%7^ 



^Iv. Pickevins on the Pronunciation 



tinuSf both of whom lived long before the time of Plato, Thu- 

 cydides and Pericles ; a period, to which no one will attempt 

 to trace the pronunciation of the Greek language, and at which 



f 



time the letter tj might possibly have had the full sound of our long 



ghout all Greece. But 



IS 



thy of remark, that the 



word B? is spoken of by Suidas and the author of the Etymolo- 



S 



icon Magnum as an ,3ttic word — BH, to f/^ifArj7txoi> 7^$ rm v^ 



^krm (pu^i^Jjgs ov)^s BAI, Xsygra/ Arruaig i^ an expression, from 



y 



which we must infer, that the word in question was peculiar to 

 the people of Attica; and that the people of other parts of 

 Greece would have used another word, to express the same sound. 



0. 



The Modern Greeks pronounce the letter ^ just as we do th 

 lur words thanlc, think, &c. and this has always been admitted 



by the learned, from the day 



Erasmus 



our own times, to 



beth 



pronunciation. Yet it is difficult to perceive, why 



the modern sound of this letter should not have been contested 



J 



well as that of several others in the alphabet. 



I. 



The sound of the 



been 



letter / is also universally agreed to have 

 same anciently, as at the present day ; that is, like 

 long e (or ee) in English ; and so it is always pronounced on the 

 continent of Europe. 



* Etjmo], Magn. p, 196. edit. Sylburg. 



^ 



