THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN ITS RELATION TO THE 

 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS 



BY HERBERT WEIR SMYTH 



[Herbert Weir Smyth, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature, Harvard University. 

 b. 1857, Wilmington, Delaware. A.B. Swarthmore College, 1876; A.B. Harvard 

 University, 1878; A.M. and Ph.D. University of Gottingen, 1884. Instructor in 

 Latin and Sanskrit, Williams College, 1883-85; Reader in Greek Literature, 

 Johns Hopkins University, 1885-88; Professor of Greek, Bryn Mawr College, 

 1888-1901; Professor of Greek, Harvard University, 1901-02; since 1902 Eliot 

 Professor of Greek Literature; Professor of the Greek Language and Litera- 

 ture, American School of Classical Studies, Athens, 1899-1900. Fellow of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences; President of the American Philo- 

 logical Association, 1904-05.] 



BEFORE the battle of Plataea, when the Spartan ambassadors urged 

 Athens to reject the proposals made by the envoys of the Medes, the 

 Athenians responded that they could never betray the cause of 

 Greece, allied as it was by blood and language, the common sanc- 

 tuaries and sacrifices to the gods, and the community of Hellenic 

 customs (Herodotus 8, 144). 



This is the earliest conscious formulation of the conception of 

 nationality extant in the history of Europe; though the impulses 

 making for a national Hellenic unity must have been dimly felt 

 long before the fifth century B.C., perhaps when the separate immi- 

 grant tribes from the north first came into contact with "Carian" 

 civilization. If we add to the definition (what is latent in the utter- 

 ance of the Athenians), the will of the different members of a people to 

 regard descent, language, religion, and customs as common ties, we 

 have the mint-marks of ancient nationality, in effect the conscious- 

 ness of the same past that carries with it the prospect of the same 

 future. Nationality is not identical with patriotism, nor yet with 

 racial affinity. Nor is it as objective elements, but as the conscious 

 expression of Hellenic feeling, that language and descent derive their 

 significance as factors of national sentiment. Despite the variations 

 in speech of almost every state or canton, the Greeks recognized 

 that a common language marked their individuality as a people; 

 though it was not till the third century A.D. that, with but one 

 notable exception, the last of the local dialects had given way before 

 the Koine, which, after Alexander, first attained the position of a 

 "high" Greek, and finally, together with Aramaic and Latin, became 

 one of the so-called world-languages of ancient times. 



Doubtless Wilhelm von Humboldt and Schelling went too far in 

 maintaining that the individuality of a people is created by its lan- 

 guage. The speech of the Hellenes, we should rather say, is one of 

 the products of their national mind, a product in which their national 



