GREEK LANGUAGE 



3679 



GREEK LANGUAGE 



GREEK LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 



J. S. Phillimore, LL.D,, Prof, of Humanity, Glasgow, and J. H. Freese 



This article is supplemented by articles on the Greek writers, 

 e.g. Hesiod and Homer ; the dramatists, e.g. Aristophanes, Euri- 

 pides, and Sophocles; Thucydides, and other historians. See 

 Acting; Drama; Theatre; also Alphabet 



Greek is a member of the Indo- 

 European family of languages. The 

 view that there existed a special 

 affinity between Greek and the 

 Italic languages, due to an original 

 Greco-Italian language, is no 

 longer held. The common primi- 

 tive language of the Greek stocks is 

 unknown ; the Homeric poems, 

 the earliest existing record, exhibit 

 forms belonging to various times 

 and different idioms. According to 

 the ancient Greeks themselves, 

 Greek once contained three (four) 

 distinct dialects Doric, Aeolic, 

 (Attic) Ionic, named after Dorus, 

 Aeolus, and Ion, the three legen- 

 dary ancestors of the Hellenic race. 



Modern philologists are content 

 with two main divisions : Ionic 

 and non-Ionic, the former including 

 the language of Homer, the new- 

 lonic of Herodotus, and Attic 

 (Athens), the latter Doric (Sparta, 

 Corinth), Aeolic (Boeotia), and 

 Achaean (northern Greece). At the 

 end of the 6th century B.C. a dia- 

 lect of the Ionic group, that of 

 Athens, whose political, social, and 

 industrial superiority had raised 

 her to the position of the metro- 

 polis of Hellas, asserted and main- 

 tained its supremacy over the rest. 



The history of the Greek lan- 

 guage may be roughly divided into 

 the following periods : Attic (oOO- 

 300 B.C.) ; Hellenistic (300 B.C.- 

 A.D. 600) ; Byzantine (600-1453) ; 

 modern (1453 to the present day). 

 After the subjection of Greece to 

 the rule of Macedonia, Attic be- 

 came the popular language at the 

 Macedonian court. The conquests 

 of Alexander in Egypt and the East, 

 the substitution of Alexandria for 

 Athens as the centre of learning 

 and civilization, and the founda- 

 tion of new Hellenic communities, 

 led to its adoption as the general 

 means of comiriunication. 



The result was the formation of a 

 dialect called Hellenistic or Koine, 

 universal or common Greek, as dis- 

 tinguished from the pure Attic. 

 The term Hellenistic was formerly 

 limited to the language of Greek- 

 speaking foreigners, especially Jews, 

 and was used with special re- 

 ference to biblical Greek, but is 

 now generally understood to mean 

 the language spoken from the time 

 of Alexander the Great to the esta- 

 blishment of the Byzantine or 

 Eastern empire. Many specimens, 

 in colloquial style but of no particu- 

 lar literary interest, have been 

 found in Egypt. The incorporation 



of Greece in the Roman Empire did 

 not lead to the absorption of Greek 

 by Latin ; in fact, as Horace says, 

 " the conquered took captive the 

 conqueror." Many Latin words, 

 however, especially official, were 

 introduced. The military character 

 of Roman rule checked literary ini- 

 tiative, and left scope for the deve- 

 lopment of the colloquial idiom. 



(in note) 



The signs ' ' represent the hard (as in hat) 

 and smooth breathings, the latter merely 

 denoting a catch in the breath. Neither 

 has any value in modern Greek. Three 

 older letters, F , the digamma, having the 

 sound of v or w ; Q, the hard k ; and ^ re- 

 presenting s, were dropped as being of no 

 further use, although they were retained as 

 numerals. 

 Greek Alphabet as finally adopted in 403 B.C. 



The conversion of Rome to Chris- 

 tianity and the removal of the capi- 

 tal to Byzantium (Constantinople) 

 had far-reaching effects. The classi- 

 cal spirit gave way to new ideas ; 

 during this period the name Greeks, 

 as savouring of paganism, was re- 

 placed by Romaei (Romans). But 

 the language itself was saved by the 

 church ; the fathers studied it and 

 wrote in it, and in fact all written 

 compositions were modelled on 

 classical Attic. The efforts of the 



Comneni (1050-1200) to revive the 

 classical language have their paral- 

 lel in those of the purists of modern 

 Greece. The subjection of the coun- 

 try by the Turks had but little 

 effect. It was chiefly seen in words 

 relating to food and dress, and 

 terms of abuse. 



Similarly, French (chiefly refer- 

 able to the Frankish empire at Con- 

 stantinople, 1204) and Italian (ow- 

 ing to commerce with Venice) con- 

 tributed to the vocabulary. But 

 with all this the modern language 

 cannot be called a mixed language ; 

 it is the natural analytical develop- 

 ment of Hellenistic, a direct sur- 

 vival of classical Attic, though im- 

 poverished, corrupted, and moder- 

 nised. 



Ancient Greek was one of the 

 most highly inflected languages of 

 the Indo-European group. Its 

 euphonious vowel system, the soft- 

 ness of its consonantal combina- 

 tions, the richness of the inflexional 

 forms, especially in the verb, its 

 adaptability to the formation of 

 compounds, rendered it highly 

 suitable for rendering abstruse and 

 scientific terms. A glance at any 

 technical work, or indeed at the 

 columns of a newspaper, will show 

 how much English is indebted in 

 this connexion to the language 

 of ancient Greece ; e.g. aeroplane, 

 gramophone, kinematograph, tele- 

 gram, telephone. 



LITERATURE. The temporal 

 range of Greek literature is enor- 

 mously long. No fewer than 2,300 

 years divide Homer from the 

 Turkish capture of Constantinople ; 

 and yet Homer is evidently the 

 mature product of a high culture 

 which had generations of primitive 

 poetry behind it ; and the Byzan- 

 tine prolongation of the literature 

 was still alive in 1453. Though not 

 for all this time giving form to the 

 highest and largest achievements of 

 the human mind, Greece never, 

 even in her decline, fell below the 

 capacity to furnish at leasl an 

 articulate chronicle of events. 



Such useful longevity is only 



Cible in languages which over- 

 racial and national limits, 

 lending themselves to relays of 

 peoples for their vehicle of thought 

 and, thereby, part of their civiliza- 

 tion ; it is purchased at the sacrifice 

 of idiomatic refinement. So the 

 aesthetic beauty of the literature 

 certainly declines as from the time 

 when Alexander's conquests hybri- 

 dised Greece. Indeed, it has been 

 said that, whereas Greek prior to 

 that date is unique, thereafter it 

 became merely a literature like 

 another. But it retained its worka- 

 day faculty of expressiveness, and 

 was able to expand enough, after 



