46 EMERITUS PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON THE 



Welsh, but only the lyrical and musical dialect of the English tongue, as Doric was of 

 the Attic Greek. The few blots and blotches that the popular Greek had contracted 

 through long centuries were prevented from impressing any permanent stamp on the 

 current language, partly from the uninterrupted action of the Greek Church and partly 

 from the continuous literary traditions of Byzantium among the educated Greeks in 

 Venice, Cephalonia, Mount Athos, and elsewhere ; and the consequence was that so soon 

 as the oppressive yoke of the Turks had been fairly thrown off by the happy conclusion 

 of the revolt of 1822, any Turkish and Italian corrupting elements that had partially 

 defaced the popular dialect were thrown off as the scales of a skin disease, and left not a 

 mark on the fair body of the tongue. As a proof of this, I lay before you a short 

 paragraph, the first that comes to my hand, from a recent Greek newspaper, the ''Efa/xepU, 

 published at Athens, October 15, 1889, in which an account is given of the marriage of 

 the Prince Royal of Greece to a daughter of a royal European house. 



MoA<? Traprfkdov e'tKoai ^povoi enro Ttj? i]p.epa$ icaO' rjv eyevvono to ttowtov eXXtjviKOV j3a<riX6- 

 ttovXov, a5? ovpavoireiATTTOv ■yapicrfxa, wg poS6^pv<709 avyt] TraveXXr^vluiv eXirlowv, CTKeSdTovara tu. 

 ctkott] t»7? wktos. Ei? to fiaGriXoirovXov e^aplcyQij to ovo/ua tov TeXevTaiov ' tjXXrjvog avTOKpa- 

 tooo?, et'? tov ottolov Trjv eKfbwvrjcriv crvyicXoveiTai kou Xayrapei /ecu twv 'rjXXi']vcov 6 etr^aTog. Kcu 

 o veo$ KwvGTavTtvog rfi^ave kcu e/xeyaXvveTO els appevanrov veaviav, /ecu avvwoevov avTov ev tG> filw 

 airo tovtov els enelvov tov <TTa0/j.6v at ev^ai, oi irodoi, r\ ayairt] iravToov y/ucov. Kcu /ulvutik*] aiyXrj 

 tov TrepiefiaXXe kcu avooOev avTov e-rrXavctTO kcu tov ecr/a'afe Siu -^pvaroov irTepvyoiv to (pwrofioXov 

 irvevaa tov /xeXXovTO?. 



Anybody that can read Polybius or Diodorus, Plutarch or Chrysostom, without a 

 dictionary, will understand this at a glance ; for the deviations that occur in it from the 

 strict classical form are so few and so slight as not to throw any hindrance in the way 

 of a scholar of common intelligence.* The so-called corruption of the Greek language 

 is therefore, if understood of the current language of the day in newspapers, an imagina- 

 tion, consisting, as it does, in only a few superficial changes, such as any language in the 

 process of centuries naturally undergoes. How this imagination arose can be easily 

 explained ; first from the systematic divorce between the academical teaching of Greek 

 and the speech of the Greek people, caused by the hybrid and arbitrary pronunciation of 

 the language that followed upon the sceptical solution of sceptical doubts raised early in 

 the sixteenth century by a notable work of Erasmus, the effect of which was to make the 

 university man look upon the speech of the living Greeks as barbarous, while the grand 

 barbarism lay with himself; and again, from the superficial notice of the current Greek 

 taken by the academical men, leading them to confound the lowest specimens of vulgar 

 Greek in the popular ballad with the current language of the Church and of educated 

 men from the taking of Constantinople downwards. From this point of view, no doubt, 



* These are— (1) xgoiioi for ?t», but used also sometimes in later Greek. (2) fiuofroKovho; for prince, where ttoiAo? 

 is a common termination of Greek proper names, corresponding to son in English and Mac in Gaelic. The etymology 

 from iru/.o:, Lat. pullus, Eng. foal, is obvious. (3) 6 otoio; for eg, probably introduced from the Italian il quale. (4) 

 A«#rafi'<. a new formation from "ha-KT^u, signifying the kicking or beating of the heart against the ribs in cases of 

 vehement desire. (5) tig with the accusative, used for lv with the dative (see below). 



