of the Greeh Language, S69 



Z. 



The pronunciation of the letter (^ is also, in practice, undispu- 

 ted : The learned of all nations agree in giving it the sound, which 

 % has in English ; which is also the pronunciation of the Modern 



Grreeks, 



H. 



It has been the fate of this letter, as writers have remarkedj 

 to be the subject of as much controversy as any in the whole al- 



4 



phabet, Erasmus aud his followers contended^ that the ancients 



F 



pronounced it like what they called long E in Latin ; by which 

 they meant a sound like a in our word fate. The Jlodern 



Greeks pronounce it like our ee ; which is the sound given to it by 



the English, and which we have always been accustomed to give 

 it. As far as respects ourselves, therefore, we have no dispute 

 with the Modern Greeks about this letter. But the writers on 



the continent of Europe have generally considered that pronunci- 



ation as erroneous ; it will, therefore, be necessary, to notice brief- 

 ly the grounds, upon which the two modes are defended. 



That this letter at one period had a sound differing in some 



respects from that, which it now has in Greece, must be inferred 

 from the description given of it by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 

 which is different from his description of the sound of Iota ; and 

 this latter indisputably had the sound of long e (or eej in our 



language. In the Herculanean manuscripts too, the ij is some- 

 times used by the copyist, through mistake, instead of Epsilon, 

 But there is also a great mass of evidence tending to show, that 

 about the commencement of the Christian era or not long after- 

 wards, the n and i were both pronounced alike ; and, if we can 



36 



