N 



of the GreeJc Language. 



257 



I 



he, he, and iiof; ve, ve ; that is, (to express in English the sounds 

 thus expressed by Beza in Latin) hay, haij, and not vay, vay. ' 



While I was at college, studying Greek with the aid of no 

 other book than my Port-Royal Grammar, (which, with all its 

 excellencies, contains but little on the subject of proniinciation,he,- 



probably the learned author did not consider 



I was much struck with this argument; 



which 



ppeared to me unanswerable. F 



.J 



however, has led me to think, that too much importance has been 

 given to arguments drawn from this and other animal sounds; 

 which, as they form no part of any human language, no nation 

 has any settled conventional sign, or word, to express. We ac- 

 cordingly find, therefore, that not only people of different nations, 

 but individuals of the same nation, represent such sounds by let- 

 ters of very different powers. This did, in fact, happen within 



my own observation in the case of this very 



for when I 



But great weight has 



once asked Mr. Ciclitira and Captain Katara (at different times) 

 how they would express it in Modern Greek, the former wrote it 

 ftrls, /Aa-gg, that is bay, hay, and the latter ^gg, ^gg, or may, may ; 

 and perhaps a third would have written it ^iraa, /^Taa, just as 



we commmonly do in English, hah, hah, 



been attached to this argument, from the days of Erasmus to more 



modern times ; when we find Gibbon remarking (though, perhaps 



as much for the sake of indulging his spleen against the clergy, a! 



of defendii „ „ ^ 



ble Bv .^presented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep ; 



> 



3 



'farmed pronunciation) that this •• monosy 



and 



a 



belwether is better evidenci 

 shall, therefore, state at lar 



a chancellor.''* I 

 ch was dven to it 



* Decline and Fall of tlie Roman Empue, ch. 66. 



