AND BYZANTINE GREEK. 133 



analogy of the ancient tongue, and therefore ought not to be excluded from a lexicon 

 for later and Byzantine authors, we answer, that the question here is not ichat kind of 

 words they are, but simply \vhen they first made their appearance ; it relates to time, 

 not to qualify. The Greeks of the present day are constantly introducing into the 

 spoken language new words, as good as those coined by the scholastic Greek writers of 

 the twelfth and subsequent centuries, but no one will maintain that they ought to have 

 a place in an ancient Greek lexicon.* The fact that many of the words belonging to 

 the early part of the modern Greek period are now obsolete, does not render it necessa- 

 ry that they should be excluded from a modern Greek dictionary. If the vocabulary 

 of a living language is to contain nothing but what is in actual use, its value, as well 

 as its extent, must be very small indeed. 



The following Glossary does not profess to be anything more than an attempt at sep- 

 arating from the vocabulary of classical Greek (strictly so called) whatever is peculiar 

 to the language of the Roman and Byzantine periods. The rule which has been 

 adopted is to give such words, meanings, phrases, and idioms, as occur for the first 

 time in later writers, from Polyhius to Scylitzes (including the Septuagint version of 

 the Old Testament). I Every meaning is supported by at least one reference. The 

 passages referred to are very often given in full, especially when the meaning of the 

 word is more or less modified by the context. When the true date of a supposititious 

 work is uncertain, that work is referred to the time claimed by its title. 



Words belonging to the third epoch of the Byzantine period, that is, to the early 

 part of the modern Greek period, are to be sought in the Appendix. 



* It may be well to state here the principles which (in theory at least) ai-e recognized by the scholars of 

 Greece in relation to the modern dialect. 



1. The ancient injlections are, as far as practicable, to be preferred to the corresponding Byzantine and 

 modem Greek inflections. 



2. All barbarous or foreign words, phrases, and idioms, not necessary, are to be banished. 



3. New words are to be formed by derivation, or composition, or by both derivation and composition, after 

 the analogy of the ancient language. And here we must observe that the apparent adherence to this rule often 

 produces strange results. Thus, aTii.6iTKot.ov, steam-boat, is in rcaHty an English word in Greek di'ess. The 

 word for ministry (the body of ministers of state) is imovpye'iov, the analogical meaning of which would be the 

 servants' place in a house. In modern Greek, KanfomoXeiov is a tobacco-shop ; in ancient Greek the word can 

 mean only a place where smoke is sold. 



4. The orthography of words of Greek origin is to be retained. But the radical portion of words of foreign 

 origin is to be spelled in the simplest manner, as it is pronounced. 



t See above, p. 132. 



