50 



EMERITUS PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON THE 



supplied by assimilation to the preserved one, as for kv-ktoCw — kvttoCw, acpevrt]? for 

 avdei>Tr)$, our Effendi. 



1 1 . The insertion of a consonant between two vowels, a sort of euphony, as ayovpos 

 for awpos, avyov for wov, likely a remnant of the old form, as egg is doubtless older than 

 the Saxon ei or ey ; K\alyw for /cXa/w. 



12. Simple carelessness, as aypouceco for aKpodfiai, e\|/c? for e^Oes ; or interchange 

 of cognate letters, dSepcpos for dSe\(p6$, %p6e for %\6e, /3<^« from v-vfy, yXlywpa for 



ypt'jyopa, 



13. Traces of the contagious action of foreign tongues, especially on a people drag- 

 ging out its existence through centuries in a subordinate and servile position, no doubt 

 exist, Italian, of course, mainly, and Turkish, but remarkably few even in the most 

 vulgar type of the Kleptic or Brigand ballads. The following are examples : — 



Mirapovn, gunpowder. 

 TovcprjKi, gun. 



Turkish. 



prefix™, empire, government. 

 fjLovpTaTt]9, a recreant infidel. 



Tafx7rovpi, agger. 



KairiTav, captain. 

 a-eXXa, saddle. 

 a(3ovicdT09, avocato. 



Italian. 



Tanfiovpos, tabor. 

 Xefievra, volentieri. 

 fiepya, verga. 



fiiyXlfy, vigilare. 

 o-Taixirap'ia, printing-office. 



crovfiXa, subula. 



P^-ya?, Rex, Regis. 



Latin. 



<nrrjTi, hospitium. 

 iravapiov = apTO(p6piov. 



KeXXiov, cella. 

 clkovixIBw, accumbere, 



with a family of merely official names occurring in the Byzantine writers, and collected 

 in the well-known work of Codinus de officiis. 



Albanian, a slight sprinkling in Passow's glossary ; but the influence of such an 

 unlettered people on the Greeks must necessarily have been small. 



All these characteristic deviations from the recognised classical type of Attic Greek 

 may justly fall under the categories either of losses, as when a branch or two are lopped 

 off from an old tree, or of taint, as when neglect of the forester or inclemency of the 

 weather has allowed some unseemly scurf to spread itself in patches over the whiteness 

 of the bark; but there is a large class of changes which can in no sense be called 

 corruptions, being, in fact, neither more or less than that natural expansion and enrich- 

 ment which belongs essentially to every living growth, and to which the Greek language 

 in these latter ages is as much entitled as it was in the days of Pericles and Demos- 

 thenes. Enrichments of this description, sometimes pure luxuries, sometimes necessary 

 formations for the expression of new ideas, are found passim in all varieties of living 



