PHILOLOGICAL GENIUS OF THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 5 
dialect, somewhat similar to, but not nearly so corrupt as that used by Procuo- 
PRoDRoMUS; and books originally written in classical Greek, like the well- 
known Church History of MELETIUvS, Bishop of Athens (ob. 1714), were translated 
into Romaic or modern Greek, just as we modernise CHaucer for the benefit 
of the million. These patriotic exertions for elevating the popular intellect 
were brought to a distinctly marked and generally recognised climax by the 
learned ADAMANTINE KorAEs (nat. 1748), a Smyrniote Greek of great learning, 
philological talent, and ardent patriotism. This distinguished man, living under 
the inspiring influence of the great French Revolution, showed his countrymen, 
by precept and example, how it was possible to use the popular dialect accord- 
ing to its own now fully formed type, preserving a well-balanced medium 
between the classical norm familiar to scholars and the gross barbarisms 
practised in the most remote districts, and by the rudest portion of the com- 
munity. This wise and patriotic example, followed generally by a succession 
of accomplished men, has issued in planting modern Greek, or Neo-Hellenic, as 
it is now generally called in its perfect form, as one of the recognised types of 
the great Greek language, on the same platform with the Ionic of Homer and 
the Doric of THEOcRITUS. 
Proposition IX.—In attempting now to state scientifically the specific 
characteristic differences between the Neo-Hellenic dialect and what we are 
accustomed to call ancient Greek in all its extent, two important questions 
occur on the threshold. First, what do we mean by a dialect of a language, 
as distinguished from a new language formed from old materials; and 
from what sources, as a standard, are we to make our inductions with 
regard to the real philological character of modern Greek? The first 
question is one which, in theory, it may be very difficult to answer; but 
practically we may say, that whenever the old materials of a language are so 
modified as that only a very few words remain in their original form, and 
that more accidentally than systematically, and when the obscurity arising 
from this source is increased by the admixture, in larger or smaller quantity, 
of foreign materials, in this case, as in the examples of Spanish and Italian, 
a new language has been created.* But whenever the changes induced on 
the old materials are comparatively slight and more sporadic than pene- 
trating and pervading in their character, with only a very spare admixture 
* The lines in Italian— 
“In mare irato, in subita procella, 
Invoco te, nostra benigna stella,” 
often quoted (C. Lewis’ ‘“‘Romanic Languages,” 2d edit., p. 246) to prove the nearness of Italian to Latin, 
are no proof of the rule in that language, but are altogether exceptive, as any one may perceive by 
taking a stanza of Ottava rima either in Tasso or Ariosto, and counting how very few words in the 
eight lines have retained the unaltered form of the Latin from which they are derived. 
VOL. XXVII. PART I. B 
