182 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Christian era still further changes took place. From the Christian 

 era to the establishment of the Byzantine Empire a similar process 

 went on, and during the long succession of ages through which that 

 empire lasted, the language, sharing its permanence, shared also its 

 vicissitudes. Again, during the four centui-ies of Turkish oppression, 

 the fortunes of the language corresponded to the unhappy condition of 

 the people. It was corrupted by the intermixture of foreign elements, 

 ' and participated largely in the degradation of the race ; but with the 

 reviving sense of nationality and the growing desire of independence 

 which in the last quarter of the last century breathed the breath of a 

 new life into the Hellenic race, and finally led in the present century 

 to the establishment of the kingdom of Greece, commenced the process 

 of the purification and the improvement of the language. At the pres- 

 ent day the style of the educated, as exhibited in the literary and polit- 

 ical journals, in the lectures of the professors, in the parliamentary 

 debates, and in the eloquence of the pulpit, is good Greek. In all 

 these revolutions the language of the Greeks (to borroAv the expression 

 of Professor Sophocles) has never lost its consciousness, — has never 

 ceased in form or substance to be Greek. 



" "What, then, has it lost ? In the pronunciation of the ancient clas- 

 sical languages there were two elements, both of which were carefully 

 attended to. These elements were accent and quantity. In modern 

 languages, on the contrary, quantity does not exist as a fixed element 

 of pronunciation. In the ancient Greek and Latin the pronunciation 

 of educated people combined both, and to mark them both was the test 

 of the education of a gentleman. It was almost one of the fine arts, 

 combining the musical proportions of time in a much larger degree than 

 any language now spoken with rhetorical accent and emphasis. It is 

 evident that this musical property of enunciation is more a matter of 

 art, and less vital to language as the organ of thought, than accent or 

 emphasis. Accordingly, when the prosperity of the state and the high 

 standard of education began to decline, musical proportion in common 

 speech began to disappear, and finally it was preserved only in artificial 

 compositions, formed upon the ancient rhythmical models, and resem- 

 bling the hexameters and pentameters written as school exercises in 

 our day. Accent, however, is a vital and indestructible element, both 

 in common and cultivated speech. More than anything else it gives 

 significance to words. Vowels and consonants frequently modify their 



