34 PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON THE 
Greek ; much less do those hybrid compounds occur which bristle in THEo- 
porus, made by the addition of the Latin terminations drwp, and dros, and 
dps, to a Greek root.* At the present time, a little girl in the street, if 
you ask for a flower by the Albanian word dovdovd:, may surprise you by saying 
that you must say avos; and if you wish a boat to shoot across from the 
Pireeus to Aigina, you must ask in Thucydidean phrase for a déuBos, and 
not for a barchetta. 
Proposition XX X.—With regard to the materials of which the modern 
dialect consists, as well as the physiognomy which it presents, a question has 
been raised, in how far it represents any of the ancient dialects—Doric, Ionic, or 
fKolic ; for Attic it certainly is not. Now, it seems quite plain that, looking at the 
conditions of the case, nothing would have been more strange than that some 
considerable traces of these non-Attic varieties of Greek speech should not 
have presented themselves in the modern new formation. For Attic, we ought 
to remember, was a dialect originally confined to a comparatively small portion 
of the Greek-speaking population ; and the breadth of space which it afterwards 
occupied was a purely literary phenomenon, leaving untouched the great 
popular substratum of a distinctly diverse feature, spread out in large reaches of 
country from Teenarus to Trebizond. Byzantium specially, the centre of non 
Attic Hellenism in later days, was a Doric colony ; in Africa, neither Alexandria 
nor Cyrene could lay any claim to a native Atticism ; and on the sunny shores 
of Asia Minor, as well as the bright isles of the A®gean, Doric, AXolic, or 
Ionic varieties of Greek speech were everywhere at home.t Now, in what pro- 
portions these local peculiarities might mix themselves up in a new dialect to 
be formed after the long and disturbed action of centuries, so as to serve for a 
common medium of understanding, no man could dare to prophesy ; but that 
the traces of their existence should appear in some shape and to some extent, 
seemed certain. And so, in fact, it has proved. Putting out of view the local 
dialect of the Tzacones{ in Eastern Laconia, as something isolated and 
* Of this barbarism, the name of an illustrious Fanariot family, Mavrocorpato—Jlack-hearted, is 
a familiar example. 
+ How much of the peculiarities of the Alexandrian Greek has passed, either directly, or through 
the influence of the Church and the Alexandrian translation of the Old Testament, into modern Greek, 
the student of the Septuagint will readily convince himself. It is notable also, that not a few of the 
rare words used in the Septuagint, though unknown to Attic Greek, are found in Potyzius, Heroporus, 
and Droporvs, as ScHLEUSN#R, and other Biblical lexicographers, have been careful to note. The Biblical 
Greek which issued from Alexandria is, in fact, a sort of half-way house between Attic Greek and 
Romaic; and in this view it is certain that a familiarity with the living dialect of Greece would be of 
more value to our young theologians than many of the branches of philology which at present occupy 
their attention. 
+ On the peculiarities of the dialect of the Tzacones, which Mutuacn identifies with the Caucones of 
the ancient topographers, see Muniacu, “Grammar,” p. 94, and “Das Tzakonische von Prof. Moriz 
Scumipt in Studien zur Griechischen und Lateinischen Grammatik, herausgegeben von Gzore CurTiUs,” 
vol. iii. p. 347. 

