296 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Four hundred and ninety-nintb meeting. 



October 8, 1861. — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



Professor Sophocles read the following communication : — 



Remarks on the Dialect of Tzakonid. 



There is no historical evidence that the less-cultivated dialects of 

 ancient Greece were written or spoken after the close of the third 

 century of our era.* The language of Constantinople, the new capital 

 of the Roman empire, was a continuation of later Greek. For about 

 eleven centuries it was the language of books, of imperial edicts, of 

 ecclesiastical canons, and of the ritual of the Eastern Church. Which 

 being the case, it was naturally more or less employed by all those 

 whose mother tongue was the Greek, in whatever part of the empire 

 they might be found. This seems to be the principal reason why the 

 Byzantine Greek was not subdivided into new dialects. 



The Romaic, or Modern Greek, the immediate offspring of Byzan- 

 tine Greek, cannot be said to have dialects, as this word is commonly 

 used by grammarians. The Greek inhabitant of Epirus, Macedonia, 

 or Thrace finds no difficulty in convei'sing with the native of Crete, 



* The following passage, in which Porphyrogenitus speaks of the ^gean 

 Sea, is apparently a confused quotation from Artemidorus the geographer, 

 who died very near the beginning of the first century before Christ. PoR- 

 PHYROGENITUS, Them. 1, 17, p. 42 'O/ioiwy 8e Koi 6 'ApTf/ii'Scopo? to avra 

 (f)T)(7i ra 'S.Tpd^oivi • "AKpa tis eariv AtoXiSos, tjv Aiya oi €Tri)(a>pioi ovoiia^ovaiv , 

 a(}) TjS (cat TO TreXayoy Trji> TOiavTr]v ovofxacrlav npoafiXr]c{}fu. AioXtSoj Be Xtyco 

 ovK eOvovs ovopaaiap, dWa ■yXwrrryy tSiw/ia • tj yap tcov EWrjvcuv yXwrra fis irivre 



diaXfKTovs birjprjTai Kal arro peu ttjs MiXtjtov p-exP'' '''^^ E(/)e(rtci)i/ noXecos 



Koi avTTJs ^fivpvrji koi KoXo(})o)vos 'lutvav e'crrl KaroiKia, oirives rfj rav lavcov 

 biaXeKTCo xpt^vrat. 'Atto 8« KoXo(pa>vos M«XP' ^Xa^opevav Koi Ttji dvTinepav t^s 

 Xlov yrjs koi avTrjs rrj£ MitvXtjvtjs koi tov KaXovfievov Uepyap-ov AtoXtav earlv 

 dnoiKia, oiTives SiaXeKTa ^(poiVTai TOiv AloX(u>v. Ta Se iniKeiva rovrav ano tov 

 Xfyofievov AenTov koi eas 'A/SvSou koi avT^s UponovTibos Koi p-iXP'- Kv^tKOu Koi 

 TOV TTOTafiov TOV Xfyop.evov TpaviKov irdirres TpaiKoi ovofjid^ovTai, koi KOLvfj Sta- 

 XfKTco xpoiVTai., irXr)v Bv^avTiav, on Acopucov eaTiv dnoiKia. It will be observed 

 that Artemidorus divides the northwestern coast of Asia jSIinor, not according 

 to race, but according to language. 



