PHILOLOGICAL GENIUS OF THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 27 
pale, with - 
pera, in, into, within. 
ooyupa, for wept. 
divas, for xwpis, avev. 
Ta uxia (soeben, German), for avrtixa. 
This phenomenon appears also in the Romanic dialects,* and seems to belong 
naturally to a language in a case of nascent or complete disintegration. 
Proposition XX VI.—Not the least important element in the new phasis of 
an old language is that which either does not appear at all, or is only partially - 
represented in the Dictionary—viz.: the pronunciation. This is a matter with 
regard to which, from the Reformation downwards, very fierce battles have been 
ought between the living Greeks and the great majority of classical scholars ; 
but after three centuries of ink shed, and now that in the great German school 
an accurate philology has been added to a large philosophy, we feel warranted 
in asserting that the great salient pomts of the question have been planted 
before the thinking scholar in their right aspect. No person who has examined 
the subject will now deny that, while correct Greek speakers pronounced their 
prose orations both according to accent and quantity, in prose the accent was 
the dominant element, while quantity prescribed the law to poetry.t Then as 
to the sounds of the individual vowels and diphthongs, while on the one hand 
xo sensible person will suppose or attempt to prove that the present vocalisa- 
tion of the Greek tongue has remained in all respects unchanged from Homer 
downwards, on the other hand, such a person will regard it as no less certain 
that the comparative tenuity, the so-called ctacism of the modern dialect, is a 
peculiarity of very ancient date in the language, being in fact clearly noted by 
QUINCTILIAN in the marked contrast which he draws between the strong Roman 
language and the slender Hellenic.t As little will any well-informed scholar 
in these days be bold enough to assume the advocacy of that altogether arbitrary 
pronunciation of Greek which has obtained currency in this country—a pro-. 
nunciation which both corrupts vocalisation by the insular anomalies of John 
Bull, and travesties intonation at almost every step by the arbitrary substitution 
of the Latin for the Greek accent. On this basis, and emancipated formally 
from the evil habit of our English school utterance, the position of the modern 
Greek with regard to accent, quantity, and vocalisation, may be simply stated 
thus. The accent, with a very few exceptions, has asserted its supre- 
* See CornEwatL Lewis, ch. v., for an analysis of the French, Italian, and Provencal prepositions, 
adverbs, and conjunctions. 
+ For the detailed proof and illustration of this, I must refer to my paper on the Power and Place 
of Accent in Language, Transactions of Royal Society, Edinburgh, March 1871. 
{ Non possumus esse tam GRAcILES? Simus FORTIORES.—INsTITUT. ORAT. xii. 10, 
