, in a series of particulars, the Romaic dialect from 
 Modern Greek, properly so called. To draw this distinction 
 is important, as otherwise the totality of surviving Greek is 
 invested with the characteristics of a part, and its approxima- 
 tion to the ancient dialects underrated or exaggerated, accord- 
 ing as the vulgar or the polite form of language is taken as 
 the standard. To draw this distinction, however, is exceed- 
 ingly difficult ; for, as usual in such cases, instead of a boundary 
 line, there exists an indefinite border territory between the 
 domains of popular and polite literature, and how this should 
 be shared between the two must be to some extent matter of 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 Vll 
 
 opinion. At the same time, that there does exist a marked 
 difference between the vulgar and literary dialects is evident on 
 the most cursory inspection of both, and the attempt to ascer- 
 tain it, if successful, will be all the more meritorious for being 
 difficult. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
ROMAIC AND MODERN GREEK, 
 
 PART I.— GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 To prevent confusion of ideas, it is necessary to define, at the 
 outset, the sense in which certain designations will be used in the 
 sequel. 
 
 The term, Ancient Greek, will be applied, not only to the 
 compositions called Classical, but to all Greek writings, of what- 
 ever date, composed on the model of the classical vocabulary and 
 grammar. The term Romaic will be confined to those popular 
 dialects which, whensoever they arose, are known to have existed 
 under the Byzantine empire, and which, or the like of which, 
 are still spoken by the uneducated. The term Modern Greek 
 will be given to that language in which the laws of the kingdom 
 of Greece are written, and which is acknowledged by the Greeks 
 everywhere, as their present literary dialect. 
 
 The second of these terms, Romaic, is accepted, merely on the 
 ground of prescription ; because, suggesting as it does, a Latin 
 affinity, it is calculated to convey a false impression regarding the 
 dialects to which it is applied. When the seat of empire was 
 removed to Constantinople, the emperors retained their ancient 
 title, translated however into Greek, BacvXe/g 'Pw^a/wy ; and just as, 
 in later times, the victorious Franks gave their name to the nation, 
 country, and language of the conquered Gauls, so the glorious 
 name of Romans passed upon the race, provinces, and dialects of 
 the subjugated Greeks. Thus the term Romaic has a political, 
 not at all a literary origin, and properly describes neither the 
 lineage of a people, nor the character of their language, but the 
 imperial dynasty by which they were governed. 
 
Z GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 According to Apollonius, the Greeks, at a very early period, 
 gratuitously adopted the family names of illustrious Romans. 
 Fully two centuries before Byzantium became Nsa 'Pw/ajj, being on 
 a visit to Smyrna, he was formally invited to the Panionic fes- 
 tival, which was that year celebrated there ; and noticing, among 
 the signatures to the invitation, a number of Roman names, as 
 Lucullus and Fabricius, he addressed a sharp rebuke to his 
 Ionian friends, which may be found in Philostratus, Epistle 71. 
 The very next letter of the same collection is a shorter, but 
 equally pithy reprimand, administered to his own brother, for 
 the assumption of a Roman name : and to the prevalence of 
 this Romanising spirit among the Greeks some would ascribe 
 the facility, with which they afterwards renounced their an- 
 cestral designation 'exXjjws, and accepted that of their con- 
 querors. 
 
 Other and more satisfactory reasons, however, account for the 
 change. Not only the dynasty, the administration, and the army, 
 in the East, were called Roman, according to political propriety ; 
 but, in the fourth century at least, the Asiatic provinces of the 
 empire were called Romania — a nomenclature of which modern 
 geography has preserved a vestige in Europe, viz., Roumelia, 
 i.e., country of the Romans. Nothing, then, was more natural 
 than that the inhabitants should bear a name corresponding with 
 that of the government under which they lived, and the territory 
 which they occupied. But, perhaps, of all circumstances giving 
 currency to the appellation 'Pw/^a/o/ among the Greeks themselves, 
 and for them, among the surrounding non-Christian populations, 
 the most decisive was the acknowledgment of Christianity by the 
 Roman emperors, in consequence of which Roman became a sy- 
 nonyme for Christian, whilst the idea of idolatry continued to be 
 connected with "EWrjvsg. Accordingly the Greeks were called 
 Eoum in the heading of the 30th chapter of the Koran, as indeed 
 they are to this day by the Arabs and Turks. 
 
 Since, then, the Greeks accepted the designation 'Pu^aioi, and 
 the countries occupied by them received a cognate appellation, 
 most naturally their spoken language was called 'Pu/Aa/xif* It 
 borrowed as little from the language of the Romans as did French 
 from the language of the Franks : but even had it not admitted 
 a single Latin word, the foreign designation, which had passed 
 
GENERAL REMARKS. O 
 
 upon the people and their territory, would not the less have 
 reached also their language. 
 
 The term Modern Greek is adopted, as being both historically 
 and descriptively correct. In their popular songs, the Greeks call 
 themselves variously 'Papa/bi, Tpcuxo), and "EXXyvsc. Till the be- 
 ginning of the present century, the first of these was the current na- 
 tional designation everywhere, as it still is among the uneducated in 
 Greece enslaved ; but, at the revolutionary era, the Greeks re- 
 called their ancient titles of glory, the liberated portion of their ter- 
 ritory reassumed, with independence, its ancient name, y\ 'EXXag, 
 the inhabitants were called 0/ "EXXyjvsg, and their cultivated lan- 
 guage h Nzo-zXXyjvixri, i.e., Modern Greek. Nor is this term, like 
 the one already discussed, a historical misnomer, requiring to be 
 explained, because calculated to mislead. The language in ques- 
 tion is all that its name suggests, Greek, in respect of its voca- 
 bulary and accidence, to some extent even in its syntax, but dis- 
 tinguished from the ancient by its reflecting exactly those ideas 
 and modes of thought which, constituting the common stock of 
 modern civilisation, tend to assimilate all modern languages, so 
 that phrase answers to phrase, and word to word, in them more 
 exactly than is found to be the case in translating from an ancient 
 into a modern dialect. 
 
 At Constantinople, Smyrna, and Corfu, no less than at Athens, 
 newspapers, almanacs, school-books, in short, all literary produc- 
 tions, not excepting the most ephemeral, as hand-bills, intended 
 for general circulation, are now printed in Modern Greek, as 
 distinguished from Romaic. If only in free Greece and in the 
 Ionian islands this cultivated dialect is heard in the senate and 
 at the bar, it is everywhere heard from the pulpit ; if only in 
 Athens it is the vehicle of professorial instruction, it is the medium 
 of the schoolmaster's humbler tuition wherever a Greek commu- 
 nity exists. 
 
 As for the term I>a/xo/, which through the Latin has passed 
 into the languages of Europe, it was never a universally admit- 
 ted national designation among the ancient Greeks, and owes its 
 acceptance by those of later times to its currency among all 
 other Europeans, and to the proscription under which the desig- 
 nation EXtojveg was laid by the Greeks of the middle ages, in con- 
 sequence of its suggesting the idolatry of their ancestors. Now 
 
4 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 that the prouder appellation "EXXrivsg has been restored, and that 
 the Ciceronian diminutive grceculi is suggested to every scholar 
 by Tpaizoi, this latter term has fallen into universal disrepute. 
 
 The distinction between Romaic and Modern Greek requires 
 to be insisted on, as it is not recognised by British scholars in 
 general, and is systematically ignored by a few Greeks, or rather, 
 to speak within my own knowledge, by one. This distinguished 
 individual is M. Sophocles, professor of Greek in Cambridge 
 (U. S.) University, and author of a Romaic Grammar, published 
 in 1842, a most valuable auxiliary to the English student of 
 Romaic, properly so called. 1 In his preface to this work, M. 
 Sophocles says of " Romaic, or, as it is often called, Modern v 
 Greek," thus confounding the two : — "It may with propriety be 
 said to bear the same relation to the Greek, that is, the language 
 of the ancient Greeks, that the Italian bears to the Latin." The 
 testimony of a Greek concerning the living language of his coun- 
 trymen will not be considered as necessarily conclusive by any 
 one acquainted with Greek literary partizanship. In the following 
 pages no attempt is made to conceal either the internal dissolu- 
 tion of ancient Greek, or its admixture with foreign elements, as 
 these appear in the Romaic dialects ; but however nearly, N in 
 regard to them, the judgment of M. Sophocles may approach 
 the truth, in regard to Modern Greek, it is a glaring mistake. 
 As his grammar, being written in English, has probably in- 
 fluenced the opinions of British scholars, I shall borrow two 
 examples from his own Chrestomathy, one of Romaic, properly 
 so called (see p. 18), and another, of Modern Greek (see p. 41), 
 and the reader will thus have an opportunity of judging, from 
 his own specimens, whether or not M. Sophocles has confounded 
 things that differ. 
 
 The difference between Romaic and Modern Greek cannot be 
 better represented in brief than by that which exists between 
 broad Scotch and good English. There are phrases in the one 
 unknown to the other, like the famous neffow d > glaur, which all the 
 
 1 Prefixed to Ducange's Lexicon of Mediaeval Greek is a succinct Romaic 
 grammar, the basis, I presume, of most subsequent ones. This honour is 
 ascribed by M. Minoidas Mynas (see p. 44 of the preface to his " Theorie de 
 la Grammaire, et de la langue Grecque") to another Romaic grammar, pub- 
 lished at Paris in 1709, by a missionary, Thomas Parisinus. 
 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 English of George IV., and his boasted knowledge of Scotch to 
 boot, were unable to explain : the truncation and fusion of words, 
 incident to all merely colloquial dialects, and prevalent in the 
 one, are rejected by the other : the one is subdivided into innu- 
 merable varieties, under the tyranny of local influences; the 
 other triumphs over provincialism, and varies, not according to 
 the birthplace, but according to the education of him who uses 
 it : the one has no literature except proverbs and popular poetry; 
 the other is the vehicle of all knowledge to an entire people : 
 and just as in Scotland the educated recur to the vulgar dialect, 
 for the sake of intelligibility, when discoursing with the illiterate, 
 and, in certain circumstances, even when discoursing with one 
 another, to avoid the appearance of affectation, or for the sake 
 of forcible, familiar, or comical expressions ; so in Greece, where 
 Romaic is still the language of the nursery and the playground, 
 and where, from the rarity of preaching and the recency of 
 schools, the people in general are not yet familiarised with 
 Modern Greek, as are the humbler classes in Scotland with 
 good English, there is a large admixture of Romaic in the con- 
 versational style even of the educated classes. 
 
 Although the Ionian islands have been a British depen- 
 dency for nearly forty years, and Modern Greek has made such 
 progress even there, where the Romaic dialect is so exceedingly 
 corrupt, that in 1852 it supplanted Italian in the administra- 
 tion of government and justice, it has not received so much 
 public notice in the United Kingdom as on the Continent. 
 Since 1828 it-has been publicly taught in Paris, under the 
 patronage of Government; and in Germany it has become still 
 more extensively known through the connection between the 
 court of Athens and those of Bavaria and Oldenburg. Many 
 learned Germans speak it fluently, and one of them, Ross, for- 
 merly professor in the University of Athens, has enriched its 
 literature by a work on Archaeology. In this country, however, 
 Modern Greek is still generally held to be a mere euphuism for 
 Romaic ; nor is a bare representation of grammatical forms ade- 
 quate to remove this impression. The surprise, indeed, with which 
 a British scholar marks the coincidence between the grammatical 
 paradigms of Modern Greek, as given, for example, by Mr Corpe, 
 and those of the ancient Attic, is necessarily mingled with doubt, 
 
b GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 and succeeded by questions, which no mere grammar can solve, 
 regarding the time and mode of the apparent lingual resurrection. 
 
 It is not pretended that the age of Pericles has returned to 
 Greece ; nor will any scholar, whom native good sense or sound 
 philosophy has preserved from pedantry, be either surprised or 
 displeased that Modern Greek should bear the unequivocal 
 stamp of the nineteenth century, to which it belongs. French 
 has changed in spite of the Academy's dictionary : when certain 
 patriotic Germans combined against the Gallicisms which had 
 crept into the vaterldndische Sprache, it was found that the 
 famose Kerle and deliciose Bursche could not be expelled ; and 
 whoever compares the present features of any living language 
 with those it bore three or four centuries ago, will learn how 
 wide are the limits within wdiich a language may vary without 
 losing its identity. Greek, instead of being an exception to the 
 general rule, is its most signal example ; for no other language 
 possessed originally so great wealth of grammatical forms and 
 syntactical arrangements, nor has any other suffered 2000 years 
 of decline, and yet survived : in other words, the vulnerable 
 points were more numerous, and the period of time, during which 
 the work of degradation went on, has been longer in the case of 
 Greek than of any other. In regard to such a language espe- 
 cially, it is preposterous to set up a grammatical decalogue, to 
 which nothing may at any time be added, and from which 
 nothing may at any time be taken away. It is conceded that a 
 great change has passed upon Greek ; nay, that whoever, for the 
 purpose of solecism hunting, should apply the Attic standard to 
 Modern Greek, might commit a slaughter, but could not find 
 sport, so abundant is the game : but such a one is invited to test 
 his system of lingual uniformity throughout all ages, by apply- 
 ing it to the earliest as well as to the latest specimens of Greek. 
 He will then be seen taking Homer himself rudely to task, after 
 the example of Theodorus, a famous grammarian of the 15th 
 century, who enriched his chapter on solecisms with nearly 
 thirty examples, five-sixths of which he found in the Iliad and 
 Odyssey ! 
 
 When several things really different have long been included 
 under one name, the implied diversity is often lost sight of, and 
 the common designation interpreted partially, each man putting 
 
GENERAL REMARKS. 7 
 
 the part he knows best for the whole. How many, for example, 
 interpreting Protestantism, describe merely their own sect, pre- 
 suming unity in the thing from unity in the name, and that the 
 whole resembles their own little part. The same often happens 
 with the phrase Ancient Greek, the diversity of dialects, which it 
 comprehends but does not suggest, being forgotten, and the 
 Attic, as better known than the others, being practically put for 
 Ancient Greek in general. From this very cause even Romaic 
 is often supposed to differ from Ancient Greek, in particulars 
 where it really agrees with one or other of its dialects. How 
 many, for example, learning that the rough breathing is 
 neglected in the modern pronunciation of the Greeks, cry out 
 against the spoliation of the ancient, forgetting how little the 
 rough breathing was used in -ZEolic, and that the other ancient 
 dialects, by losing the digamma, set the example of delinquency 
 in this direction ! How many, hearing one Athenian schoolboy 
 say to another on some extraordinarily productive holiday : "E^w 
 rpsTg hpa-fcfjjaTg' <r6(tccig zyjig £<rv, would signalise the lamentable 
 confusion of the accusative with the dative, forgetting that the 
 same existed once more in the 2Eolic ! How many, in convers- 
 ing with modern Greeks, are scandalised at first by their constant 
 use of %a[Mw in the sense of ^o/w, not recollecting that line of 
 Homer (Iliad IV. 187)— 
 
 " Zoj'jja rs xcci [*.irpr\ rqv yaX%riig '% a (Jj o v avdpeg.' 
 The belt of mail which braziers made. 
 
 But although neither Romaic nor Modern Greek could derive 
 any special illustrations from the non- Attic dialects of antiquity, 
 I should still appeal to the reader, with tables of the ancient dia- 
 lects before him, and observing how much they differ from one 
 another in accentuation and orthography, and consequently in 
 pronunciation, in grammatical forms, and even in their vocabu- 
 laries, whether a narrow and churlish criticism be not peculiarly 
 out of place in respect to Greek. 
 
 Be it remembered, also, that the ancient dialects differed not 
 only from one another, but from themselves at different epochs, 
 as the student knows to his cost in passing from the writers of one 
 age to those of another. No strange demand, therefore, is made 
 by Modern Greek, when it claims to be recognised as a dialect or 
 
8 ROMAIC. 
 
 modification of the Greek language. Its vocabulary contains 
 few words which have not a classic parentage, and most of them 
 are genuinely Greek, both in form and signification ; whilst the 
 novelties which its vocabulary has admitted, as also the approxi- 
 mation of its structure to that of modern languages in general, 
 prove only that it is not the pet invention of a few learned men, 
 but the genuine expression of changes in the language, which 
 have always run parallel with the fortunes of the nation. 
 
 A distinct general notion of how Modern Greek arose, can j 
 be given in few words. It is a compromise between Ancient [ 
 Greek and Romaic brought about by the necessity of communi- 
 cating to a people, no longer understanding the former, a mass 
 and variety of knowledge which the latter could not convey. \ 
 Hence it preserved as much of Romaic as was required by in- 
 telligibility, and admitted as much of Ancient Greek as was 
 consistent with the same prime exigency. The very artifice ; 
 which was employed in England to facilitate the amalgamation 
 of Anglo-Saxon with Norman French is employed now in Greece ; 
 thousands of ancient words and phrases passing into the popular 
 vocabulary by being coupled with their Romaic synonymes, after 
 the exact type of the often-quoted " assemble and meet together" 
 in the English prayer book. It maybe added that, the elements 
 to be fused in Modern Greek being cognate, it possessed from (/ 
 the beginning a homogeneity which never could result from the 
 amalgamation of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, and that, 
 from the infinite superiority of the one element over the other, 
 it recedes, as education is diffused, from Romaic, and advances 
 towards the ancient model. 
 
 PART II.— ROMAIC. 
 
 The variety of dialects included under the term Romaic is 
 very great. Ducange, in § 9 of the preface to his Lexicon of 
 Mediaeval Greek, mentions that Symeon Cabasilas numbered 
 seventy in his time. Villoison, who accompanied the French 
 ambassador to Constantinople in 1785, and afterwards visited 
 Mount Athos and the Greek islands, enumerated seventy-two, 
 in imitation, perhaps, of Clemens Alexandrinus, according to 
 
eomaic. y 
 
 whom seventy-two languages arose upon the dispersion of man- 
 kind. Kodrikas in his MjXsr»j ryji %oivr\g * EXXrjv i%y\g diotXsTtrov, pub- 
 lished at Paris in 1818, justly remarks that the number seventy- 
 two is, on the one hand, too small to include all merely topical 
 dialects, and, on the other, too large for those having grand 
 characteristics in common. He divides the Romaic dialects into 
 twelve; but the most intelligible classification is that which, 
 taking the element of corruption for its principle, divides them 
 into three, viz., those of the islands, corrupted with Italian, those 
 in the Peloponnesus, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus, corrupted 
 with Sclavonic, and those of Thrace and Asia Minor, corrupted 
 with Turkish. These dialects differ from each other in their 
 vocabularies, accidence, and pronunciation to such an extent 
 that, were a Peloponnesian peasant to meet one from the shores 
 of the Black Sea, much of their discourse would be mutually 
 unintelligible. Details on such a subject would consequently be 
 endless as well as frivolous ; but the following general remarks 
 will suffice to show what a ruin of Ancient Greek these dialects 
 present. 
 
 The vocabularies of them all are not only corrupt, as having 
 borrowed more or less from the languages of European and Asi- 
 atic conquerors, but poor, as being determined by the few wants 
 and ideas of an illiterate peasantry. E. G., having frequently heard 
 tiropa in the mouths of the common people at Athens, but never 
 csroparog, I asked an intelligent Greek what was the Romaic 
 genitive of <rro>«, and he answered that it had none. 1 I then 
 asked how the peasants would say rb roZ grofiarog peyedos, to 
 which he answered that Romaic contained few such general- 
 izations, and in the present instance could express only the con- 
 crete ; i.e., e%e/ rb arofia fisya\o(v) — he has a big mouth. This 
 statement I afterwards found to be correct, and it thus appears 
 that the Romaic dialects, by possessing few abstract terms, have 
 one grand characteristic in common with those of barbarous tribes 
 in general ; for as water can never rise above its source, so the lan- 
 guage of a people can never rise above their sphere of thought. 
 
 In respect to the pronunciation of Romaic, I shall only ob- 
 
 1 On further inquiry I found that (rro^ccrou, as if from a new nominative 
 ff<rofixrov f is the Romaic genitive of erbpa. ; but it is little used. See p. 11. 
 
10 ROMAIC. 
 
 serve that, as it disregards quantity altogether, so its accentua- 
 tion is not amenable to the ancient canons. In many cases the 
 misaccentuation arises from a tendency to preserve the place of 
 the accent unchanged throughout all the inflections of a word : 
 thus, Romaic has Qdwrog, Qdvarou, instead of Qavdrov, and <pp6vt/j,ri 
 for the feminine of (ppovi^og, instead of <ppovi^n according to the 
 analogy of classic accentuation, or ppovi^og according to classic 
 usage. But no rule can be given ; for, whereas Romaic says 
 avOpuvrog, avQpwxov, and ayysXog, ayysXov, preserving the place of 
 the accent in the genitive, notwithstanding the change of quantity 
 in the final syllable, in the nominative plural it makes avfyw-ro/ and 
 dyysXoi, moving forward the accent, though the last syllable re- 
 mains short. The place of the accent is frequently affected by 
 the synizesis of two vowel-sounds, Romaic being particularly 
 fond of this contraction. Thus in <puria, iraibia, and sT/acg (he 
 took), the vowels /« are pronounced in one syllable, like ya in 
 yard, so that i-T/atrs becomes a trisyllable, and is pronounced 
 sV/atfs, whilst, in the other two words, / being as truly a consonant 
 as y is in yard, the accent necessarily falls on the final «, and the 
 words are pronounced and written pwr/a, ncuhtd. The rough 
 breathing is frequently replaced by y, as ydi^a for «//*/« : and 
 this 7, being frequently inserted in the middle of words, to pre- 
 vent the hiatus where two vowels meet, as in %a/yw, /tXa/yw, 
 which are the Romaic forms of xa/w, xXaiu, is justly regarded 
 as representing the iEolic digamma. 
 
 What an abridgment of the ancient grammatical forms has 
 taken place in Romaic will appear from the following review : — 
 
 1. The perittosyllabic nouns of Ancient Greek have all but 
 disappeared ; and that in three ways. First, the accusative 
 plural of masculine perittosyllabics has been made the nomina- 
 tive of a new noun in the first declension ; so that, instead of o 
 dvTjp, 6 yspoov 6 QaffiXzvg, Romaic has o avdpag, 6 yspovrag, 6 QatiiXsdg. 
 Secondly, in regard to feminine perittosyllabics their accusative 
 singular, when ending in a, has been adopted as the nomina- 
 tive of a new noun also in the first declension ; so that, instead 
 of y, ywrj, i] (irirrip, 7] dvydrqp, Romaic has h yvva/Tca, rj /Aqrepa 7) 
 duyarzpu. Thirdly, and most frequently of all, in regard to 
 perittosyllabics of whatever gender, diminutives in iov 7 formed 
 
ROMAIC. 11 
 
 from the root, have supplanted their primitives, a process which, 
 besides that it is in strict accordance with classic analogy, the 
 following list will sufficiently explain : — 
 
 From cit%, d>ybg, Romaic has aiytdiov, *yihi(ov) 
 
 „ o<pis 9 opog, „ „ byihiov, '<pidi(ov) 
 
 „ 'iyX sXv $% bX&ws, » » lyyiXiov, %eX/(oi/) 
 
 „ aridtov, uydovog, „ „ dr}d6vi(ov) 
 
 n %*k> yj>?K » » x*P'( 0V ) 
 
 „ <7rovg, tfodbg, „ „ voddpi^ov) 
 
 „ odoijg, odovrog, „ „ odovnov, 9 d6vn(ov) 
 
 „ xoppa, xopfictrog „ „ xofifid,Ti(ov) x 
 
 Many nouns in ug of the first declension have a perittosyllabic 
 plural, as -^apag — a fisherman, plural -^apddsg, or ^apddaig, e and 
 «/ being pronounced alike by the moderns ; but the only nouns, 
 claiming a perittosyllabic genitive singular, are a few neuters in 
 a, as urofia, sojfia, which make trofidrov, tupdrov, and a class of 
 verbals unknown to Ancient Greek, as 
 
 ypd-^ifj^ov, ypa-^i/J^arog Writing. 
 
 'pd-^/'Aov, ' pa-^i/jyarog sewing. 
 
 ■/.Xd^i/Aov '/.Xcc-^i ijjarog weeping. 
 
 However, I never myself heard these perittosyllablic genitives 
 from the mouths of the people, and several native Greeks have 
 made to me the same acknowledgment. 2 As for a very few 
 feminines in tg, as woktg, yvuatg, ydpig^ their Romaic genitive does 
 not differ from the nominative, except, indeed, when the final s 
 is dropped in the nominative itself. In the AwtonxA "Atpara, of 
 Zampelius, h itoki 3 is met with for h *6\ig, so that this noun might 
 
 1 For the reason of these parentheses enclosing the last syllables, see p. 13. 
 
 2 Many nouns are in fact undeclined by the people, in illustration of which 
 I may be allowed an anecdote. When the steamer in which I returned from 
 Greece was opposite Megara, a well educated Greek remarked for my infor- 
 mation that a well is still called <pgU% by the Megaraeans, and not Tnydh(ov) 
 as elsewhere ; upon which I asked how the Megaraeans formed the genitive 
 of <pg£«g. After some hesitation he answered, that he was sure they did not 
 say (pharos, and supposed they used -rvyc&biov, as do the common people else- 
 where. It is just as likely, however, that the Megaraeans dispense with the 
 genitive, that is, with a separate desinence for the genitive altogether. 
 
 3 Some names of places admitted into our geographies as Tripoli, Napoli, 
 are really Romaic nominatives of this kind from Tg/voXis, "SU^oXts ; or Romaic 
 accusatives, for, as will be afterwards remarked, the final » of TfaoXiv, titccvo^iv 
 is not pronounced in Romaic. 
 
1 2 ROMAIC. 
 
 be written as of the first declension, h voXri, rrjg vbXyg, i and n being 
 pronounced exactly alike. But then, in the same collection of 
 popular songs, occurs y yns for h yy, where the nominative, in- 
 stead of dropping its own g, as in the case of voXig, assumes that 
 of the genitive ; which leads me to remark that, notwithstanding 
 a general tendency to regularity in its declensions, Romaic, by 
 the endless anomalies that appear on a minute examination, sets 
 all grammar at defiance. A broad and striking fact, however, is 
 contained in the statement that the perittosyllabic nouns of 
 Ancient Greek have all but disappeared from Romaic. 
 
 For the means by which this change has been effected, prece- 
 dents of considerable or even high antiquity can be adduced. 
 The use of diminutives in form, not in sense, is characteristic of 
 all popular dialects, witness the housie, wifie, burnie, boatie, etc., 
 of Scottish poetry ; and scholars may become more tolerant of 
 their prevalence in Romaic, by considering how they abound in 
 the ancient comedies, particularly in the '.E/^vjj of Aristophanes. 
 Then again, Suidas gives not only skip but Meipa, and Hesychius 
 not only Mryp, but wrupa ; in both which cases a new nomina- 
 tive in the first declension seems to have been formed from the 
 accusative singular of a feminine perittosyllabic. In line 71 of 
 the Homeric Hymn to Venus (No. 4 in Matthias' edition, 
 Leipsic, 1805) — 
 
 ii " Apxroi vraphaXiig rz 6oa) vpoxdduv axoprjro" 
 
 irpoxahw cannot be from icpV^, vpox.bg, but from vpoxag, vpoxadog : 
 that is, the accusative plural of ^pog has been assumed as a new 
 nominative singular. 
 
 That, in the most Ancient Greek, perittosyllabics existed some- 
 times under the isosyllabic form also, appears from the following 
 examples : — 
 
 spog, zgov, in Iliad I. 469 for tgug, iourog 
 
 xsufyxbg, xzu&ftov, „ „ XIII. 28 „ x.sv6/^ojv -uvog 
 
 /xugrvgog, ftaorvgov Odyss. XVI. 423 „ /xdorvg -vgog 
 ysXog, yeXov „ „ XX. 346 „ y'sXwg, y'eXuroS 
 
 Singularly enough, Romaic contains some anomalies of a like 
 nature, as cigzos, dguxog, y'egog, XH ^ ^ or "£X m > h** uv > yh m f 
 X^ uv ' 
 
ROMAIC. 13 
 
 2. From the loss of the dative, and the non-pronunciation of 
 the final v in the accusative, Romaic nouns, excepting those in 
 og, ov, have, like English substantives, only one distinction of 
 case in either number. 
 
 To avoid the humming sound of the final v, Romaic sometimes 
 assumes after it an f, but oftener, particularly in the case of neuters, 
 rejects it altogether, saying, e.g., J^Xo for ^vXov, and /a/x^o for 
 pixgov. The only instances of such omission, in classic Greek, are 
 furnished by the article and some pronouns; for, according to 
 analogy, the neuters rb, o, uvrb, rovro, exeTvo, aXXo must originally 
 have been rh, ov, avrhv, rovrov, exetvov, aXXov. That, however, which 
 was exceptional in Ancient Greek, is characteristic of Romaic. 
 Hence the transformation which diminutives in tov have under- 
 gone, V& { ov )> V^' ( ov ) etc., (see p. 11) being pronounced and 
 written V&> V^' e tc. First iov was contracted into <e, as it is 
 still pronounced in Cyprus, and as it is found written in inscrip- 
 tions of the 2d and 3d centuries; 1 and then the final v was 
 dropped according to the prevalent Romaic pronunciation. 
 
 The final v, characteristic of the accusative singular in isosyl- 
 labics, having been dropped, that case remained undistinguishable 
 in Romaic pronunciation from the dative ; and this circumstance, 
 as also the identity of these cases in the -ZEolic plural of the first 
 declension, which form Romaic has preserved, may partly account 
 for the loss of the dative. Some consider that Romaic has pre- 
 served the dative in such phrases as klay^iri, vfog rovroig, but 
 these remains of the dative are in Romaic mere adverbial expres- 
 sions. 
 
 The dative, then, being left out of consideration, it is evident, 
 even from the ancient declensions, that neuters have only one 
 distinction of case in either number ; and as respects other 
 Romaic nouns, excepting always those in og, ov, the same will 
 appear to be the case from the following paradigms : — 
 
 Sing, rifiep-u rifb-r) ysgovr-ag rs^v/r-Jjg 
 
 -ag -rig -a -n 
 
 -a(v) -r)(v) -a(i/) -n(v) 
 
 1 See Nos. 506, 704 of Boekh's collection, where Ixiv^iv and <pik9ip*riv 
 occur instead of Ixsutipiov, and tptXri^antv. 
 
14 
 
 
 ROMAIC. 
 
 
 
 tipep-a 
 
 Tl^-i) 
 
 y'epovT-a 
 
 riyniit-yi 
 
 L\ -cut 
 
 -aTg 
 
 
 -ddaig 
 
 -aig 
 
 -oov 
 
 -S)V 
 
 
 -ddojv 
 
 "UV 
 
 -aig 
 
 -aTg 
 
 
 -ddaig 
 
 -aig 
 
 -aig 
 
 -aTg 
 
 
 -ddaig 
 
 -aig 
 
 All mention of the dual is omitted, because it is wanting in 
 Romaic, as it was also in the iEolic dialect. 
 
 3. The genders of Romaic nouns are not far from being 
 merged into one prevailing neuter. This result is owing to the 
 invasion of diminutives in /oi/, which have supplanted isosylla- 
 bic as well as perittosyllabic masculines and feminines. Of the 
 latter examples may be found in p. 11, and, of the former, let 
 these suffice, %aga£/(ov) from xdgaGog, rv^ov) from rvfog, ff«jyaS/(oi>) 
 from *ny*i, and xz<pd\i(ov) from xspaX^. Sometimes even without the 
 form of a diminutive, the neuter termination is assumed; as 
 Qovvb(v) instead of &ow6g. 
 
 4. The adjectives in Romaic affect, both in declension and 
 comparison, a greater regularity than in ancient Greek. Thus, 
 instead of peyag, psydXri, p'eya, Romaic has fttydXog, ^zyd\% 
 fiisyd\o(v). Again, such adjectives as ppovi^og, hdo%og, which in 
 Ancient Greek do not distinguish the feminine from the mascu- 
 line, assume in Romaic the proper feminine termination <pp6vi^rj, 
 jvdofy. This n is the Romaic termination for the feminine even 
 of adjectives in pog and og pure. Thus, instead of^izpog fuxpd, pixpbv, 
 and tfaXaibg, ira~kaid 9 KaXaibv, it makes fimpbg, fiixprj, /xixpb(i), 
 and rfaXatbg, KaXaifj, *iraXcuo(y) ?■ In comparisons, Romaic has 
 peyaXJjrepog instead of /mi%w, xaXyfspog is more common than 
 xaXXtav; and for x s 'P uv ^ has yjiponpog which Homer himself 
 uses in Iliad XX. 513. Romaic also frequently forms the 
 comparative by prefixing irXsov to the positive, and it constantly 
 uses the article with the comparative instead of the superlative, 
 resembling in both these respects Italian and French. 
 
 5. The pronouns also affect greater regularity in Romaic than 
 in Ancient Greek. Thus, instead of ovrog, avT?i, rovro, Romaic 
 
 1 As a farther example of the Romaic predilection for regularity in declen- 
 sions, it may be mentioned that those feminine nouns in « which in classic 
 Greek make the genitive in >??, preserve the vowel of the nominative through- 
 out the oblique cases : thus Romaic has h Vo%u., rns h%as, not rns loins. 
 
ROMAIC. 15 
 
 has rourog, rolrri, tovto, and similarly in the nominative plural. 
 But the most singular instance is in the second personal pro- 
 noun, asTg, Gag, <r«g, being the Romaic substitutes for v^e?g, vp,Zv 9 
 v/xdg- Whence these forms <«/£, tag ? The dual of Gv was <r<pu> ; 
 Homer (II. X. 398) uses tfp/ovvfor bfriv; and Herodotus (III. 71) 
 Gp'eag for v/jAg. It is therefore highly probable that GsTg, Gag y and 
 with the digamma <r<pe?g, Gpag, which the ancients ultimately used 
 for the plural of the third personal pronoun, are more ancient, 
 as they are also more regular plurals of gv, g\ than vjusTg, vp&g, 
 the very anomalousness of which betrays a later origin. The 
 genitive plural of all nouns, adjectives, and pronouns in og and 
 ov, coincides in Romaic pronunciation with the accusative singu- 
 lar, and is, probably on this account, much seldomer used than 
 the genitive singular, which coincides with no other case. In 
 accordance with this general observation, whereas Romaic has 
 'fiov, gov for the genitives singular of eyu, tf), it has no special form 
 for their genitives plural, and employs the accusative instead. In 
 like manner rovg is used for ruv 9 masc. fern, and neuter, when 
 tojv represents the pronoun of the third person. Thus, oar hands, 
 your hands, their hands, would be expressed in Romaic, rd yjpid 
 [lag, rd ysptd Gag, rd yjpia rovg, 
 
 6. Indeclinability, the natural result and ultimate term of 
 diminishing and confounding grammatical inflections, has been 
 actually reached by Romaic in some instances. Ancient Greek 
 had the indeclinable 8s?va, for which Romaic uses rads, prefixing 
 the article as the ancients prefixed it to htm. But, besides this, 
 Romaic has %dh — every ; %ar/ — some ; and okov, or vou — who, 
 which, that, all indeclinable. Although this relative onoZ is dis- 
 tinguished by its accentuation from the adverb ovov — where, yet 
 it is probably derived from this latter, just as the English rela- 
 tive who is derived from the German too — where, used still by the 
 vulgar in some parts of Germany for the proper relative welcher. 
 The same fate has befallen the present participle, the only 
 active participle preserved in Romaic, all its ancient inflections 
 being represented by the accusative plural masculine. 1 The 
 
 1 The reader will notice the accordance of this fact with the alleged dis- 
 appearance of all perittosyllabics from Romaic, and with the mode of their 
 disappearance as described in p. 10. The state of the passive participles in 
 Romaic is another confirmation. Although the aorist tense has been pre- 
 
1 G ROMAIC. 
 
 interrogation ri is almost in the same state, for Romaic has ri 
 wpa — what o'clock; ri yvmixuig — what women; and ri avQpuvoi 
 — what men, indifferently. But for this an ancient precedent is 
 alleged in the r& ri for ra rim of Aristophanes ('E/^vjj. 693). 
 
 7. With respect to verbs, the conjugation in fit has been lost, 6eru 
 being used for rlOy/u, &<phu for #£%*/, and so on in other cases. 
 Many verbs preserve the middle sense, but none the future and 
 aorists middle, the only tenses peculiar to that voice ; the entire 
 optative and infinitive moods have been lost ; of the imperative 
 only the second persons remain ; the subjunctive is frequently 
 confounded with the indicative ; and, in the general ruin of the 
 ancient verb, the only tenses saved are the present, imperfect, 
 and aorist, active and passive. 
 
 The total loss of the optative and infinitive, and the frequent 
 use of the indicative for the subjunctive in Romaic, are perhaps 
 partly owing to the obliteration of whatever difference once 
 existed between s/, »», and o/ in pronunciation. Whoever looks 
 through the paradigm of rucrrw, remembering that et of the indi- 
 cative and infinitive, n of the subjunctive, and ot of the optative, 
 nearly 2000 years ago, came to be sounded alike by the Greeks, 
 all of them as ee in see, and notices how often the corresponding 
 parts in these four moods thus pronounced sound alike to the 
 ear, the only guide of an illiterate people, will give its due weight 
 to this suggestion. Romaic contains many examples of what 
 strange metamorphoses the ear permits when unguided by a 
 knowledge of letters. Thus, supposing v of the article in rr>v 
 "rdpav to belong to the proper name, the people now call "Ydpcc, 
 Nvdpu ; so also they say N/xap/a for 'l%ap/a, and N/og for "log. The 
 same corruption appears in some common nouns, as vQpog for 
 w/U/og, and votxoxvpig (a householder) for 6ixoxvpt(o)g i examples which 
 recall Homer's vqdvpog for tjdvfiog (II. II. 2.) Proceeding on a 
 contrary supposition, i.e., supposing that the initial N of the 
 proper name really belonged to the article prefixed, the people 
 have made 'Ag/a, and "Evaxrog out of Nagog and THa&nuxrog. A 
 similar illustration is afforded by the whole class of Romaic verbs 
 
 served in the indicative and subjunctive moods, yet the aorist participle, as 
 perittosyllabic, has been lost ; whereas, although the perfect indicative passive 
 has been lost, its participle, being isosjllabic, remains. 
 
ROMAIC. 17 
 
 beginning with Be, which is the Romaic equivalent of the initial 
 un in compound English verbs. Thus xoXku, or rather in Romaic 
 koXvUj means to glue, and hence JaxoXXa came to mean the con- 
 trary, i.e., to unglue ; but since, in the aorist — the narrative tense, 
 and consequently the one most used — exjtoWZ became e%ex,6\\f}(ta 9 
 Romaic, taking the initial a for the augment, formed a new pre- 
 sent indicative from the aorist, viz., %exo\\u, or rather %sxo\vui. 
 Thus also Zfbyw — I yoke, and £a£euyw — I unyoke, etc. 
 
 What substitutes Romaic has found for the lost moods and tenses, 
 as also how far its formation of the tenses saved differs from the 
 ancient model, will be more particularly explained in notes to the 
 Romaic extracts subjoined. Suffice it to say, in general, here, 
 that the lost tenses are expressed by means of c%w, 6'sXw, and 
 slpon (I am), used as auxiliaries, and that when, in the formation 
 of a tense preserved, Romaic differs from the ancient model, it 
 often does so to avoid an irregularity which classic Greek had 
 sanctioned. Thus, instead of ypa-^ov in the first aorist imperative 
 active, Romaic has ypa-vf/s ; and instead of ypa<pp in the second per- 
 son singular of the present indicative passive, ypdtpstai, which is no 
 doubt the more ancient form. The want of the infinitive is 
 supplied by va Qva) with the subjunctive, and that of the opta- 
 tive in its proper optative sense, by e/0a va y or a/x-rrors i/«, also 
 with the subjunctive. Wherever let occurs in the English im- 
 perative, Romaic uses «>, a corruption of ty*€ f with the subjunc- 
 tive. But the most remarkable of all the particles, used in the 
 formation of Romaic tenses, is 6a or 6s »«, which, also prefixed to 
 the subjunctive, expresses the future. In Chios at the present 
 day 6s\si is vulgarly pronounced 6e, so that 6s v& } or 6a repre- 
 sents 6sXsi /W, by which, and a tense of the subjunctive, the 
 ancient future had first been resolved. This 6a with the imper- 
 fect is equivalent to the conditional particle ol* in classic Greek ; 
 thus 6a r\to — it would be. 
 
 The accidence of ancient Greek having been thus truncated 
 and broken up in Romaic, it necessarily follows that its syntactical 
 arrangements are exceedingly simple. The most singular peculi- 
 arity is the use of the genitive for the ancient dative after verbs of 
 declaring, giving and taking away, as f^ov sT-rrs instead of fioi tlm. 
 The few ancient prepositions preserved all govern the accusative ; 
 avb, I/?, and fte, which is a truncation of ftsra, are those most 
 
 B 
 
18 KOMATC. 
 
 frequently used, and correspond to the French de, a, and avec 
 respectively. 
 
 After all these deductions the reader will perhaps be surprised 
 to find the Greek type so very recognisable in the following 
 Romaic proverbs, taken from M. Sophocles' Chrestomathy, 
 p. 156. 
 
 1. K«>^ slvai 1 t\ vv(p7) (vv/Mpri) 1. Ours is a bonnie bride, 
 pctg, ftovov sfvoti (trpaZf,. only she squints. 
 
 2. KdXXtov sWg 2 (ppovifLoc l%- 2. Better a wise enemy than 
 dpbg iea,p&* evag fyvpXbg <pi\og. a foolish friend. 
 
 3. 'O/ koWo) xapaZoxvpuToi 3. Too many captains founder 
 wviyovv* rb %apu£i. the ship. 
 
 1 The present indicative of the Romaic substantive verb is formed as in 
 tiftai the margin, on the type of xs<>«/, except in the third person singular of 
 tlrrxt both numbers. That hvai should be both singular and plural is no 
 ilvui greater blemish in Romaic than was in ancient Greek the identity of 
 hpiSa. the first person singular and third person plural in the imperfect active 
 h<rh of verbs in &>. This hvai is very like the Doric hi for \<tri or the 
 hvai Ionic hi, which stood for both hum and hurt. In the compounds hm 
 — some, i.e., hi oi — there are who, and hipn — sometimes, i.e., hi on — there 
 are (times) when, hi is used in the simple substantive sense, as it also is by 
 Herodotus (viii. 55), where, speaking of the temple of Erechtheus, he says, 
 lv re? iXain « xki 6a.xccff<ru..'ivi. In Romaic the last word of this phrase would 
 be written hvai. But it was not always so written ; in Ptochoprodromos it 
 occurs under the forms hi, hi, hsv, h ; afterwards it was written hat, and the 
 form hi is still preserved on the shores of the Black Sea, and in some islands. 
 The only remnant of the classic hp) is in the rU h, by which the military 
 guard in Greece addresses the passer-by after nightfall, and to which must 
 be answered *«Xas- 
 
 8 "Eva s stands for us, and is probably more like the primitive form of the 
 cardinal unit ; how else can the oblique cases be accounted for, and the Latin 
 unus ? It is the Romaic indefinite article ; and, as in the Hellenistic dialect, 
 is often equivalent to the indefinite *•/?. See Mat. viii. 19 : xix. 16. 
 
 3 The classical reader will be shocked to find ar«g* construed with the nomi- 
 native, instead of the accusative, according to classic usage, after comparatives. 
 Nevertheless Aristotle uses «•*£«, which Romaic could not be expected to keep dis- 
 tinct from 5r«£«, instead of «. In his Treatise on Plants, book ii. ch. 2, towards 
 
 the end of it, is the phrase, xxvrivhv not.) xv^iurtgov o-'Jf*£i£r,xz rZ vlari to iivui froi%stai 
 
 «r«go -r»5 y»f. This -r^o is no doubt vag o, to which <**( o, ti corresponds in 
 Modern Greek. Romaic has also •xa.^ov, which is perhaps a mispronunciation 
 of «r«g«, since many say narov for x«™, and so on. 
 
 * -rviyow for Wiyovsu, a Romaic contraction not more violent than the ancient 
 one of fJW* into Cuv in the optative of l^i, and possessing the same recom- 
 
ROMAIC. 19 
 
 4. 'O didZoAog 'yidia dsv 1 e^e/, 4. The devil has no goats, 
 Ttai rupi iirovhii (sVwAeg). yet he sold cheese. 
 
 5. 'E/s xpe/AatyMvov 3 ff^irt 4 5. In the house of the hanged 
 c/oiv} fjbrjv 5 avapepi/s. don't mention a rope. 
 
 6. "AXoyov birou <sov xapffyw, 6. Don't look at the teeth of 
 
 hg to. 'dovna, /m^v rb C\e<z"/)g. a gift horse. 
 
 7. Kdde Ysvryjg (Ysuarqg) 'iyj-i 7. Every liar has also his 
 xai rbv [A&prvpa rov. witness. 
 
 8. "Onoiog (oGrig) jcatj fie rb 8. Whoever has been burnt 
 Zf(trh 9 tpvadsi xai rb xpvov. with the hot, blows the cold too. 
 
 9. nirctv hvoxi dh rpuiyug, r) 9. What need you mind, if the 
 a' swo/u^si av xafcrai ; pie you don't eat should be burnt? 
 
 10. "Evag rpsXbg pyjx vSl (p'Vre/) 10. A fool throws a stone 
 rvjv Terpav V rb leqyabi) x exurbv into the well, and a hun- 
 
 mendation, that, namely, of diminishing the sibilant sounds, which in Greek, 
 as in English, are rather abundant. Romaic uses this termination, ««», for 
 afiv of the subjunctive as well as for ovtiv of the indicative. 
 
 1 $h, not, is a truncation of hvhh, which even classic writers sometimes 
 used adverbially instead of xut hvVtv, like the English nothing in the phrase 
 u nothing loath." In the extracts given at pp. 43, 44, huhh will be found fre- 
 quently used for $«'». 
 
 2 its, for b, occurs in the lower Alexandrian Greek. See Luke i. 20 ; 
 xi. 7. 
 
 3 Romaic uniformly neglects the reduplication in the perfect participle pas- 
 sive. 
 
 4 *•«•/«, W/r«(v), l<r*iriov y from the Latin hospitium. Every one knows 
 that Latin words were no strangers to the Alexandrian dialect : witness the 
 xyjva-os, xovffruSixj <routd,£iov, <rirXo;, Qgwyikkiov, etc. of the New Testament. 
 
 8 ph, in this and the following proverb, is for pk, which orthography is 
 observed in prov. 22. Contrary to the general practice described in p. 13, 
 Romaic words sometime assume a final v. Examples will be found below in 
 the extract from Ptochoprodromos. Professor Ross heard in Cyprus tovtov 
 to cixxov, instead of roZro to &kk«. See his travels in the Greek Islands, vol. iv. 
 p. 210. 
 
 6 This truncation of i« before the article has given rise to a whole class of 
 Romaic proper names. Professor Ross (vol. i. p. 141 of his Travels) mentions 
 a monastery in Seriphos called Steen Vreesin, i.e., '2 t*iv b^vo-iv, because of a 
 neighbouring fountain; and (vol. ii. p. 43) a plain in Amorgos called Sto 
 Horyo, i.e., '2 to x«^e(»), from there having formerly been a village upon it. 
 To this pronunciation Constantinople owes its Turkish name ; for the Turks, 
 hearing V r»jv vriki(v), i.e., as it would sound to them, Steembolee frequently 
 in the mouths of the Greeks with reference to Constantinople, imagined that 
 
20 ROMAIC. 
 
 tppovipoi dtv ryjv eQydfyw^ (\xZd\- dred wise men don't take it 
 
 Xovft). OUt. 
 
 11. "o-7rov dxovg (dxovstg) voX- 11. Where you hear of many 
 \a zzpdffia, Qdcra (£a<rra£s) xaf cherries, carry there a small 
 fuxpo xaXd&i. basket. 
 
 12. Auo yddapo? zfidXomv 5 ug 12. Two donkeys quarrelled 
 %'tvriv a%vpwva. in a strange barn. 
 
 13. Msr^a 4 dixot, xcci xoprs, 13. Measure ten, and cut 
 (xovrrs) /xiav. one. 
 
 14. 0pe-^s 5 Xvxov rbv yii^a, 14. Feed a wolf in winter, 
 vu <rs <pdyr\ rci xaXoxdtpt. he will eat you in summer. 
 
 to be the name, and called it, as they do still, Stamboul. In much the same 
 way Bougainville, having asked the natives of Tahiti the name of their island, 
 and hearing them say, " O Tahiti," i.e., it is Tahiti, imagined the whole an- 
 swer to be the name, and called it Otaheite. 
 
 1 %,i» is a favourite Romaic termination for verbs : thus it has t*X,<» and aXXeiJa 
 for ruffa-u and olXXko-o-w ; but even the ancients had <r<p«£« as well as <r<pd,ffo-oj. 
 
 2 Aristotle mentions a fish called «W ; and Athenaeus (book vii. p. 315), 
 speaking of it, says, ovo$ ev xaxiovo-i rms yxhov. The Cretans now call a fish, 
 which may have been the same, yetiaob-^u^v), i.e., ass-fish. It is therefore 
 probable that y*fos was an ancient vulgar name for &»?, and hence the Romaic 
 
 yddago;. 
 
 3 By borrowing terminations from the ancient first aorist, Romaic distin- 
 guishes the first person singular from the third person plural of its imperfects. 
 For example, I^Xovkv is the third person plural of the imperfect of pxxbvu, 
 Ifieixova the tense being inflected as in the margin. The Romaic aorist is 
 \u,a,Xons inflected in the same way: hence s>«^e, in prov. 21, instead of 
 IpaXovi 'iftadov. This mode of distinguishing the first person singular from 
 lf*Kkbvay,iv the third person plural is mentioned by Eustathius, on the autho- 
 Ifitxxbvirs rity of Heraclides, as having prevailed in Cilicia. At page 1759 
 Iptkovctv of his Commentary on Homer, Eustathius says : K«< k 'exaW^v- 
 
 t$s iv KiXixia. . . . a,vro6d,XXovTts to v, xou [aztoitiUvtis to o ftixgov lis Spa^h clXtpoi 
 Wgotpl^ovTcci, sXaSa. XiyovTzg xoti ttpaya,- hoc) tqItk 0*1 tovtojv vrXnGuvTixa., \i; av XyyovTK, 
 
 x'syovo-iv. Koraes asserts that ?iX6a.v, stpvyoiv, zXuSav, iyKa,rzXi<ruv, and the like, 
 occur in the Septuagint. 
 
 4 MjT^fij, as from ^.t^kco instead of ^ir^iw ; so in prov. 22 XvtZo-xi, as from 
 xwdopxi instead of XvAa^tu. This is the Doric preference of a so conspicuous 
 in Romaic. In the island of Kalymnos, a chapel of St Irene is called 'Ayios. 
 'igoivei., and IvifAos is pronounced £«>«,-. In like manner, many Romaic participles 
 are formed as if from a present in upon ; thus I^a^sva? and hxdpzvo; are used 
 
 fbr lg%b/*svo; and o*t%b(Atvos. 
 
 5 e^i is the aor. imper. for fytyov, a formation of which there are ex- 
 amples in Homer, as «?« in Odyss. xx. 481. 
 
 v Oi<rz 6'aiov y^n'v xtittov cixos, 0W1 Ts xu.) ttuo' 
 
ROMAIC. 
 
 21 
 
 15. When the crows caw, 
 the nightingales flee away. 
 
 16. Neither the poor man, 
 nor his word. 
 
 17. What the old woman had 
 in her mind she saw in her 
 dream. 
 
 18. However great you are, 
 always seem a little less. 
 
 19. The galled horse trem- 
 bles when he sees the saddle. 
 
 20. The wolf delights in the 
 storm. 
 
 21. I learned (to go) naked, 
 and am ashamed (to go) dressed. 
 
 22. Don't pity the horseman 
 (6V/) Kps/xcvrai ra irobdpid because his teet hang. 
 
 15. * Orav XuXouv (XaXojdi) bi 
 xopdxoi (xopaxzg), (psvyovv rd 
 dqdovia. 
 
 16. ! 'Ours 6 <pru%bg (ftrwyjbg), 
 ours 6 Xoyog rou. 
 
 17. "O, rt slys q ypia (ypauz) 
 V rov vouv rys, ro 'ZXsits 'g rb 
 ovsipov rr\g. 
 
 18. "Otfog slffoci, nuvru (tfdvrri) 
 
 (paivou xGCi xo/jjfjjGtri <7rapaxaru. 
 
 19. To aXoyov 1 rb TrXviy^svov, 
 orav tdfj rr\v tfsXav, rpsfisi. 
 
 20. 'O Xuzog 'g rqv dvsfio^dXrjv 
 ya'tpirai. 
 
 21. "E/iak yv/J<vbg, z evrp'e- 
 'KOfXtCii hh\)(jJkvog. 
 
 22. M-v} Xuvrdaai rov 7L&&aXXdpriv 
 noog 
 rov. 
 
 23. They honoured the pea- 
 sant, and he thought they feared 
 him. 
 
 24. (He) wdio is hungry 
 dreams of pieces. 
 
 The horse is so called as being the noblest of the 
 In like manner, vtruvos, winged, is the Romaic name 
 
 23. Tbv yjj)pidrr\v rbv srijuouffav, 
 %' sxs/vog 'dappovos 4 -rajg (ori) rov 
 '<poQovvrav. 
 
 24. 'OcroD 'Trsivdsi xo/j J /jbd,ria ovsi- 
 psusrai. 
 
 1 clxoyov, irrational, 
 domesticated animals, 
 for the cock. 
 
 2 •rXy>y&>p'<vo», perf. part, pass., without the reduplication, from *xvyo(v)u, a 
 Romaic derivative from <x\vyh. 
 
 3 ffixuv from Latin sella. 
 
 * The Romaic formation of the imperf. indie, of pure verbs is exhibited in 
 
 the tWO Words Irtpovtrxv and ^ceppavfft. 
 
 5 No single word could better illustrate the variety of grammatical forms 
 
 in Romaic than this 'QoZouvrav, since, according to M. Sophocles' grammar (p. 
 
 l<poS— ovvro 64), it might have been written in five different ways, as in the 
 
 — ovvtkv margin. Without going to Greece any one may understand that 
 
 — tovvroiv these various forms are provincialisms ; and that M. Sophocles' 
 
 — iovtccv work consequently appears to his countrymen exactly as would 
 
 — iovvto to an Englishman a grammar exhibiting, along with the English 
 
 of the educated, a collection of the dialectical peculiarities from Land's End 
 
 to John o' Groat's House. The reader will observe that ^appovin and '<poZoZv~n V 
 
 are unaugmented, which is a very frequent omission in Romaic. 
 
22 ROMAIC- 
 
 25. TLov ^s 1 xa-zin rvyr\\ \ 25. Where are you going, 
 rov Y\o\\)nyyWr\ rb ditiri. bad luck ? To the house of 
 
 the genius. 
 
 26. Ticog tuv (uTayovv), xopaxa, 26. How are your children 
 rd ntaihid cod ; "Otov <xav, rotsov getting on, crow ? As they get 
 p^upi^ow. on, they get blacker. 
 
 27. $>raiyu (nrahi) 6 pdrtrrig, 27. The tailor is at fault, 
 
 xai d'ipvow 2 rbv judyeipav. and they beat the cook. 
 
 28. "Entafc vb -/k\i avb rfy 28. He caught the eel by 
 ovpdv. the tail. 
 
 29. &sXsi vd 3 'Qydx-/)(szQdXp) rb 29. He wishes to draw the 
 '<piBt dtfb r^v rpvirav /&s rou rpsXov serpent out of its hole with the 
 to "xzpi. fool's hand. 
 
 Besides current proverbs like the above, the Klephtic and popu- 
 lar songs, where the want of learning in the authors ensures the 
 reader against pedantry, may also be depended on as faithfully 
 representing the spoken dialects. But the long barbarous poems, 
 which form the rest of Romaic literature, having been written 
 by men of some education, are all, more or less, in the macaronic 
 style, and their evidence, therefore, cannot be implicitly received. 
 In the prolegomena to vol. ii. of his "Araxra, Koraes gives a list 
 of such poems, beginning with those of Ptochoprodromos (a.d. 
 1150), from which, as being the earliest, an extract is subjoined. 
 
 1 ix&yus, vdytis, veins, sr«V. Such transformations are met with in all popu- 
 lar dialects. Grammarians tell us that the Tarentines omitted y in the pro- 
 nunciation of exiyoi, as do the inhabitants of Rhodes and the neighbouring 
 islands to this day. 
 
 2 Vipvow for Vtpovtriv. The iEolic termination pa is a favourite one in Ro- 
 maic : thus, instead of <p^« and <r*u£w, it has <pi^a and fri^u. 
 
 3 Here vet with the subjunctive represents the lost infinitive. GEconomos, 
 in his work on the pronunciation of Greek, states that the infinitive is still 
 preserved in Cyprus, and on the shores of the Black Sea ; and he instances 
 «{iv fyi%ai, *£v %iovi<rai, as examples. This, however, may be a mere variety 
 in the pronunciation of the subjunctives wg)» Ggs'l?, *£" x, i0V ' lff V' At a H events, 
 granting that, in Cyprus and. on the shores of the Black Sea, the infinitive 
 survives in certain phrases (as in these same parts the ancient ending of the 
 present indie, act. «««(») has been preserved, and even the Doric ii/us for 
 ypiv), it is most certainly obsolete in the Romaic dialects generally ; nor 
 have they any greater blemish than the constant recurrence of v«, which their 
 mode of supplying the want of the infinitive necessitates. 
 
ROMAIC. 23 
 
 A few words regarding the author are premised to render his 
 verses more intelligible, and less uninteresting. 
 
 His personal history is an exemplification of prov. 25 in the 
 above collection ; for he was a monkish ffoXyrs^wnjs, who wrote 
 on grammar, history, philosophy, astronomy, and theology, and 
 that, too, in tolerable Byzantine Greek, yet so poor that he found 
 occasion to indite two farcical Romaic poems, one on his poverty, 
 or, as he more feelingly calls it, his hunger, and another on his hard 
 treatment in the monastery. In the first, he describes not only 
 his hunger, but the expedients to which it drove him, and the 
 regrets it suggested that he had not been bred a baker, a shoe- 
 maker, a street-crier, or, indeed, anything rather than a scholar ; 
 and in the second, he describes not only his own hard treatment 
 in the monastery, but also the luxury of his superiors, displaying 
 an acquaintance with cookery-book nomenclature, which an ac- 
 complished gourmet might be proud of, and which tempts us to 
 suspect that he was not himself a man to rest contented like a 
 good Christian, with the simplest food and raiment. Both these 
 complaints are addressed to the 3d Comnenus, and the following 
 couplet in honour of that emperor will show that, with all his 
 school and kitchen learning, the poor Forerunner did not rise 
 above his age, in respect of mental culture and taste. 
 
 "v. 
 
 "Ovrug ruyy^dvug MavovrjX hog iiriyudg rs 
 Efifiavov7jX 9 Ha/xCaffiXsv irapd tfapdvra <rsvre. 
 
 " Thus, Manuel, you chance to be a god on earth, 
 .Emmanuel, king of kings, excepting forty-five." 
 
 "Sapdvra tsvts is also the present pronunciation of rs&ffapdxovra 
 n'svre. This number being written ^ in Greek, and these letters 
 inverted and prefixed to MccvovrjX making 'E^avoi^X, the wretched 
 and irreverent enigma is explained. 
 
 The following extract is from the poem on his hunger, and 
 describes a practical joke. It would appear that the family of 
 Ptochoprodromos were as much disappointed as himself at the 
 unproductiveness of his learning ; and at length, their disappoint- 
 ment having passed into indignation, one day on taking his usual 
 place at table, the following scene occurred as if by concert among 
 the others : — 
 
24 ROMAIC. 
 
 'ExsTvoi 8' e^S'x'jjdricfav, Xsyovrsg of/jwcpdovug' 
 Ma&bv zatKou dpyaSidfytfs ; rddo bsv 'sysig roirov' 
 Ylairag, ypafifiarioi.bg zltial' rpstps rbv savrov Con* 
 Mqv CXsV^g, ro dirdoiw fj>ag, 6% shai 6v bid rovro' 
 n Av ds tftivag, aydpads^ ypafjjfhartots, oca! (pays. 5 
 
 Tovrwv ds <xpbg /as, Satf/Xsu, dirdvrojv Xeyofisvwv, 
 ' Oxdri Tuig syivsrov %r ! oitog sig rb zardoytv, 
 Kai itdvrsg sijuxw^tfav, s<pvyov wapavriota, 
 ' EXitiZpvrsg on yjatXd rb (ftf/riv vd roug ffvi<~fi, 
 ■ 'iloXXa yap r\ro KaXaibv, iravu fctiadpojfAevov. 10 
 
 ' Eyco d' oog svpov %s'tfhsvov rb 6v l W7r\svpov dwdoiiv, 
 'Hp^dfiqv (SvKkoyiZztiQai, %al hgrbv vovv fbou Xsyw* 
 'Ovx eJftf syu rbv sXsyav' ' Ov d/aSp hg Xdpvyyd gov; 
 'A XX' "ds rqv dffvyxpirov Qsov <pi}.av9poj7r/av, 
 Tlwg birsp Xoyov s<psps r' airdouv hg ifjbhav. 15 
 
 Tavra ds Xsywv, QaG/Xsv, rr\v fid^aipav xparfaag, 
 'Hp^dfbriv kfLirov%6vs6&ai, fi»syj>ig sig otopov r]Xdov, 
 
 Ver. 2. Ma.6ov . . . apyctZtxfyffi ; Koraes, from whose "Atuxtk, vol. i. p. 10, 
 the text is copied, can make nothing of this phrase. A meaning has been 
 supposed to it in the translation. *•«*«, perhaps the Doric rZh, o being often 
 substituted for t : thus, fg» is pronounced 3£», and ixfyos, o X 0po S . 
 
 Ver. 3. n*ir«s means a priest, but udTas the pope, rov lavrov <?ov is Ro- 
 maic for fficivrov. All the reciprocal pronouns are so formed ; that is to say, 
 the genitives of the personal pronouns (the article being used enclitically for 
 the pronoun of the third person) are appended to a masculine singular case 
 of uuirio, with the article prefixed. 
 
 Ver. 4. a*&xt(J)v 9 of unknown derivation, corresponds with the ancient ty*. 
 tia-i, equivalent to foui in the previous line. 
 
 Ver. 7. e o««Ti or »dn, i.e. »&v ri. Romaic has a number of such compounds, 
 as *««y, somewhere ; xd*oios, some, in reference to number ; xx^too-os, some, 
 in reference to quantity. To all these Ptochoprodromos prefixes », which 
 Koraes considers to be »?, in the sense it bears in the Ancient Greek phrase, 
 vnis us vpiuxoffiat. Apollonius of Tyre uses lyik vd. for hd vk. and the author of 
 the poem entitled History of Alexander the Great, *>? yid vd for the same, a 
 comparison giving some probability to Koraes' supposition. See vol. i. of 
 'Araxrct, p. 167. lyivzrav and. Ipivxv, in line 15, are examples of the assumed 
 final v, according to what is stated in note (5), p. 19. 
 
 Ver. 11. ffvy.'TrXivpov means, together with the adjoining sides or ribs. 
 
 Ver. 13. rov used for the relative, as is rh in the quotation from Homer, 
 p. 7, and tv in that from Herodotus, in note (1), p. 18. The article is con- 
 stantly so used in 'Epuroxptros {o vccxcctos), that famous Romaic poem, which 
 some have called The People's Homer. 
 
KOMA1C. 25 
 
 M&rd ds ravTa, Catf/XeD, xarw xayol) xaryjXdov, 
 
 Ta^a yvprooov <fvv duroTg nodsv 6 xrvirog 7}\Qsv, 
 
 TIporepov ro xarovdiv /^ag Grrjtfag s'tg to rpairil^iv, 20 
 
 A/a vd '<7rovv on stfoixiv r\ %dra rr\v fy/Aiav. 
 
 "Acravrgg 5k furd fjwtpbv rfj xsKr, ffuvsXOhreg, 
 
 Ka/ rb tarovdtv civwfav idovrzg T7\g rpatf'efyg, 
 
 "Eppi-^av Xi'Qovg /tar' dvrou, Xzyovrzg' <&oveuQ7]roj, 
 
 "On etpayzv rb 6au/jja<frbv a%po<7ratfrov dftdxiv. 25 
 
 The following doggrel lines, being an almost verbatim tran- 
 slation, will assist the curious reader in interpreting the above : — 
 
 But, jumping up, they said Avith one accord : 
 
 Why don't you work ? Here is no place for you : 
 
 Now you are priest and scholar, feed yourself, 
 
 Nor look at our rump-piece ; it's not for you : 
 
 But if you're hungry, scholar, buy and eat. 5 
 
 Whilst all these things were said to me, O king, 
 
 Some noise in the groundfloor was made below, 
 
 And all rose up to flee away in haste, 
 
 From suffocation, if the house should fall ; 
 
 For it was very old and rickety. 10 
 
 When thus I found the rump-piece lying rich, 
 
 To think I began, and said in my mind : 
 
 'Twas I they told — your throat it shan't go down ; 
 
 But see the incomparable love of God, 
 
 Bringing the rump-piece wondrously to me! 15 
 
 This said, O king, I caught hold of a knife, 
 
 Began to devour, and filled myself. 
 
 After this, O king, I too went below, 
 
 Mayhap seeking with them whence came the noise ; 
 
 Ver. 17. l[*.xov>ton(r6eii from (Italian) imboccare, 
 
 Ver. 19. yvptvuv, Z,7i<ra>v, from yvpos, a circle, because he who searches in a 
 place, goes round and round in it. 
 
 Ver. 20. K»Tovh(o)v, a diminutive from the low Latin, catus ; Kara, in the 
 next line is another form of the same. 
 
 Ver. 21. ha being lost to Romaic, vol strengthened by $«* supplies its place, 
 just as in Ancient Greek, hort, i.e. , en strengthened by hd, was used for on, 
 because, to distinguish it from en, that, ^uv is for u*&nriv, and ?*«««» for 
 
 iiroiynriv. 
 
 Ver. 22. xix-zi, from the Latin, cella. 
 
 Ver. 25. xjcpovrcarrov. vewros anciently meant sprinkled in general, but is 
 now applied only to flesh and fish, in the sense of sprinkled with salt. 
 
2(> ROMAIC. 
 
 But first I set at the table our cat, 20 
 
 That they might ascribe the damage to it. 
 
 Soon all in the pantry gathered again, 
 
 And, seeing the cat high on the table, 
 
 Threw stones at it, saying : Let it be killed, 
 
 Since it ate our wondrous powder'd rump-piece. 25 
 
 The above is probably a fair specimen of the mediaeval scholar's 
 off-hand Greek. In several particulars it is distinguished from 
 the then vulgar dialect. The reader is not to suppose, for ex- 
 ample, because the negative ou is constantly used in the above 
 extract, that dsv was unknown in the time of Ptochoprodromos ; 
 for it occurs elsewhere in his poems, as do all the more common 
 peculiarities of Modern Romaic. Sometimes, indeed, he bar- 
 barises beyond Modern Romaic, construing, e.g., ex. and <tw with 
 the accusative, whereas Romaic now dispenses with them alto- 
 gether. 
 
 In the above and in all criticisms of Romaic, it is compared 
 with classic Greek ; but it is now time to observe that this is ' 
 unfairly comparing the worst Greek of to-day with the best of 
 antiquity. Having inherited only classic works from the ancient 
 Greeks, we are apt to take for granted that all antiquity was 
 classical, and to doubt the existence among the ancients of a 
 vulgar dialect considerably different from those polished ones that 
 have come down to us. Hence Romaic is generally considered 
 to be a corruption of the Alexandrian Attic, whereas its prevail- 
 ing type is not Attic but Aeolo-Doric ; besides, vulgar dialects 
 are not wont to derive from any polished language, but from 
 one another. How absurd w T ould it be to represent the present 
 Yorkshire as a corruption of Addison's English ! The York- 
 shire and other dialects existed before classic English, which is 
 an improvement upon them, not they a corruption of it. In 
 like manner, although Romaic did not precede classic Greek, 
 some popular dialects must have both preceded and accompanied 
 the classical ones, and Romaic, so far as it inherits from antiquity 
 at all, inherits not from the polished dialects which we know, 
 but from these popular ones which we don't know. As a more 
 detailed investigation of this point will throw some light on the 
 history of Romaic, the following observations are offered : — 
 
 Even although Homer had not said of Cretan Greek, aXXr, 
 
ROMAIC. 27 
 
 d'aWojv yXuxHtu /xs/My/uevri, it might be safely asserted that, before 
 any Greek dialect whatever was cultivated, there prevailed an 
 immense variety in the spoken language. It is so in every case 
 where the facts can be examined, and that it was peculiarly so 
 among the Greeks may be concluded from their dispersion over 
 countries unfavourable physically to intercommunication, and 
 politically disconnected. Besides, had there not been an im- 
 mense spoken variety, there would not have been materials for 
 four written dialects. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that the original variety ceased, or 
 was even materially diminished by the fusion of provincialisms 
 into these written dialects. For what, in fact, does this process 
 amount to? Nothing less than the formation out of an immense 
 spoken variety of a new and more perfect one, intelligible indeed, 
 on the whole, to the masses, but not used by them, and sup- 
 planting the 'ancient ruder forms of speech only in the case of 
 those actually engaged in its cultivation, or immediately under 
 their influence. Such are the facts in regard to every living 
 European language; and if in Italy, France, German}', and 
 Great Britain, the original variety in the spoken language has 
 withstood the influence, for centuries exerted, of the press, the 
 church, and the school, much more must the original variety in 
 the spoken language of the Greeks have survived the formation 
 of the polished dialects, since no conforming influence equal to 
 those of modern times then existed. 
 
 To suppose a variety in the spoken Greek within even the small 
 territory of Attica, notwithstanding the active participation of 
 the citizens in public life, is only according to all analogy ; and 
 in particular, since the majority of the inhabitants were slaves 
 in daily intercourse with the citizens, there could not but exist 
 a vulgar dialect, in which bad grammar combined with apocope, 
 syncope, and other popular brigands, to murder the language of 
 Demosthenes. Xenophon must have intended some base patois, 
 not certainly his own style, when he wrote (Athen. polit. ch. 2, 
 § 8), "Ka/ o/ fisv v EXX«jves (i.e., the other Greeks), ibici ^aXXov xal 
 $mr\ xcci hia'irr\ xat 6yJ]^art ^puvrai, ' Adqvatoi ds Ttexpafisvp si; andvrav 
 roov 'E\>jvw xai ZapQdpuv. Because the people understood the 
 orations of Demosthenes, it is often concluded that they con- 
 versed in a style not much inferior to that in which he harangued. 
 
28 ROMAIC. 
 
 But any one may know from the example of Scotland what an 
 immense difference may exist between the language which the 
 people can understand, and the language which the people can 
 speak, and whoever has studied a foreign language in the country 
 where it is spoken must remember that, although in a few 
 months he was able to understand all he heard, he could yet by 
 no means speak like a native. If British scholars come to under- 
 stand written Greek by dint of study, though they can't speak 
 it, why should not the illiterate Athenians have understood the 
 Greek of Demosthenes, by hearing it from their youth up in the 
 mouths of their betters, even although their own proper dialect 
 had been as bad as Eomaic % Indeed, if the language which 
 Aristophanes makes the Athenian policemen speak in the Thes- 
 mophoriazusas be accepted as a specimen of the then vulgar 
 dialect, it already possessed several main characteristics of 
 Romaic. These ancient Romaicisms consist chiefly in the 
 omission of the final v, as (line 1187), aaXo for xaXov, and in 
 the corruption of the termination iov into /, as (line 1210) ypabi 
 for ypaihiov. 
 
 The history of the Greek dialects affords a striking example 
 how inefficient is the cultivated language of a people to absorb 
 popular varieties. Whilst Attic was in its glory, and even long 
 after it had acquired, at some expense of its original purity and 
 grace, a Panhellenic ascendancy in respect of literature, the 
 other dialects, cultivated only by amateurs, were still spoken 
 where they had formerly prevailed. Strabo, at the commence- 
 ment of the Christian era, thus writes (book viii., ch. 1, 2d par.) 
 
 of the Peloponnesians : " ax^ov & ctl Kal vvv, Kara 7roXets, aWot 
 
 ak\a>s dtaXeyovTar toKovcri Se 8a>pi£eiv anavres Bta rfjv (rvpfiaarav eTriKpdreiav 
 
 (of the Dorians, that is to say). Two centuries later, Tatian, 
 the Platonist apologist of the Christians, could thus address the 
 
 Greeks (p. 161) : — " Nw be povois vpuv airofiefirjice prjbe iv reus SpiKlais 
 6po(pa>ve7v. Acopieav fiev yap ovx V avrrj \e£-i$ tols cnto tt)s 'Attiktjs, 'AtoXety 
 re ovx op.oia)s Tois'lccxri (pOeyyovrai. 
 
 Romaic is itself a living evidence how popular dialects persist ; 
 for, as has been said, its type is Aeolo-Doric rather than Attic ; 
 and, though it would seem pedantic to call Romaic Aeolo-Doric, 
 as Christopoulos has done in the title-page of his grammar, it is 
 certainly a more appropriate name. Why the Aeolo-Doric element 
 
ROMAIC. 29 
 
 should have prevailed all along in Romaic, will appear to anyone who 
 considers the geographical chart of the ancient dialects, sketched 
 by Strabo in the paragraph from which an extract is made in the 
 preceding page. Attica was the proper seat of the Attic, and the 
 Ionic prevailed only in the commercial towns of Asia Minor, whilst 
 everywhere else the language of the people was Aeolic or Doric. 
 The history of all revolutions in language attests the immense 
 power of resistance which dialects, however rude, derive from 
 numerical and geographical preponderance ; and it would appear 
 that, whilst the highly polished Attic was perpetuated in the 
 Alexandrian and Byzantine Greek of learned compositions, the 
 ruder Aeolic and Doric continued to prevail in the spoken lan- 
 guage of the Greek race. 1 
 
 The fact is, that vulgar dialects are far more durable than cul- 
 tivated ones. Cultivation aims at improvement, and improve- 
 ment implies change ; in other words, cultivated languages are 
 in a state of active metamorphosis. Demosthenes had to explain 
 the antiquated phrases of Draco and Solon : and the model dia- 
 
 1 After this paragraph was written, George Fin] ay, Esq., historian of the 
 Byzantine empire, whose assistance in these researches, by placing his splendid 
 library at my disposal, during my stay in Athens, I would here gratefully acknow- 
 ledge, procured me a reading of Professor Ross' travels among the Greek islands. 
 The preceding pages have been enriched with various examples taken from this 
 work ; and I subjoin the translation of a passage, from the original German, 
 which will add the weight of Professor Ross' authority to the views enunciated 
 in the text regarding the spoken Greek of the ancients : — " The Attic dialect 
 was not, as, with Buttmann and Matthias in our hands, we often suppose, the 
 prevailing, much less the sole methodised vernacular of the Ancient Greeks. 
 
 It was only the refined language of intercourse and composition 
 
 among the cultivated classes in Athens, and was really possessed by only a 
 few thousands. Before the gates of Athens, at Megara, Thebes, Tanagra, in 
 all the rest of Greece, very different dialects prevailed ; and though literary 
 men in other districts afterwards endeavoured to conform their style to the 
 Attic model, they never attained its purity. In other words, all Greece, from 
 Sicily to Asia Minor, and from Macedonia to Crete, was essentially Aeolic, 
 and spoke this dialect, of which Doric was but a modification. The Ionic 
 race, compared with the Aeolic and Doric, had a limited extension ; and in 
 fact the language of Attica, which our grammars adopt as the rule, was, 
 at the time of the Peloponnesian war, but a petty exception to the rule. 
 What right have we to require that it should be otherwise now?" — Vol. iii. 
 p. 158. 
 
30 " ROMAIC. 
 
 lect is declared by critics to change perceptibly through Thucy- 
 dides, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Plato, Xenophon, and Demos- 
 thenes, till at length Menander appears introducing words that 
 are preserved in the present Romaic, as yvpog for xvxXog, and 
 (iiyifiravzs) grandees. To this fact we owe the earliest Greek lexi- 
 cons, which were glossaries to particular works, as Homer, Hip- 
 pocrates, and Plato, compiled in the first century, because the 
 then language, even of the learned, no longer sufficed for the in- 
 terpretation of the more ancient authors. Vulgar dialects, on the 
 other hand, yield very slowly to peaceful influences, and are 
 greatly changed only by the migration and mixture of races, con- 
 sequent on war. Travellers represent the common people in the 
 United States as speaking in general good English, free from 
 dialectical peculiarities ; and many Americans attribute this re- 
 sult to their popular schools. But the peculiarly favourable cir- 
 cumstances, arising from the mixture of races, in which these 
 schools have operated, must not be overlooked. Where provin- 
 cial dialects meet, they neutralise each other in the daily inter- 
 course even of the working classes, and the language of the 
 school supplants them all at length ; but where one uniform 
 dialect prevails among the people, it defies the schoolmaster. If 
 there be anywhere in America an isolated settlement of Scottish 
 peasants, no matter how pure the English of the schoolmaster may 
 have uniformly been, their descendants will be found speaking the 
 dialect of their fathers : and from the degree to which the shep- 
 herds of Laconia doricise still, it may be inferred that, but for 
 the migration and mixture of races involved in Roman, Sclavo- 
 nian, Saracen, Frankish, and Turkish conquests, the vulgar form 
 of ancient Doric would have survived, with little change, until 
 now. To this series of social catastrophes must be attributed 
 both the internal dissolution of Ancient Greek, and its admixture 
 with foreign elements, as exhibited in Romaic. 
 
 It cannot have escaped the reader's notice that almost all the 
 illustrations of Romaic adduced in the preceding pages from 
 Ancient Greek, have been found in Homer, Aristophanes, the 
 Aeolic and Doric dialects, and the Gospels. These writings, 
 how different soever in other respects, have one feature in com- 
 mon, namely, their popular character ; for the poems of Homer, 
 from the simplicity of their style, and the grammatical irregulari- 
 
ROMAIC. 31 
 
 ties they contain, were evidently written in an age when the 
 distinction between vulgar and polished Greek was not so decided 
 as it afterwards became. Aristophanes, like all writers of comedy, 
 admitted colloquial and popular expressions ; the comparatively 
 rough Aeolicand Doric dialects were in the mouths of peasants and 
 shepherds ; and the Gospels were penned by men of the people for 
 the people. Romaic, then, as inheriting from the vulgar dialects 
 of all preceding ages, finds naturally enough the few illustrations, 
 which antiquity affords of its peculiarities, in those writings where 
 popular modes of speech might be expected ; and if such writings 
 had been still more popular in their character, and more of them 
 had come down to us, the ancient illustrations of Romaic would 
 have been multiplied in proportion. Let one example suffice. 
 In Romaic, paxpos is used for /u^xos, as in line 6142 of Erotocritos 
 (o <ra>.a/o$) where the lover, descanting on his happiness in having 
 been allowed at length to press the princess Aretusa's hand in 
 his, calls this favour : 
 
 HupYiyopta, %a\ ddppog /aov, %a\ /idzpog rr,g £wJ?s [aou. 
 
 This word, however, was not in any classical lexicon till 
 Koraes noticed it, about fifty years ago, once more in Aris- 
 tophanes (opv. 1131) 'n llooeidov rou pdzpovg] Schneider and 
 Reimer forthwith admitted it to lexicographic honours, and 
 it is now universally acknowledged. The reflection is obvious, 
 that, had this single authority not survived, pdxgog for /xrjjcog 
 would have been set down as a Romaic barbarism. Who knows, 
 then, how many other words, and what else in Romaic besides 
 words would receive illustration from antiquity, if we had the 
 then vulgar Greek in its entirety before us ? 
 
 The boldest statement in this direction which I have met with 
 is in Professor Ilgen's Prolegomena (p. 34) to the Homeric 
 Hymns, where, with reference to a translation into barbarous 
 Greek of the Barpa^ofiuo^a^ia, he remarks : " Yalde errant si 
 crediderint heri modo aut nudius tertius tantas in earn (i.e. into 
 Greek) illatas esse mutationes : ego contendere ausim, jam 
 Demosthenis aetate inter rusticos eas in usu fuisse. Quid ? quod 
 veri simillimum est, Homeri aetate non aliam vulgi in ore esse 
 auditam. Unde enim illud dw pro dfi/ua. %fi 9 pro xplfiw, &k<pt 
 pro uXptra, rpo<pi pro rp6<pi{iov, %dpy\ pro xdprjvoVy pa, pro pclbiov . . . 
 
32 ROMAIC. 
 
 fa pro faog, nav pro naviscu ? Nonne ex vulgi sermone ?" * 
 Few will withhold their assent from the affirmative implied in 
 the learned professor's concluding interrogation ; but just as few 
 would adopt without qualification any statement tending to iden- 
 tify the Romaic of to-day with the rustic dialects of antiquity. 
 Unless, for instance, the dative case of nouns, and the optative 
 and infinitive moods of verbs, had first existed in the vulgar 
 dialects, they never could have entered into the polished ones, 
 the function of which is not to create out of nothing, but to 
 methodize what is irregular, and embellish what is rude. At the 
 same time, that the immense variety of constructions and gram- 
 matical forms in Ancient Greek were employed with anything 
 like propriety by the people in general will remain incredible till 
 some similar example be pointed out in a living language. In 
 the meantime, the argument against such a supposition is an a 
 fortiori one from the present to the past. 
 
 The Romaic dialects are in fact, like the Acropolis of Modern 
 Athens, a faithful historical monument. As the temple of wing- 
 less victory, the Propylaeum, the Erichtheium and the Parthenon 
 connect it with the age of Pericles ; so do the ruinous state of 
 these erections, the rubbish which encumbers the stranger's path, 
 the mediaeval tower at the entrance, and the heterogeneous wall 
 which encircles the crest of the rock, tell of repeated disaster and 
 long decay. In like manner, whilst the time-worn Aeolo- 
 Doric basis of the Romaic dialects connects them with the 
 highest Greek antiquity, their superstructure is mingled with 
 heterogeneous materials of a later date, on which conquerors, 
 civilized and barbarous, have inscribed their language and their 
 name. 
 
 I conclude these observations on Romaic by a third example 
 extracted from the Ay^on-Aa "Atyjuara of Zampelius, p. 700. 
 
 1 iS II. vii. 363 : »f II. v. 196: «x<p/ Horn. Hymn to Ceres, No. 5, in 
 Matthias' edition, line 208 : rptyi II. x 307 : *«£" II. xxii. 74. I cannot give 
 the references for the other three examples ; but the reader will find them 
 duly recognised in the n/vag <rdv xaruxiyov appended to the commentary of 
 Eustathius, who cites them and some others frequently in a kind of stereo- 
 typed list, illustrative of what apocope could do in the most ancient 
 times. 
 
KOMAIC. 33 
 
 'O dvdgisv/j,hog. 
 
 SagaVra dub KXiproftovXa /Aid xopvjv dyavrovtiav, 
 
 KogY} tfavdjgiu %i uifjjogprj, zcci 'tfrd pXoogid ^uff/Asvrj. 
 
 Mid Kvgiaxri %ai {Aid Aa/ATTgrj vcov '"fcoesuav dvrd/Aa^ 
 
 K/' 6 'vug tyiv TrigauQ d'rcb 'du, xi' aXXog rr\ ^a/gsrodtfe, 
 
 'H xogri itou 'rav (pgovi/AYj rovg xgdfyi %a\ rovg Xsysr 5 
 
 u Metfa 'tiro irzg&oki /aov, Vr^ /Asffrj 'ffrriv dvkr\ /aov, 
 
 " Eiv hag (3gd-£og Kakaiybg, Xidagi pityp'evo, 
 
 " Ka/ ftov rov G%<ji<sr\ d<nb r' stfag, yvvaTxa vd /as nd^y" 
 Kavstg dsv dffoxgidviits, %aviig dsv WoXoyisrai, 
 1 Ka/ rr\g Magiag 6 -^v^ovibg, r' a'^io rb TraXXixdgi, 10 
 
 Ms r' ova -ys^i roaxwcrs, 'arrjv <7rXdr?} rov rb j3dvsi' 
 
 " Mr}v xox'Aivifyig, Xvysgn, %* eXXa Vr^i/ dy%aXid /aov" 
 
 V. 1. KtetprovrovXtx. from jcki^rrti and trZxas. The Klephts of Greece were 
 patriotic robbers who gloried in their profession not less than the Highland 
 robbers of Sir Walter Scott's romances. By affixing -xZxo-, to the primitive, 
 Romaic forms diminutives even of things without life : as xa^'ovovXov, a little 
 ship. 
 
 V. 2. -Tfavu^ta for fdvcogos. %6o<rfiivyi, literally, covered up, from z^ vvv ^' or x° u * 
 in Romaic x^ u - I n the inland villages this style of ornament is still met 
 with, strings of silver coin being suspended from the neck across the breast, 
 and sometimes also covering the head. This treasure is always the dowry 
 of the wearer. 
 
 V. 3. a.MTa.fji.u. for a-vvrifAa. 
 
 V. 4. rnguZ,' for Ir^a^s, as from m^u, instead of rn^au, Attic vnglw. 
 
 V. 5. trod 'ra.v for vou or otou virov. 
 
 V. 6. Ms<r« has become a Romaic preposition equivalent to hros t and is very 
 much used. 
 
 V. 7. "7ra.Xa.iyoi for tfa.Xa.ib?. 
 
 V. 8. *ou for onou means here whoever. o-xuo-n for <r*xu<rn from o-vxbvu. Ancient 
 Greek had «W&/ in a kindred sense. The termination bu has uniformly been 
 changed into bvu. wi.^ the aor. subj. from vi^a, the Romaic form of Xva.'^co. 
 
 V. 9. a.'xo'koynra.i for a.<7ro\oyitra.t. ocrox^i&nxt for u,<x ix^lS v\. The transference 
 of the terminations of the perfect active, which Romaic has lost, to the aor. 
 pas. which it has preserved, is another example of the confusion pervading its 
 grammatical forms. 
 
 V. 10. -^vxovios. Adopted children are so called because the adopting party 
 expects spiritual benefit from this exercise of philanthropy. -xaxxixa.^ di- 
 minutive from tfa.XXa.%. 
 
 V. 11. (Mm, for (idxxu. 
 
 D 
 
o4 ROMAIC. 
 
 No apology, I trust, is required for presenting the translation 
 of this piece in our northern Doric, so much better adapted than 
 classic -English to the expression of the original. 
 
 THE CHAMPION. 
 
 Forty twa robber lads lo'ed the same bonnie lass, 
 A bloomin' sweet lassie, wi' florins belad'n. 
 On blithe Easter Sunday they danced a' thegether ; 
 Some look'd at her here, ithers greeted her there : 
 But the lassie had gumption, and says to them a' : 
 " In midst o' my garden, in midst o' my yard, 
 " Is a hoary auld rock, is a weel-rooted stane, 
 " Wha' e'er o' ye lifts it sail hae me his bride/' 
 No ane o' them answer'd, no ane o' them spak ; 
 But our Mary's adopted, the braw orphan lad, 
 Wi' ae han' lifts the stane, sets it high on his shouther 
 " Bonnie lassie, nae blushes, but come to my arms." 
 
 PART III.— MODERN GREEK. 
 
 At p. 367 of the prolegomena to his Arj^orixd "Ac/^ara Zam- 
 pelius justly describes the lawlessness of literary composition on 
 the eve of the Greek revolution ; and his language, which is such 
 as the classical reader can interpret with ease and read with plea- 
 sure, is offered at the same time as a specimen of the higher style 
 of Modern Greek at the present day : — " '£lg ix rvjg l^ixoar^dmg 
 diaXsxrtxrjg dxavovrfiag xa) dffvvra^iag, rb ysvog zugiexsro e/g Qeffiv ovroog 
 /j,ovadiXYjVj Ostiw fidXa eW^sgJj xa) hzivrjv* To yevoc qv rragad6<*oog 
 ayXurrov hravrtZ xa) iroXbyXoirrov ayXcorrov fisv did ttjv crags/tf^jjcra- 
 tiav diapQogdv, xa) rrjv [^syakriv drsXstav ry\g yXuitftfrjg, 'XoXbyXcarrov ds 
 xadori, h sXXsi^\>zi roafjy/xariXTJg xa) 2vvraxrixov rSjg vewrspag, crag 
 exatfrog sXdXsi xa) ffvvsygacpsv dvi^sXsyxrojg xard rovg xavovag ry\g Idiag 
 tou tpavraffiag. 1 
 
 This immense variety of style may be fairly represented by a 
 threefold classification of the writers, into those, on the one hand, 
 who wrote on the model of the classical vocabulary and grammar, 
 those, on the other, who endeavoured to stereotype the incon- 
 
 1 For translation, see p. 57. 
 
ROMAIC. 35 
 
 stant Romaic, adopting as their principle that the written lan- 
 guage of a people should coincide with the spoken, and those 
 who, avoiding both extremes, sought to effect a compromise by 
 conforming Romaic at once to Ancient Greek only as far as was 
 consistent with general intelligibility, leaving the way open for 
 subsequent approximation to the classic model. The immediate 
 restoration of Ancient Greek was the fond delusion of a few 
 scholars, and the adoption of Romaic the enthusiastic expression 
 of devotion to the popular cause on the part of a few poets and 
 politicians; but both were wanting in the elements of success, 
 and failure was due to the unintelligibility of Ancient Greek on 
 the one hand, and to the inadequacy of Romaic on the other. 
 The compromise, which resulted in Modern Greek, gave the 
 requisite lingual expression to the national unity, and established 
 that intellectual intercourse betw r een the several classes of society, 
 which is indispensable to sound national progress. Although, as 
 will be presently shown, its success must be ascribed rather to 
 its adaptation to the circumstances of the case, than to any con- 
 cert among writers, yet from the powerful influence which Koraes 
 exerted in this direction, both by precept and example, the com- 
 promise goes by his name, and he may justly be called the father 
 of Modern Greek. How truly he aimed at the golden mean 
 will appear by the following extract from a letter, which will 
 serve besides as a specimen of his epistolary style : — " negi ds rr t g 
 avoxaratfrdffzwg rr\g ' EXXqv i%y\g diaXezrov, efftOvyrirov v\~ov [3e£uia vd 
 utfiQdXXsro t\ %otvr\ g/g rovg dvrovg xavovag rqg d'^/aiag' dXXd rb 
 voayya ye <pa/verai dduvarov, xa&chg y,ai ciXXore rb eiira. Nd tie hitto 
 rriv dXqOeiav, dsv elvat rotiY) 7} s-ndvy/a you vd idoj rqv yX&Kfffav 'EXXqvi- 
 fyucrav, offoc elvai 6 p6£og you yr\ (3agQagoj0rj &%6fMp wsgJtfforegov dp" 1 o, 
 n eivat (3dgQctoog. BX's-Treig on dh Xziirouv dftb rb yevog dvhoeg xai ye 
 t 7rgoxo<7rriv %al y\ Z%Xov, bi o-ttoToh hiifr/ugiY^ovrai oXov rb evavr/ov, on 
 drjXadyi itgeicu vd ygdpuysv xai vd XaXuyev wg ygdpoutfi, xai XaXoutitv 
 bi !~vXo(p6got xai udgo<p6goi. 'H yvdoyrj yov (3'e£ai<z dneyei yaxgdv dntb 
 roiourov tfvifrrjya' tlclI (SroydX^oyai on av b tftfovduTog gvg/ ypsog vd 
 ffwyxaraQa/vp sig rb y'erqov rr\g TtaraXyj-^sojg rou <*uXo(pbpou y our (a xai 6 
 
 1 ax.ofA7i(y), generally pronounced i»o/x,a, is the modern form of uxfthv, which 
 of all the Attic writers Xenophon alone employs for sn, and he but once : — 
 o oxXos xxpbv IdSetivi, (Anab. Book IV. ch. 3.) See also Mat. 15, 16. 
 
 2 xtoxairriv, progress, is no longer used for ruthix. 
 
36 ROMAIC. 
 
 ^v'kotpogog <7rps-Tzi va -Trgodv/Ayirai va avaEatv/j xai dvrbg oXiyov stg to va 
 zaraXa^Qdvp ra XiyoiLzva %ai ra yga<p6/jbsva dio rbv <ttfovda?ov, tux,} 
 rotouror^'iirug va <$\)vairavrY\§Z)6i %a) 6t dvo elg rb /j/stfov rv\g xXi/jjauog." x 
 
 It being a matter of individual opinion how far the ancient 
 model may be approximated consistently with intelligibility, 2 and 
 no great writers having yet put the stamp of pre-eminent genius 
 
 1 For translation, see p. 57. 
 
 2 A striking illustration of this is afforded by the pamphlet which Pana- 
 giotes Soutzos, the modern Tyrtaeus, published at Athens in 1853, under the 
 
 title, Nsa 2%oXhrou yguipoyivov Xoyov, n oivatrratris rns a.(>x i uta,; 'EXXyvtxtis yXuffffng, 
 
 hvooupivfis vto vravrav." The war-like appeals of M. Soutzos to the Greek race, 
 which appeared in the columns of the 'Atvv during the winter of 1853, are 
 certainly, to the mere classical reader, among the most intelligible produc- 
 tions of the Athenian periodical press ; but whether they are equally intelli- 
 gible to the people may fairly be doubted. The reader will understand how 
 far M. Soutzos has advanced from the following rules of the new school, 
 which I subjoin in his own words : — 
 
 «. 'H yXufftru <rav a.g%aiwv 'EXXnvuv xoCt fiyuv ruv viuri^cov Btrtrat yta, zut h ccvtyi' h 
 Y^ayyocrixT) Ixitvav xou hyoov etrrut y'toc xoc) h cturri- 
 
 £'. At Xi%it;, at (p^ii,o'ii$ ixtivuv strovrxt y'ovcu TctgudzKrizi' wutru Vi %iv/i Xi^t;, *j (p^ufft; 
 |svjj iv Xi^itrtv 'EXX'/ivixcci;, i^oSiXur^^o-ovrat. 
 
 y. 'H truvTM^ts rod Xoyov 'Iffirai <zuo 'hyiv ovp^'i yax^K, xod tta. yaxpwv <z-igtb"o*wv euvitr- 
 x-zvccG'y.sv'/ij a.XX' zuX'/swros, oyocXn xoCi u.7rX7i u; tfagot rote u^a.tots vroi'/irais 'Oy^eu xou 
 'Ho'iod'f)) xect <7fxpo\ <ro7s Iffroptxols 'Hpooorou xa.t p.i.votyk/vrt. 
 
 2'. nSv rt Ix ruv oxru yiqo.<v rod Xoyov, xoCi ■Tratroc. Xi%t;, xect -Tru-trot. (ft^diri;, xoCi cr«j i^tu- 
 Ttcryo; rouv u^atuv 'EXXnvojv wagaXaySoivovTOii clya IvxoXojg Ivvoovvrat vtto rov ixXixrov 
 y'igovs ru>v 'EXXyvtuv, xoCi ovKi <tf(>o<rQu.XXou(ri rhv ocxoriv. 
 
 Had not M. Soutzos, in the course of his pamphlet, gone out of his way to 
 insult both the living and the dead, he would probably have been allowed to 
 establish the new school in peace, since he merely proposes to do that at once 
 and somewhat violently, which is being accomplished at any rate naturally, 
 and by slow degrees. But having taken the name of Koraes in vain, and 
 used disrespectful expressions regarding Asopios, the Nestor of Modern 
 Greek philology, Stathopoulos, a pupil of the latter, and now teacher at 
 Tripolitza, administered to him a castigation vigorous indeed but cruel ac- 
 cording to the custom of the country. The important point, however, is that, 
 even in this malignant counter-pamphlet, the " new school" is represented 
 rather as unnecessary than as impracticable. M. Soutzos is reminded that 
 his proposal owes whatever feasibility it possesses to the immense progress 
 which Modern Greek has made through the labours of Koraes and his 
 followers ; and that those, who build the walls of an edifice, should gratefully 
 remember those who laid its foundations. It is thus acknowledged, on all 
 hands, that the language is in a transition state, and that continual approxi- 
 mation to the ancient is its destiny. 
 
 3 For translation, see p. 58. 
 
ROMAIC. 37 
 
 on works in universal circulation so as to fix the literary style, it 
 is easier to say whither Modern Greek is tending, than to state 
 precisely at what stage it has arrived. At the same time the 
 existing diversitives of style have their limits, and the following 
 general remarks are offered, as fairly characterising Modern 
 Greek : — 
 
 1. With respect to its vocabulary, the return to pure Greek is 
 complete. I say to pure rather than to Ancient Greek, because 
 the new ideas peculiar to modern civilisation could not be expressed 
 in strictly Ancient Greek, without intolerable circumlocutions, 
 and for them new but at the same time purely Greek names 
 have Jbeen invented. Let the following serve as examples : — 
 
 'H aXkrfkzyy'o-n la solidarite. 
 
 ' H iXsukporv-Ttu, t the freedom of the press. 
 
 *H vavrt7t7\ irb'^ig the mariner's compass. 
 
 'H irvpTrtg, i] <zvpo%ovia gunpowder. 
 
 To BiaQar/jpiov passport. 
 
 To dia'jsovrjrijpiov permis de sejour. 
 
 To hffYiTTjpiov ticket of admission. 
 
 To 6/UjOtorsXiurov rhyme. 
 
 To t 7ravs'7ri(fT7i/jjiov university. 
 
 To rikusiypatpov ultimatum. 
 
 To vdrspoypatpov postscript. 
 
 Koumas suggests in the prolegomena to his Modern Greek, 
 Translation of Reimer's Lexicon, that, were a collection made of 
 all the genuine Greek words that survive in different parts, an 
 essential service would be rendered to the literary language, in- 
 asmuch as an ancient word that is already current somewhere 
 could be more easily popularised than one that survives nowhere. 
 It often happens that, whilst a foreign word prevails in one dis- 
 trict, a genuine Greek synonyme is used in another: thus in 
 Smyrna the evening is called xevrt, a Turkish word, but dstXtvbv 
 in Thessaly, where again the Turkish ^a^rffsg is used for 
 the Smyrnaean <7rsp^6Xi(ov) or %r\irog. Professor Ross observes 
 that there are even words which, though not witnessed to by 
 any extant classical author, yet bear so decidedly the Greek 
 character as to merit admission into our lexicons, and he instances 
 dydOv/j.og irascible, from &yuv and 0v/j,6g. But such a collection 
 
38 ltOMAIC. 
 
 could be made only as was Dr Jameson's Scottish dictionary, by 
 means of intelligent correspondents in every valley and village ; 
 and at present such persons do not exist in the requisite situa- 
 tions throughout Greece enslaved, perhaps not even throughout 
 Greece free. 
 
 The greatest practical benefit derivable from such an under- 
 taking would be the infusion into the written style of all the 
 pure Greek contained in the spoken ; and by this approximation 
 of the one to the other, some progress would be made towards 
 correcting the great evil characteristic of the Modern Greek 
 vocabulary, which is neither poverty nor corruptness, but un- 
 settledness. Whoever, and I do not except the Greeks them- 
 selves, would make sure of interpreting every word in a modern 
 Greek publication which treats of theories, inventions, or man- 
 ners essentially modern, had better surround himself w T ith all the 
 lexicons in his library before sitting down to its perusal, for the 
 author may now and then have employed a word which is rare 
 even in the extant classics, or rare at any rate in the sense re- 
 quired ; or he may have employed a Romaic expression which is 
 at the same time a provincialism. Nor is this the whole evil ; 
 for even with all possible lexicographic appliances, a word or 
 phrase may refuse to give up its meaning, being really the im- 
 provised or concerted equivalent of some foreign expression, 
 without a previous knowledge of which the meaning cannot be 
 divined. Byzantius, at p. 21 of the prolegomena to his Modern 
 Greek Lexicon, has the following sentence : — "'A/iwro^gwcg/s e/i»e 
 irigHSraXra) av utiiv v-rs^o^ i/naioi\ \syzi 57 ju,era<pga,6ig rod HoXirixov 
 No/aou* akXa rouro rig, hxrbg ftovov rou yvwgifyvrog rb d^ri&roi^ov TccXXi- 
 xbv, Qu, rb swofor)." 1 The remark is made by Byzantius in regard to 
 the terminology of Modern Greek, but it receives also occasional 
 illustrations in general composition. 
 
 2. The orthography and accentuation of Ancient Greek have 
 been completely restored. 
 
 3. All the parts of speech declined by cases have been remod- 
 delled on the ancient Attic, that dialect being the type of Modern 
 Greek, as Aeolo-Doric is of Romaic : the perittosyllabics have 
 been reinstalled, and the genders are distributed as of old ; the 
 dative case, however, particularly in the plural of nouns increasing 
 
 1 For translation, see p. 58. 
 
ROMAIC. 39 
 
 in the genitive, is still sparingly used, and the Romaic forms are 
 often interchanged with the ancient ones of the personal and pos- 
 sessive pronouns. The state of suspense in which Modern Greek 
 is held by the necessity of preserving intelligibility on the one 
 hand, and by the tendency toward Ancient Greek on the other, 
 is admirably imaged in the variety of its forms for the relative 
 pronoun. For all cases and genders, and in every regimen, 6 ovoTog, 
 a literal translation of the Italian il quale, may be used ; but in 
 the nominative, 6Vr/s and %ri$ are preferred for the masculine 
 and feminine, and fazp for the neuter ; whilst after prepositions 
 the classical 09 $ 0, is very generally used. 
 
 4. The dilapidation of the verb in Romaic is such as to render 
 its complete restoration in Modern Greek impossible; and whereas, 
 in the other parts of speech, Romaic has ceded to Ancient Greek, 
 in this it has prevailed. v The tenses preserved in Romaic, i.e., 
 the present, imperfect, and aorist, are indeed often written in 
 Modern Greek according to the ancient Attic paradigms ; the 
 subjunctive is not confounded with the indicative, as it often is 
 in Romaic ; and the participles are declined, those of the future 
 passive, and of the aorists active and passive, having been at the 
 same time restored; but the future indicative is formed with OeXu, 
 the conditional with y\kXw]- the perfect with e%w ? and the pluper- 
 fect with e?x ov * 
 
 Modern Greek has two futures, according as the present or the 
 aorist infinitive is subjoined to 6sXu ; thus,— 
 
 OeXw ypdpeiv _ I shall write often. 
 
 O'eXsic, ypcupeiv x. r. X. 
 and dsXu yp&tyiv 3. I shall write once. 
 
 QsXzig ypd-^siv. '/,. r. X. 
 
 1 Trikoupes in his history constantly uses the Romaic auxiliary 6k (see p. 
 17), instead of 6ix&> and %h\n 9 and I approve his taste ; still it is a Romaicism 
 excluded from Modern Greek by the great majority of living writers. Bam- 
 bas does not recognise it in his Modern Greek grammar, and so decided is 
 public opinion against the preservation of 6k in written composition, that 
 some of the Athenian litterateurs who, like Trikoupes, would themselves 
 prefer it, abstain from its use lest their style should be decried. This 
 diversity is only another illustration of that unsettledness which is the charac- 
 teristic defect of Modern Greek ; and the gradual exclusion of 6k from 
 written composition in deference to public opinion, is a specimen of the 
 means by which a definite form will be at length given to every part of the 
 language. 
 
40 KOMAIC. 
 
 The former denotes a future action which is to be repeated, and 
 may therefore be called the continuative future ; the latter, a 
 single future action, and may therefore be called the future de- 
 finite. For example, I shall write to-morrow to my parents, would 
 be translated: Avpiov QsXw ypd^lsiv he, rovg yovzTg pou; but, Hence- 
 forth I shall write more regularly to my parents, 'E/g rb l§5?g 6sXa 
 ypdpsiv raxrtTtojrspcc hg rbvg yovsTg pov. In like manner, in the pas- 
 sive voice, Q'sXw ypd<ps<rdai, and Q'sXto ypa<p&^v\ai). 
 
 There is a diversity of opinion regarding the word ypd-^siv in 
 de\w ypd^zi(v), some taking it for the ancient future infinitive, and 
 others for the third person singular of the aorist subjunctive ; 
 these of course maintaining that it should be written, ypd-^ri. 
 According to analogy, it ought to be the aorist infinitive, since 
 in feXw ypa<pdvjv(ai) the aorist appears, as also in dsXea IXkTv, the 
 future of 'ipxpfLcu, (&Xw supe?v } the future of svpiffxu, QiXu lh.?v, the 
 future of CXacrw, and many others. The only reason for a con-' 
 tr-ary supposition is that the ancient aorist infinitive was ypd-^ai, 
 and not ypd-^siv : but since Romaic, in its aversion to classic 
 anomalies, has made the aorist imperative ypu-^z, instead of 
 ypu-^ov, why, having lost the future altogether, should it not have 
 given to the aorist infinitive, whilst that mood still survived, the 
 termination sir? 
 
 The formation of the conditional is analogous to that of the 
 future, nkXov ypd<psiv answering to typectpov av in classic Greek, and 
 rjkXov ypd-^siv to eypa-^a av. 
 
 The use of Qekca as a mere auxiliary is not unknown to classic 
 writers. Herodotus (i. 32) has the following phrase : — h ds dr t 
 sdeXytfei rovrspov ruv srewv (vrivi /udnporepov yiveffQat =but if every other 
 year should become longer by a month. For other examples in 
 the same author see i., 109, ii., 11, 14, 99. 
 
 The perfect and pluperfect active are formed as follows : — 
 *X U ysypO'W-'WM, or %x u ypd-^sw, = I have written. 
 iX*' f » » *X s/ s " *■ r ' x - 
 
 and ^x ov ysypawA&vov, or &7x ov yp&^t'h = I had written. 
 
 g2jjjk6 „ rf^sg „ K. r. X. 
 
 the participle in the first form agreeing in gender, number, and 
 case with the object of the verb. The corresponding tenses of 
 
 1 The letters enclosed within the parenthesis are never written, and the 
 final v in all these forms of the future is very generally omitted. 
 
ROMAIC. 41 
 
 the passive voice are expressed by means of the substantive verb 
 and the perfect participle, as were the subjunctive and optative 
 of these tenses even in classic times. But these forms for the 
 perfect and pluperfect are little used, the aorist being employed 
 in Modern, as it also was in Ancient Greek, instead of the perfect 
 and pluperfect, wherever this can be done consistently with per- 
 spicuity. 
 
 To mark more distinctly at once the imperfection and the pro- 
 gress of Modern Greek in relation to the verb, some remarks of 
 a less positive character must be added. It cannot be said, for 
 example, that verbs in //</, or the aorists middle, have been re- 
 stored, yet they are occasionally used ; sometimes also the optative 
 occurs in the truly optative sense ; the infinitive, taken substan- 
 tively, is common, but after a verb it is resolved, as in Romaic, 
 by yds with the subjunctive ; also the classic s>W is disputing the 
 ascendancy of the Romaic tlpou. 
 
 5. In regard to construction, the same unsettledness prevails 
 as in the vocabulary. The ancient canons regarding concord are 
 indeed universally observed; but those regarding government 
 are very much at the discretion of the writer. All the preposi- 
 tions have been restored except u,u,<pi, and their ancient syntax is 
 generally attended to : «t6 ? however, is often allowed to retain 
 the accusative case to which it has been so long wedded in the 
 popular dialects ; $, the truncated ^sra, is often used with the 
 accusative instead of the modal and instrumental dative of the 
 ancients ; and only a few verbs are yet construed with the simple 
 genitive or dative required by ancient syntax, instead of the 
 Romaic analysis by «^o or e/g with the accusative. In short, here 
 also reappears the fact of a compromise, of which, however, the 
 final terms have yet to be settled. 
 
 The vagueness of the above indications, however displeasing 
 to the classical scholar familiar with the rectilineal distinctness 
 of the ancient Attic grammar, is nevertheless necessitated by the 
 present fluctuating state of Modern Greek, and is really an enco- 
 mium on the good sense of Modern Greek writers ; for it mani- 
 fests their conviction that only by carrying the nation along with 
 it can the language truly advance. How just were the notions 
 entertained by Koraes regarding scholastic interference with a 
 living language will appear from the third of the following 
 
42 ROMAIC. 
 
 extracts, which are taken from page 144 of M, Sophocles' 
 Chrestomathy, and, though in what would now be called an 
 humble style, represent the model Modern Greek of fifty years^ 
 
 ag0: ~ 
 
 1. " Orav rd tpwrrf/ue'va 'idvri CdXoofftv dpyr\v vd qdvvuvroii sig rd ai6- 
 
 Xpa, ciXXrj 1'tfojg dipairzia dsv fAsvzi kX'sov dt' uvrd Tapd vd stfHfTp'spcaffi xal 
 itdXiv sig rr\v dp^atav dvruv Qap&aporqra. 
 
 2. 'H sXksi^ig tojv [Myahwv sXarrotftdrav hg rbvg dvyy^cctps/'g 
 crgoe^gra/ iroKkdxtg dirb dd&'svsiav rov voog, ix>r\r slvai irdvTor* dirorsKsd^a 
 ttiz Ttoivrig aggros rov xaigov sig rov birotov ygd<pov6iv bXiyov (poQsTra/ vd 
 ft'sdyj b&rig bh s/uaQe vd irsrsrai v^rjXd. 
 
 3. 'O/ Xoyioi dvdgeg rov £ 6vovg hvai <pv6rx,d oi vofiodsrcci rr\g yXu)66rig, 
 rr,v biroiav XaXsT rb 's&vog' dXX' sfvai vofiodsrai dyj/Aoxgartxov it^dyiharog. 
 'E/g dvrovg dvTjXSi v\ diogOtotfig rr t g yXuiGtfyjg, dXX' r\ yXci)66oi sheet xryj/xa 
 oXov rov sdvovg, xoti nrq/jua isgovJ 
 
 Valuable as were the contributions of Koraes to Modern' 
 Greek, Modern Greek itself, as deriving from Romaic on the 
 one hand, and from ancient Attic on the other, was neither 
 improvised by him nor claimed to be so. These elements, to one 
 of which Modern Greek owes its intelligibility, and to the other 
 its power of indefinite expansion and improvement, were in 
 presence throughout all the Byzantine period ; for, on the one 
 hand, the succession has never been broken of Greeks who not 
 only studied the Ancient, but composed in it treatises on a great 
 variety of subjects, whilst, on the other, Romaic was in the 
 mouths of the people, and known to scholars as the popular 
 dialect. Though known by them only to be despised, yet, the 
 course of things, in language as in nature, being irresistible, 
 they employed it in their familiar conversational and epistolary 
 style ; and, in tracing the origin of Modern Greek, it is essential 
 to consider, not the compositions of the 15th and subsequent 
 centuries which betray a sedulous imitation of ancient authors, 
 but those in which the educated of that period express their 
 thoughts with more or less freedom, and, as it were, extempore. 
 
 Two such examples are given in the appendix to Kodrikas' 
 work already mentioned, one a speech delivered by the emperor 
 John Paleologos in a private meeting of the eastern prelates in 
 the patriarch's house at Florence, and the other a letter written 
 
 1 For translation, see p. 58. 
 
ROMAIC. 43 
 
 in 1465 by Cardinal Bessarion, one of the few Greeks who 
 joined the papal church, to the tutor of the last Greek emperor's 
 three nephews, sons of Thomas Porphyrogenitus. This letter 
 has been preserved by Phrantzes, and may be found at p. 
 416 of the Bonn edition (1838) of his history. The Cardinal 
 begins with classical Greek, but soon descends to a more fa- 
 miliar style; and although, from the publicity and solemnity 
 of the occasion, the emperor's speech is more carefully worded 
 throughout, yet the conversational Romaic now and then pierces 
 through. 
 
 The first extract is from the body- of the Cardinal's letter, as 
 follows: — " H suysvsia Gov 1 slvai xard rb -ira^ov wff-Trso hioixr t rr\g roi>v 
 ffaid/wv fosra rov KgirotouXou. Elvai yovv dvdyxrj tfgb ftdvrwv vd 
 Ogovriaqre rv\v vca'thiuGiv roov, xai rd tj9rj rojv. Na yivouv 2 xaXd xai 
 <7Ti'7raidsv l UjSva, av Q'eXzre vd sj/ouv n/^ijv sboj, 3 h hi ftri, O'sXouv rd xara- 
 (pgovyjtisiv, xai dvrd %ai iffdg edoo, '/tai duds Gr^atpzTv d'sXouv vd cag ihouv. 
 Ms rbv /Aaxagirvjv 4 rbv duO'svrrjv rbv irarzoa roug sffuvru^a/Jbiv itioi rourow 
 xai sxzTvog sQouXsro vd rd svdutfrj, xai vd rd 'rrot/jffp vd Zpuv (pgayyixd 
 iravrtXcog, rjyouv vd dxoXouOouffi rr\v Ixx/^ffiav xard irdvra utfdv AarTvoi, 
 xai oyj dXXswg, vd svduvwvrai Aanvrxcog, vd j&ddouv vd yovariZpuv roug 
 v<7rege%ovrag, xai Tldira xai xagdivaXioug xai roug aXXoug au6zvrag y vd 
 diroGxiKaZuvrai rb xetpdXiv roug vd n/Muffi roug yaioirZivra.g duroug. 
 " Orav uirdyouv vd idouv xaohivdXr\v ?j aXXov o/aowv duO'svrrjV, vd /JbYjdsv 
 xaO/tfouv irotioog, a/a^ J v& yovantouv xai avrsV/j, ' orav rove ii-Trp sx,£?vog, 
 vd (SrixooQoLMfiv. 'O ds /jba,xag/rr)g sxsTvog sXsysv on xai -TroXXdxig av roug 
 rb ei-TTOJffi, vd ^rjdev xaQ-f]Gojtftv. 'Avrd ovv oXa i^y/xads rd vd roug 
 vouderyjtfzrs, xai vd roug iraihiuterz xoXd. " En ToiTjrtsrz on rb Qddiff/js,d 
 roug vd ehat tfe/xvbv xai ri/Aiov, y\ bfiiikia roug */PYi<ft>j,oordr?), xai r, (pojvrj 
 
 1 c h ibyinla, aov is no title of rank now at least, but a polite expression by 
 which the party addressed is indicated without being named. 
 
 2 Romaic still prefers the active form of y'tvoua.t. 
 
 3 zhu for uli. Professor Ross noticed a similar metathesis in the island of 
 Astypalsea, where beasts of burden are called not Xfi* as elsewhere, but &%£. 
 
 4 paxeLgirw, as a German would say " mein seliger Vater" — my late (lite- 
 rally blessed) father. 
 
 s ay.h=cl,v fih came to be a Romaic equivalent for «xx«> according to 
 Koraes, because «v ^M and «xx« can be interchanged in certain cases; thus 
 *axa to £»«,«*£? — you have done wrong ; u.yJh v\ MiXi-, va, kk^u — but (i.e. if not 
 that) what would you have me do ? 
 
 6 U'7tlKYt~=-lz-.l~K, 
 
OVVrai 
 
 dirb 
 
 44 ROMAIC. 
 
 rovg vd shai f/jsrgia xai rigs/uia, rb QXs/^/jjCt rovg T^offsxnxh, vd /&7)d&v 
 ^dcfxooffiv sdooQsv xaxsTQsv. "Ag n^ovv vcdvrag* ag dyairovv wdvrag, ag 
 Gvvrvysvutsi vravrag, xai roug sdixovg ruv 1 xai rovg <*svovg, /Agra n/x7jg. 
 Mtj^s!/ shai dXafyvizoi, ag shai ravsivoi xai rips^or xai f/^dh evQv/J, 
 on shai QafftXsojg d-royovot, dfir} ag sv&vfx,ovvrai on shai diojy/xsvoi 
 rh roffov rav, bpfiavoi, ^svoi, oXovcruyor on shai %psia va ^ovv aito <*&va 
 yipiw xai on av d'sv s^bxriv dpsrr\v, av ovdsv shai (ppovifioi, av ovdsv 
 shai ra<7Tsivoi, av ovdsv nfiutft Kavrag, hubs rovg dsXovv rifAqfftiv 01 aXXoi, 
 dfiri CsXovv rovg d<7roo~rps<ps68ai irdvrsg, 'Aura ovv bXa (ppovri6s rd 
 xaXd yj svysvsia gov (tsra xai rou Kp/ro<zroi/Xoi»." 2 
 
 The emperor's speech begins thus : — 
 
 " 'H/AsTg irar'spsg dyioi rfX&o^sv birwtid-riirorz sv rfj Qpayyta, xai syoj 
 ovdsv l%iv^y\%a fiovog sXdsTv. 'Ovds syui Yip^d^v ravrrjv rr\v vwoQeoiv 
 rpairog, dXX' $vdv{j,e?a8s on 6 Karrip (jjov, b SaffiXevg, dnb rh xaiph 
 oitov yjv sig rb s^a/y^Xiov, 3 xai sdrsiXs rh svdaifiova 'ludvvvjv sxsTvov sig 
 rrjv 'XraXiav, xai ijp^aro rov roiovrov spyov' sniGratiQs ydp rh QaciXsa, 
 rh war spa /xou, xai ryv yvwffiv dvrov xai rrjv Tpdfyv, on ov fiovov 
 vvcY\pysv dpicrog (piXodofog, dXXd xai ruv doy/Jbdruv rrjg sxxXrjffiag 
 Xsirrbrarog s£r\yy\r7]g. ^E/p/s yap Gvvr,yopov xai rh Jlarpidpyj\v 
 sxsTvov xvpiv 4 'Evdv/Jbtov, rh ovrcog svdpsroy xai hoXoyov dxpbrarov. 
 Totfovrot ds xai ryfXixovroi virdpyovrsg bvx \vbr\tiav rov roiovrov spyov rr,v 
 I'Ttiysipridiv^ dXXd xai ?jp<*avro, xai eiredvfiovv rsXsiwffai dvrb. 'O xaipbg 
 ds s/UiWobiCs rovro' e<pdu6sv ovv rb spyov xai sig ^fidg, bv% &6itsp sig rovg 
 <xpb ijfioov, dXXd xai /xaXXov xpsirror'spoog." 
 
 In the first of these examples the Cardinal's Romaic is elevated 
 somewhat by his knowledge of Ancient Greek, and in the second 
 the emperor's Ancient Greek is lowered by his daily habit of 
 
 1 Thus are formed the Romaic possessive pronouns : — 
 
 o 10*1x0; /zov r= my, o l^ixos f*xs = OUT. 
 
 „ „ ,rou = thy. „ „ eras = your. 
 
 „ „ rou = his or its. „ „ tovs 
 
 „ „ ttis = her or its. „ „ rav 
 
 \ = their. 
 
 lhxo$ used frequently to be written as in the text, with an initial s. 
 
 2 For translation, see p. 58. 
 
 s ilctpfaiov, the isthmus of Corinth, so called from the distance across being 
 about six miles. 
 
 * xvpv for xv£iov. There are very early instances of the termination tos 
 being contracted into is. see No. 284 of Boekh's collection of inscriptions, 
 where a^^t^j occurs for Atifiyrpes. 
 
 5 For translation, see p. 59. 
 
ROMAIC. 45 
 
 speaking almost Romaic in familiar conversation ; for the Car- 
 dinal could not have admitted so much Romaic into a letter, 
 unless such had been the style of familiar conversation among 
 the learned of that period. That the Cardinal did not attempt 
 fine writing is very evident ; and that the emperor, without aim- 
 ing at classicism, spoke naturally in the somewhat higher style 
 which the occasion demanded, appears from the use of j'x/vqAixa 
 for exivqQriv, from the construction first of fyga/Miv with the ac- 
 cusative, and then of vjp^aro with the genitive, as well as from 
 the accusative^ with «<ro. These instances of negligence disprove 
 all affectation of propriety ; and it is thus clearly established 
 that, towards the close of the Byzantine empire, there was being 
 formed amongst the educated, without any set purpose whatever, 
 and merely under the force of circumstances, a middle dialect 
 between the Ancient Greek of professedly literary composi- 
 tions on the one hand, and the Romaic of the vulgar on the 
 other. 
 
 Although this medley of classicism and vulgarism continued to 
 circulate among the learned — because though base it was conve- 
 nient coin — after the fall of Constantinople, as I doubt not it 
 also circulated amongst them many centuries before, yet its only 
 chance of recognition and purification lay in the emancipation of 
 the Greek mind, in the disruption of the scholastic system which 
 confined all learning to the study of the ancients, and in the con- 
 sequent demand for a truly national language and literature. 
 That period came, and Eugenius was its " representative man." 
 Born at Corfu in 1716 of an ancient and honourable but no 
 longer wealthy family, he seems to have early attracted attention 
 by his capacity for learning. By the liberality of certain mer- 
 chants, he was enabled to study in Italy and other countries, 
 where he acquired the Latin, Italian, French, German, and 
 Hebrew languages, together witli an immense stock of miscella- 
 neous lore. In his voluminous works he appears as a preacher 
 and divine, a mathematician and philosopher, but his most 
 efficient services were rendered in the direction of schools, or 
 rather, as from the higher instruction dispensed they should be 
 caljed, colleges, which the Greeks in Turkey had full liberty to 
 maintain at their own expense. 
 
 To estimate these services aright it must be remembered that, 
 
46 ROMAIC. 
 
 at the beginning of last century, the Greek mind, no less, than 
 the Greek nationality, was in bondage : Turkish domination 
 chained up the one, ecclesiastical bigotry locked up the other. 
 In 1715 one of Eugenius' predecessors in the direction of the 
 school at Jannina, by only a cursory reference to Malebranche, 
 gave offence to the clergy, who in philosophy tolerated only the 
 pagan Aristotle ; and this spirit of exclusiveness was extended to 
 subjects the most remote from theology. 
 
 Wherever Eugenius presided he introduced mathematical 
 studies, and over the gate of the school on Mount Athos, of 
 which he was the first director, he had Plato's dictum inscribed: — 
 
 Too [JjYi OsXovn (fu^wyuxfoj rag Ovpag. 
 
 In philosophy, from the just balance of his own mind no less than 
 from the policy dictated by his circumstances, he prelected 
 rather as a critic than as the advocate of a system, usually giving 
 two series of lessons on the same subject, in the course of which 
 he expounded the views of two different, often of two adverse 
 authors. Notwithstanding this moderation, however, he was 
 manifestly a reformer, and therefore all who kept plodding along 
 the beaten track which he had left, became his enemies. Be- 
 cause, holding tradition comparatively cheap, he thought it worth 
 while to meet philosophers on their own ground, and show the 
 compatibility of reason with revelation, the monks alleged that 
 infidelity was preaching from the professorial chair ; and gram- 
 marians were found among his colleagues who stigmatized his 
 lessons in arithmetic and geometry as superfluous and useless. 
 (tfepirra, xai ayjn^a.) But for the prestige of his sacerdotal 
 character, the popularity of his preaching, and the fame of his 
 learning, this outcry of bigots, clerical and scholastic, would have 
 shut up at its threshold his useful career ; and it did avail to 
 drive him successively from the directorship of the schools at 
 Jannina, on Mount Athos, and in Constantinople. On this last 
 occasion (1765) he retired to Germany, where he spent ten 
 years, chiefly at Leipsic, publishing his works. Of these his 
 logic, written in Ancient Greek, became the basis of all philoso- 
 phical study to the Greeks ; and the contents of his 2vaprtov 
 '"Evrpirov (threefold cord. See Ecclesiastes iv. 12), written in 
 
ROMAIC. 47 
 
 the middle dialect referred to above, which, under the pen of 
 Eugenius, received almost the very form it now has under 
 the name of Modern Greek, show how eager he was to build 
 up the faith of his countrymen on a solid foundation. These 
 contents are translations of Soame Jenyns on the divinity of 
 Christianity, Desaubre on the internal credibility of the Evan- 
 gelists, and Calmet on the genealogy of Christ. These transla- 
 tions, indeed, seem to have been intended as remedies against an 
 anticipated evil, for Eugenius had a good deal of intercourse 
 and many discussions with Voltaire at Berlin, and thus learned 
 to appreciate the dangers of that mental revolution which 
 obtained so terrible an expression on the political arena of France 
 towards the close of his own life. 
 
 In 1775, on the invitation of Catherine II., he went to St 
 Petersburg, where, after directing for a short time an institution 
 for the education of young Russian nobles, he was raised to the 
 priesthood, having previously had only deacon's orders, and 
 appointed bishop of Sclavonia and Kherson. He afterwards 
 demitted his bishopric, and returned to St Petersburg, where, 
 pursuing his learned studies to the last, he died in 1806. 
 
 A detailed biography of Eugenius, for which, however, the 
 materials are not known to exist, would unfold to our view that 
 awakening of the Greek mind under which the Turkish yoke 
 became insupportable, and the struggle for national independence 
 a necessity. From the period of the schism until Eugenius, 
 the only intellectual commerce between the east and west of 
 Europe consisted in works of controversial theology, so numerous 
 indeed as to form of themselves an extensive library ; but, from 
 the abstruseness of their subjects, of doubtful edification to their 
 authors, and absolutely barren to the people. Eugenius, how- 
 ever, brought the Greek mind into contact with the science and 
 philosophy of the west, and from his time till now, Greek scho- 
 lars have been eagerly appropriating, after his example, the 
 accumulated treasures of Italy and France, Germany and Eng- 
 land. Now, for the expression of this immense amount of various 
 new matter, the classical vocabulary no longer sufficed, as when 
 Aristotle was the only master of philosophy, and Euclid of 
 mathematics in the Greek schools. At the very outset of his 
 admirable treatise on Religious Toleration, Eugenius finds it 
 
48 ROMAIC. 
 
 convenient to frame a new word, dvsfydpyiaxs/a, that should exactly 
 express that idea, and so in a thousand other instances. Besides, 
 in consequence of the mental awakening, before Eugenius ended 
 his career, it was no longer a few hundred youths that were to 
 be taught science and philosophy, but a whole nation, unprac- 
 tised in Ancient Greek, that was to be instructed in its rights, 
 animated to their vindication, and, if successful, guided in their 
 exercise. A dialect intelligible to all, and at the same time ade- 
 quate to the expression of whatever belongs to modern civilization, 
 thus became educationally and politically a national want ; nor 
 can the fact be otherwise accounted for that all learned Greeks, 
 who are at the same time public-spirited citizens and practical 
 men, have discarded Ancient Greek in their compositions, and 
 adopted the Modern. 
 
 Eugenius' greatest feat in respect of Greek was his translation 
 into Homeric verse of Virgil's Georgics and iEneid ; but, as 
 regards the subject of these pages, it remains only to give a 
 specimen of what may be called his Modern Greek. The follow- 
 ing is the second paragraph of his tract on Religious Toleration: 
 " ©eXo/xsv rbv avs^iSpyjtfzov 1 tyXurriv lyi7sCe/a£, dia vd /Jb7\ rbv s^oj/asv 
 adtafiopov. 'O adtafiopog 8sv taGyzi' 6 atfa^g, xcci dvdXyr\rog avaufdqrs/. 
 6 dvaiffdyjruv stg rl vd yvfAvdtfyj, xal sig r) vd s*xihs'i£r\ rv\v durov dvoyj\v \ 
 xa) sxsTvog Ifg rbv oitoTov budev diapspsi, sirs rovro sirs sxsTvo tfKfrevercti, 
 koiolv irors Q'sXsi Xd&ei vrsp) rd Titfrsvrsa /xspi/xvav, (ppovrida, bXcog sTTiffr- 
 po<prjV J 'Oudsv irpbg, durov rd rr\g <7ri6rsojg Kttiriv diupHt/A'svug ixr\ e^ovra. 
 'Avs<*iQp7j<r%og dsv yivsrai xup/ojg 6 roiourdg, dXX* shat adpqcixog. ' * 
 
 That middle dialect, of which the above is an example, Euge- 
 nius employed only in his more popular works, and was far from 
 contemplating that universal sovereignty which Modern Greek 
 has now acquired. All his strictly philosophical writings are in 
 ancient Greek, and he scouts in no very gentle terms the idea of 
 teaching philosophy in a popular dialect. In his Logic, page 50, 
 he says : — u To/£ yap h v<psi %udaiw 'TTapsvutputyxsvoig syxouSoufAevoi <piXo- 
 (focpixoTg Xs^tdioig, durov /Aovovouyu rov rv\g yvoitfsojg v-^oug rfj xs<paXjj 
 -^avsiv hixaffi' xal piXotiotpovvrsg dtfuidsvrag, dvoqrc ivou6i vsavrxug- 
 9 Extiuptxrsov upa rd yuhaJ'i6ri <piXo6o<pe?v sKayyeXXo/Mva Si&Xiddpia, rr,g 
 
 ! AvilfytirxM. This, and the cognate terras, which Eugenius framed, were 
 received into the language, and are now in common use. 
 2 For translation, see p. 59. 
 
ROMAIC. 40 
 
 'EXXddog tpojvrjg wg oiov rs i'Tn/ueXov/Aevovg, y\g avzv ovds rwv ftukai TCi<piXo6o- 
 pyxoruv i<rrh d'ff6vaffdai. v 1 His influence on the language therefore 
 was mainly indirect ; he prepared the way for a change in it by 
 developing the kvhidkrog \6yog of the nation ; the direct influence 
 was to be exerted by others, and the man whose writings contri- 
 buted most to methodise and recommend modern Greek, was 
 Koraes. 
 
 Born at Smyrna in 1748, the two sentiments, which formed his 
 main-springs of action throughout life, were early developed, 
 namely, patriotism, synonymous in his case with hatred of the 
 Turk, and a passion for learning. In his native town he was 
 greatly assisted in his lingual and other studies by the Dutch 
 consular chaplain, Bernhard Keun, of whom he makes frequent 
 and affectionate mention in his autobiography and correspondence. 
 At the age of twenty-four he became his father's mercantile 
 agent at Amsterdam, where he spent six years ; but the ledger 
 was the least interesting of his books, and in 1778 he was 
 recalled. He returned with the greatest reluctance, because his 
 darling project was to study medicine in France, in order that, 
 should he be obliged to live among the Turks, he might exercise 
 among them the only profession which procured respectful treat- 
 ment for the Greeks. After four melancholy years at Smyrna, 
 his wishes were at length complied with, and in 1782 he arrived 
 at Montpellier. He distinguished himself in this famous medical 
 school, and, having obtained his diploma, removed to Paris in 
 1788, where, instead of practising his profession, he engaged in 
 literary labours, most of them having a patriotic aim, and where 
 he died in 1833. 
 
 Let no one conclude, from the fame of Koraes in connection 
 with Modern Greek, that in general scholarship he was inferior 
 to the best of his cotemporaries ; on the contrary, his researches 
 into Modern Greek disclose his immense erudition in the Ancient, 
 of which besides he gave other and special proofs. Few could 
 have produced a translation of Hippocrates mpt aepuv, uddruv, %vA 
 rovruv equal to that which he published in 1800, with long prole- 
 gomena and notes. Nor was his scholarship unacknowledged by 
 his cotemporaries. Napoleon selected him to prepare a transla- 
 tion of Strabo's geography, the first volume of which was pre- 
 
 1 For translation, see p. 60. 
 
 E 
 
50 KOMAIC. 
 
 sented to the emperor in 1805. In a letter dated Leydeu, July 
 22d of that same year, Wyttenbach, writing to Larcher, calls 
 Koraes " not only a Grecian, but a veritable Greek." In 1807, 
 his edition of Isocrates procured for him the title " Patriarch of 
 Greek Philology," and in 1814, he received an official letter 
 inquiring if he would accept a Greek chair in the College Royal. 
 But certainly, whilst the Greeks are proud of him as a scholar, it 
 is as a national benefactor that his memory is retained with 
 gratitude, and his name mentioned with veneration. 
 
 The four brothers, Zosimades, distinguished above all other 
 Greek merchants for munificence, — and the merchants have been 
 princes to the enslaved Greeks by their patronage of letters — 
 addressed to Koraes, long before the outbreak of the Greek 
 revolution, this question : nohg slvat 6 rpoirog rou vd ziriraybv7\ rig 
 rnv agxop'eviiv rr\g 'EWddog ava<ysvvri(fiv ; what is the way to further 
 the begun regeneration of Greece % Koraes, in his answer, urged' 
 the diffusion of the classic Greek authors, with notes in Ancient, 
 and prolegomena in Modern Greek ; and was himself charged 
 with the execution of the work. Thus originated the " Greek 
 Library," consisting of 17 vols., the first of which, called 
 Upodpo/Mog, appeared in 1805, one year before the death of Euge- 
 nius, and made a great sensation. Amid the general enthusiasm 
 which greeted the successive volumes, might be heard, as in the 
 case of Eugenius, the grumbling of the clergy, who mistook the 
 foe of superstition for an infidel, and the sneer of the pedants who 
 affected the Mrs fioi XsTcdvrjv susceptibility at the installation of 
 Modern Greek. Koraes demonstrated the absolute necessity, in 
 order to national reconstitution and progress, of adopting a truly 
 national language : applying philosophical criticism, under the 
 light of antiquity, to Romaic, he discovered in it innumerable 
 remains of Ancient Greek, and showed how far at that time they 
 might be restored to their ancient forms ; finally, by his volumi- 
 nous compositions in Modern Greek, remarkable for perspicuity, 
 I may not say he presented his countrymen with a language 
 of his framing, but he made them conscious of possessing a 
 language which required only cultivation to rank with the most 
 polished of Europe. Besides the seventeen volumes of the " Greek 
 Library," Koraes published twenty-two others of or on Greek 
 literature, including five of the "Ar«*r«, that inestimable treasure 
 
ROMAIC. 51 
 
 to the student of Romaic and Modern Greek. The gigantic 
 industry of Koraes may be imagined from the extent of his 
 authorship and editorship, amounting together, to not less than 
 fifty octavo volumes ; and this exclusive of an immense corres- 
 pondence, in which the strength of both his private friendship 
 and his patriotism conspicuously appears. In short, on account 
 of his labours, and the privations in the midst of which they were 
 carried on, Koraes may justly be called the literary hero and 
 martyr of the Greek revolution. 
 
 An anecdote from the recent history of Greek lexicography 
 will show that the ecclesiastical, the most powerfully constituted 
 interest among the Greeks, was not with Koraes ; and this will 
 be another proof that, had rtot the movement he led on corres- 
 ponded with the nation's wants, it could not have succeeded. 
 In 1800, the question was raised at the instance of Photiades, 
 director of the Greek school at Bucharest, " How can we get a 
 useful lexicon for our schools f At that time, besides the Miyoc 
 Asg/xoV of Barinus, dedicated to Leo X., and wholly in Ancient 
 Greek, Romaic-speaking youths had no help in their classical 
 studies save the small and very defective quarto of Constantinos, 
 published in 1754, and written in the spoken dialect. The above 
 question received practical answers from Vienna and Constanti- 
 nople. From the former, Gazes sent his Modern Greek transla- 
 tion of Schneider's lexicon to Venice, where it was published in 
 three 4to volumes in 1809, 1812, 1816 ; and at Constantinople, 
 the patriarchal school undertook the composition of a folio lexicon, 
 called KiZwrbg — the Ark; of which vol. i. appeared in 1819, and 
 vol. ii. in 1821, when the terrible scenes consequent on the Greek 
 revolution interrupted the publication. The materials were taken 
 from Stephanus ; but the learned Uairahg, not understanding 
 the signs of the times, wrote the explanations in Ancient Greek. 
 
 I would venture to remark that too much credit has been 
 given to the Greek Church as the conservatrix of the national 
 language. The daily reading of its voluminous services, the 
 practice of drawing up ecclesiastical minutes in Byzantine Greek, 
 and the study of the fathers have no doubt kept the higher clergy 
 familiar with the ancient language, just as similar causes have 
 maintained a certain knowledge of Latin among the Roman 
 priests : but I know not how the popular dialects have profited 
 
52 ROMAIC. 
 
 by all this, unless indeed by the acquisition of such fragmentary 
 phrases as feov 6sXovrog, Qua, ftdpin, iL7\ y'zvotro, rsreXstfrai, on the 
 strength of which some would make out Romaic to be much less 
 defective than it is. If the Greek Church, with the blindness 
 characteristic of traditional institutions, has proceeded on the 
 supposition that the present has no business to differ from the 
 past, even in language, and has thus succeeded in maintaining 
 the ascendancy of the ancient dialect within a limited circle, it 
 has renounced by that very policy whatever control it might 
 otherwise have exerted oyer the dialectical anarchy prevailing 
 beyond its immediate pale. Had there been all along fewer 
 church-readings in an unknown tongue, and more preaching in 
 a known one, the ecclesiastical style might have become the 
 standard of the national language, and the literary obligations of 
 posterity to the church would have been much greater than 
 they are. 
 
 To popular schools, and to the press, Modern Greek is mainly 
 indebted for its spread and its prospect of ultimate consolidation. 
 
 It deserves to be known that, in the organisation of its schools, 
 the petty kingdom of Greece may challenge comparison with the 
 most advanced nations of Europe. The following summary of 
 the official educational returns for 1853 is borrowed from the 
 Oo/wJ for June of that year : — 
 
 Attendance. 
 Popular schools, in which the instruction is 
 
 gratuitous, for boys, - - - " ^1 oqiii 
 
 Ditto, ditto, ditto, for girls, - - - 36 1 ' 
 
 Greek schools, with four teachers each, - 72 5,750 
 
 Gymnasia, with seven teachers each, - 7 1,950 
 
 Private Gymnasia competing with the former, 4 ? 
 
 University, with forty professors, - - 1 400 
 
 Besides these, there are normal schools for the training of 
 male and female teachers, as also special schools, theological and 
 military, agricultural and artistic. 
 
 Of course, without the patriotic liberality of Greek merchants 
 throughout the world, so many institutions, conferring remote 
 rather than immediate benefits, could neither have been founded 
 nor be efficiently maintained in so small and poor a country as 
 is the kingdom of Greece. Athens, however, is the capital not 
 
ROMAIC. 
 
 53 
 
 only of Greece, but of the Greeks everywhere, as is clearly 
 evinced by the surprising development of its periodical press. 
 With a population somewhat over 30,000, it possesses about 
 twenty newspapers, of which four are published twice, and the 
 rest once a week, besides seven monthly or bi-monthly periodi- 
 cals, literary and scientific, 1 
 
 Modern Greek literature is not wanting in poetry, but the 
 chief productions of the non-periodical press are school-books, 
 translations of romances from the French, and hand-books of 
 the various arts and sciences, in which last to fix the nomencla- 
 
 1 To combat the possible incredulity of the reader regarding this un- 
 exampled literary activity, I copy from the fly-leaf of the Spectatear de V 
 Orient for September 1853, one of the seven publications above referred to, 
 the following catalogue of the entire Greek periodical press : — 
 
 ATHENES. JOURNAUX. 
 
 Journal Official du Gouvernement. 
 
 La Minerve. 
 
 Le Siecle. 
 
 L'Esperance. 
 
 L'Orient. 
 
 La Semaine. 
 
 Le Journal des Etudiants. 
 
 La Jeune Grece. 
 
 La Pandore. 
 La Mnemosyne. 
 La Themis. 
 L'Abeille Medicale. 
 
 SYR A- 
 
 Le Mercure. 
 
 . L'Eole. 
 
 PATRAS. 
 
 Journal de Patras. 
 
 TRIPOLIS. 
 NAUPLIE. 
 CHHALCIS. 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Le Te'legraphe de Bosphore. 
 Le Journal de Constantinople (en 
 Francais.) 
 
 SMYRNE. 
 
 L'Amalthee. 
 
 Le Journal de Smyrne. 
 
 Le National. 
 Le Zephyr. 
 Le Nouveau Monde. 
 La Renommee. 
 La Fleche. 
 
 Le Miroir Grec (en Francais.) 
 L'Observatoire d'Athenes (en Fran- 
 cais.) 
 
 OUVRAGES PERIODIQUES. 
 
 L'Euterpe. 
 
 La Bibliotheque du Peuple. 
 Le Spectateur de l'Orient (en 
 Francois.) 
 
 JOURNAUX. 
 
 L' Union. 
 ' Le Labarum. 
 
 Le Minos. 
 L'Amelioration. 
 Journal des Lois. 
 L'Hellene. 
 
 L'Orient (Journal Turco-Grec pour 
 les Chretiens de l'Asie.) 
 
 j L'Impartial (en Francais.) 
 
54 ROMAIC. 
 
 ture is always a main problem. How greatly such manuals 
 are needed is clear from the fact that some of the professorial 
 lectures in the University of Athens, instead of being read for 
 the stimulus and general guidance of the students, are dictated 
 for entire transcription, no text-book on the subject treated of 
 having as yet been prepared ; indeed, the immense disproportion 
 between the irksome labour and the slender profit of transcribing 
 so much, and poring over hastily-written notes, is the subject of 
 general and just complaint among the students. The ancient 
 | Greeks were no linguists, and their ignorance of other languages 
 I safeguarded the purity of their own ; besides, in the arts and 
 sciences they had no masters, and were therefore under no 
 temptation to borrow. The modern Greeks, on the other hand, 
 are polyglott in the highest degree, and, in appropriating the 
 intellectual treasures to which their lingual acquirements give 
 them access, they inevitably supply the blanks in their own 
 literary and scientific language by directly translating foreign 
 expressions. Foreign words, however, are rigorously excluded ; 
 and even in the weekly press, the names of foreign newspapers, 
 sometimes also of foreign places, are subjected to translation. 
 Thus the Times is known as o Xgovog, the Morning Herald as 
 6 suQivog Kygv!;, etc., and whereas in English it would sound ridi- 
 culous to call le palais des Tuilleries the palace of the Tileworks, 
 it is actually translated by ra avdnroga ruv Ksga/isiuv in Modern 
 Greek. 
 
 The fact, that the style of thought among the modern Greeks 
 has been cast in the European mould, opposes an invincible bar- 
 rier to the complete restoration of the ancient language. Even 
 with the same vocabulary and the same grammar, Modern Greek 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 Journal du Gouvernement. L'Ami de la Verite. 
 
 Le Phoenix (Recueil Periodique.) 
 zante. | Le Bouquet (Recueil Periodique.) 
 
 In the autumn of 1853, the Athenian press teemed with publications on 
 the Eastern question, and copies have reached me of four newspapers (™ 
 
 Tlc&viXX'/iviov, o <ra.Xaioi KaXccGgwrive:, h '~Evot'/i5 tou Tevous and h Kcovo-Tavrtvovyrokis^), 
 
 established since the date of the above list, so that the general estimate in 
 the text respecting the Athenian periodical press makes the nearest possible 
 approximation to the truth. 
 
ROMAIC. 0? 
 
 would necessarily differ from Ancient, because the ancient modes 
 of conception are gone for ever. Capo d' Istrias wrote like a 
 philosopher when he penned the following sentences : " 'Eyw 
 do%d^u on 8sv shai a) \e'£,eig ours a/ (ppdfcig rojv TraXaiuv dvyy pap's uv 
 b^ov flag dvtfxoXzvovv vd xara\d£ojfizv rag svvoiag rojv. 'AW ehai dvrq r\ 
 fisraQoXrj ruiv idsuv, dvrr\ q diatpopa rov rpovov rov svvosTv, bvrov fjJdg 
 sfAtfod/fyi vd (fufAyrspiXuGufiev rqv avrr\v svvoiav Kara rbv dvrbv rpotfov, naff 
 6v 6 <rvyypu<psvg 9 xard rqv didQetiiv ruv idsojv rov, Triv 6vve\aQ&' %al z% 
 rovrov npozp'/irai %al r\ diapopa rr\g e'/icppddsojg'" 1 This diversity in 
 the style of thought necessarily implies diversity in the style of 
 composition ; and here lies the extreme limit where Modern 
 Greek must eventually stop in its course of assimilation to the 
 Ancient. It is not likely, however, that this limit will ever be 
 reached, owing to the necessity, from the popular constitution of 
 modern society, of sooner or later filling up the chasm which still 
 exists between the spoken language even of the educated, and 
 their written style. 
 
 As summing up the view I have been led to form regarding 
 the present state and future prospects of Modern Greek, and as 
 presenting a fair specimen of the approved style now current, I 
 conclude with an extract from No. 36 of the Pandora, one of the 
 Athenian literary periodicals mentioned in the preceding note. 
 By comparing the style of this extract with that of Koraes, the 
 reader will perceive what great progress the literary language 
 has made since his time : — 'Ovdh IvyipUnpov rqg \yvoypa(piag i%uvr\g 
 rov voqfiarog rr,g dirb rov xaXdfiov d<7roppsov6Yjg, /AaXiffra orav Kpo%y\rat 
 •TTtpl dvrixsifi'svov xepl ov eirpuyfiurevdri 7\hr\ r\ dpyaia yAwtftfa, %al rov 
 o-ttoiov hntdpyii <zpb 6<p8a\fiSjv rb xetfisvov ovdh dv^zp'sffrepov rov 'Quypa(pi%ov 
 >cai xpwfiarivov Aoyov rov airb rr\g -\>vyr\g extfyiyd^ovrog, fidXiera orav 
 <xpb%r\rai <7rzpt dvnzsifihov v'scv, dtfatrovvrog dyj/juiovpyiav opuv xal rpotfuv 
 sxppdfctog. 'H avribitSig avrv) VTtdpyii sig <xd6av yXuffffav, Idiojg ds kig 
 rr\v Tjfisr'spav, diori 6 ^urjpbg %al tfi^v^og sxsTvog Xoyog shai d<xzi%6vi6{ia 
 
 1 For translation, see p. 60. 
 
 2 An investigation of Modern Greek literature fully bears out the state- 
 ment of the writer : witness the Bacchanalian songs of Athanasios Christo- 
 poulos, and the satires of Alexandros Soutzos, both of which are downright 
 Romaic, or little short of it. Koraes has left his opinion on record, that no 
 great tragedy can be produced in Modern Greek prior to the year 1950 ; 
 this may or may not be, but the prophecy would have been infallibly true of 
 a comedy. 
 
56 ROMAIC. 
 
 rov ffpotpopixou, tfaf> tj^Tv 6s b npotpopixbg Xoyog diap'spu budtudug rov 
 ypanrrov, %ai dvrbg uto roov Xoyicorspuv dvdpvv bfiiXovfjbzvog, xai dvrbg 
 'Kip] ruv dtfovdaiorepwv dvrixeiftsvwv tfpay/jjarevoftsvog. Noj/ (lsv hig noXXd 
 fjdrj sravr/ff&vj j&srd rov ypairrov, lig ntoXXd oficag hdrdX^i srii E% rovrov 
 -rAg/tfrjj irap dvrti virdpyzt en dvufiuXioc xal sXXsi-^ig dxptQsiag' svrsvdzv 
 ds %ai on, orav 6 ypwrrrbg Xoyog hdvsrat rr\v ^uTjpor^ra rov irpopoptxov, 
 djayxdtcog iLzrzyzi xard rb paXXov xai Y\rrov rag dvu/xaX/ag sxsi'v^g, 
 
 xal rspi rriv dxp/Qsiuv sXXsi-^sojg 'Eai> xaXov ds ehat v dvv^ovrai 
 
 6 npotpopixbg Xoyog, wpodXa/ACdvuv odov olov rs rbvg "/apaxrripag rov ypatfrov, 
 xaXbv ehai vd sfi^/v^ouron 6 ypccxrbg KpoGXafiQdvwv rovg ^apaxr^pag rov 
 irpotyopixov. Aid [Lhqg rY\g dftoiCdiag ravrrig dpdoswg xai dvndpddsug 6'sXsi 
 fioptpooOyj eV/ rsXovg r\ bpHtrixfi qfAwv yXuitiffa" 
 
 1 For translation, see p. 60. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 To facilitate the perusal of Part III. to some readers, translations 
 are appended of the somewhat long Greek quotations, which it 
 contains. 
 
 See p. 34. — In consequence of the prevailing dialectical 
 anarchy, the nation was in a situation at once difficult and dan- 
 gerous, and withal, truly singular ; for it was paradoxically with- 
 out a language, and polyglott at the same time; without a 
 language, on the one hand, on account of the corruption per- 
 vading the dialects, and their great imperfection ; polyglott on 
 the other, inasmuch as, there being no grammatical and syntac- 
 tical standard, every man spoke and composed according to the 
 rules of his own fancy. 
 
 See p. 35. — As for the restoration of the Greek language, it 
 were certainly desirable that the modern should be subjected to 
 the rules of the ancient ; but, as I have said on other occasions, 
 this seems to me impossible. To tell you the truth, my desire to 
 see the language returning towards the ancient model is not so 
 great as is my fear lest it become more barbarous than it is ; for 
 you see there are not wanting among us men, and these too 
 learned and zealous, who maintain that we ought to write and 
 speak as do the carriers of wood and water. My views are far 
 indeed from such a system, and I think that, if the scholar is 
 bound to condescend to the measure of the wood-carrier's com- 
 prehension, so also the wood-carrier should make an effort to rise 
 
58 APPENDIX. 
 
 towards the comprehension of the language spoken and written 
 by the scholar ; and in this way that both should meet in the 
 middle of the ladder. 
 
 See p. 36. — 1. The language of the ancient Greeks and of us 
 moderns shall be one and the same ; their grammar and ours 
 shall be one and the same. 
 
 2. Only their words and phrases shall be admitted, and every 
 foreign word, as also foreign phrase in Greek words, shall be 
 excluded. 
 
 3. The sentences shall be neither long nor involved ; but the 
 structure of our composition shall be easily intelligible, plain and 
 simple, as in the ancient poets Homer and Hesiod, and as in the 
 historians Herodotus and Xenophon. 
 
 4. Every one of the parts of speech, every word, phrase, and 
 idiom of the ancient Greeks shall be admitted, as soon as they 
 become intelligible to the elite of the Greeks, and provided they 
 offend not the ear. 
 
 See p. 38. — 'A/ i^o^gswtfs/s e7vs t m^i6ra\rai i av wGiv vrtsgCoXi/uaioi, 
 says the translation of the Code Civile ; but who can understand 
 this without a knowledge of the corresponding French ? 
 
 See p. 41. — 1. When enlightened nations begin to take plea- 
 sure in what is base, no other remedy perhaps remains for them 
 than to return once more to their primitive barbarism. 
 
 2. The absence of great defects in writers frequently proceeds 
 from feebleness of mind, and is not always owing to the general 
 virtue of their age : he little fears to fall, who has never learned 
 to soar. 
 
 3. The learned men of a nation are naturally the lawgivers of 
 the language which the nation speaks ; but they are the law- 
 givers of a democratic thing. To them belongs the correction 
 of the language ; but the language itself is the property of the 
 whole nation, its sacred property. 
 
 See p. 43. — You, sir, are for the present governor of the lads, 
 along with Kritopoulos. It is necessary above all that you care 
 for their education and manners. Let them become good and 
 learned, if you would have them honoured here ; for otherwise 
 men will despise both them and you, nor so much as turn to look 
 upon you. We conversed on this subject with the late prince, 
 their father, and he wished that they should dress and live alto- 
 
APPENDIX. 59 
 
 gether as Franks ; that is to say, that they should follow the 
 church in every respect as Latins, and not otherwise ; that they 
 should be dressed after the Latin fashion ; that they should learn 
 to kneel before those of distinction, whether Pope, Cardinals, or 
 other princes, and that they should uncover their heads in honour 
 of those who salute them. When they go to see a Cardinal or 
 other like prince, let them on no account sit, but kneel ; and 
 then, when he bids them, let them rise. He of blessed memory 
 used to say that, though often bidden, they should by no means 
 sit. All these things then remember, that you may instruct and 
 exhort them well. Farther, see that their gait be decent and 
 dignified, their conversation profitable, their voice subdued and 
 gentle, their look composed, by no means staring about on this 
 side and on that. Let them honour all, love all, and converse 
 respectfully with all, whether their own people or strangers. 
 Let them by no means be haughty, but humble and gentle ; let 
 them not remember at all that they are descendants of a king, 
 but let them remember that they have been driven from their 
 country, and that they are orphans, strangers, penniless ; that 
 they require to live on foreign bounty, and that, if they are without 
 virtue, if they are not prudent and humble, if they do not honour 
 all, neither will othars honour them, but all will abominate them. 
 Think well then of all these things, sir, along with Kritopoulos. 
 
 See p. 44. — Once for all, holy fathers, we have come among 
 the Franks, — I, for my part, not of my own proper motion. The 
 initiative in the present affair was not mine, but my royal father's, 
 who, as you remember, when he was at the isthmus of Corinth, 
 sent that John of blessed memory into Italy, and so began this 
 work. You know the learning and experience of the king my 
 father, that he was not only an excellent philosopher, but a most 
 minute expounder of the dogmas of the church, having had for 
 his counsellor that truly virtuous man and profound theologian, 
 the patriarch Euthemios. So great men as these did not intend 
 merely to undertake such a business, but, having begun it, they 
 meant also to conclude the same. Time, however, prevented this. 
 The work, therefore, has fallen upon us, not exactly as upon those 
 before us, but rather in a better condition. 
 
 See p. 48. — VW would have tolerance in religion combined 
 with zealous piety, lest it should glide into indifference. The in- 
 
60 APPENDIX. 
 
 different man is passionless ; the passionless and apathetic man 
 insensible ; and in regard to what can he who is insensible prac- 
 tise and manifest his forbearance ? What solicitude and care, 
 what change, in short, respecting matters of faith can be expected 
 from him who is indifferent whether this or that be believed ? 
 Matters of faith are nothing to him who has no definite faith at 
 all. Such a man is not properly tolerant in religion, but without 
 religion altogether. 
 
 Same page. — Decking themselves with philosophical terms, 
 interwoven into the vulgar style, certain writers imagine that 
 they touch almost the summit of knowledge with their heads ; 
 but being ignoramuses in philosophy, they make fools of 
 themselves like striplings. Those contemptible books, then, 
 which profess to treat of philosophy in the vulgar tongue, are to 
 be hissed out of fashion, and the Greek language as much as pos- 
 sible to be cultivated, without which, besides, the ancient philo- 
 sophers cannot be enjoyed. 
 
 See p. 55. — I am of opinion that the difficulty we experience 
 in catching the sense of ancient writers arises not from their 
 words and phrases, but from a change in our ideas, a difference 
 in our modes of conception, which prevents us from entertaining 
 the same thought in the same manner in which, from the dispo- 
 sition of his ideas, the writer had conceived it ; and hence pro- 
 ceeds the difference of expression. 
 
 Same page. — Nothing is easier than that delineation of the 
 sense which proceeds from the pen, especially when the subject 
 in question has been already treated of in Ancient Greek and the 
 writer has the text before him ; but nothing is more difficult than 
 that graphic and pictorial language which wells from the soul, 
 especially when the subject handled is new, and requires the in- 
 vention of terms and modes of expression. Such is the case in 
 every language, but more particularly in ours, because the lively 
 and animated style referred to is a reflection from the spoken 
 language ; and with us the spoken language, even as employed 
 by the most learned men, and on the most important subjects, 
 differs essentially from the written. In many respects, indeed, 
 the spoken language has been already conformed to the written ; 
 but in many it still stands aloof; and on this sfccount there pre- 
 vails in it the greatest irregularity and want of precision. Hence 
 
ENDIX. 
 
 61 
 
 assumes the liveliness of spoken 
 :es more or less of that irregularity 
 . If it is well that the spoken 
 r ated, adopting as much as possible the 
 lposition, it is also well that written com- 
 position should be enlivened by adopting the characters of the 
 spoken language ; and only by this mutual action and reaction 
 will our definite language be at length formed. 
 
 ND. 
 
 RAY ANI> OIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBUROn. 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 
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