THE 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
No. 216.] „ AUGUST 1, 1811. [I ofVoL. 32. 
As long as fnofe who write are ambitious of making Converts, and of giving their Opinions a Maximum of 
Influence and Celebrity, the moft extenfively circulated Miicellany will repay With the greaceft iifl'eft tii® 
Curioflty of ihofe who read either for Amulement or Inftruflion.-JOHNSON. 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
SIR, 
LTHOUGII a constant reader of 
voiir valuable miscellany, it was 
only yesterday that I had the pleasure of 
attentively perusing your Magazine for 
May last, containing, the enquiries of 
Pafilagogus, respecting several modern 
Greek publications. 
Having had an opportunity, during a 
considerable stay, wliich I made a few 
years ago in the immediate neighbour- 
uhood of Greece, to pay particular atten¬ 
tion to the language spoken at present by 
its iniiabitants, I am able to assure Pte- 
dagogus, that all the dictionaries to 
wbicli he alludes, profess in fact to treat 
of the same tongue, the new Greek, and 
Romaic, (as it is generally called by the 
Greeks themselves) being in no wise dif¬ 
ferent from the iLulo-Doric. The two 
last works mentimied by him are both 
known to me, as very faulty and incom- 
plele; that, in particular, published in 
the Greek and Italian, being little more 
than a mere vocabulary. The best dic¬ 
tionary of the language in question is, 
that quoted by your correspono'ent under 
the title of Ae^ix.cv']?? AioXo y’y^l^a-a.qy 
x-I. X* and was published about two 
years ago at Venice, under the superin¬ 
tendance (if I am not greatly mistaken) 
of Mr. Coray, now residing at Paris. 
Having thus endeavoured to satisfy 
your correspondent’s curiosity, permit 
me to unite with him in regretting, that, 
whilst philological investigation seems to 
be so laudably on the stretch for new 
discoveries, both at home and abroad, 
the language at present in use among the 
deiiscendants of a nation, whose works 
have opened a wider field for etymolo¬ 
gical criticism, than perhaps those of any 
other, seems to he entirely overlooked,' 
or scarcely regarded worthy of common 
notice. ; 
Ta.'^iVJi is, as PsSagogus justly observes, 
derived from the substantive wg* (wijich is 
■Still in use amongst the moderns), and sig- 
sifies present. 
Moin^ihly Mac, No. 216 , 
Travellers have been so much in the 
habit of crying down the “jargon’^ of the 
moderiiGreeks, and grave reviewers* per¬ 
sist so fondly in stigmatizing it as a jum¬ 
ble of half a ddzen languages, current in 
the south-east of Europe, that I fear it 
will scarcely be credited on my bare as¬ 
surance, that so far from this being the 
case, the language used at present in 
Greece is neither more nor less than a 
combination of the ancient /Eolic and 
Doric dialects, with such occasional va¬ 
riations as may naturally be expected to 
intrude themselves into every language, 
during the lapse of a series of centuries. 
In speaking thus, I do not pretend to 
assert that all the Greeks of our day, 
without exception, speak a pure and un- 
rnixed/Eolo-Doric; neither do I presume 
to tax such travellers as have pronounced 
the present language of Greece to he a 
corrupt jargon, with an intention to de¬ 
ceive. in the first case it must be re¬ 
membered, that literature is but at a 
low ebb in Greece; that, although ex¬ 
ceptions may be found to the contrary, 
the general education of the iHodern 
Greeks is too contraeted to permit them 
to bestow that labour on the cultivation 
(perhaps I should say, purification) of 
their mother tongue, wlncli is of more 
importance to them to be employed else¬ 
where, and that perhaps but few, com¬ 
paratively speaking, are even aware of 
the real origin of their present dialect; 
and, secondly, it may be,urged in partial 
Vindication of the assertion of many tou¬ 
rists, that, in iwost sea-ports, and parti¬ 
cularly such as lie contiguous to other 
countrip, which of course are the easiest 
to be visited by strangers, a greater con¬ 
fusion of tongues is likely to be found, 
than in the interior of the country itself, 
which but few iiave attempted to pene«» 
trate without still adhering to those pre¬ 
judices which they conceived against its 
language, on first entering the frontiers, 
1 have tnyselt taken some pains to 
p Sec a late Nurnber of the Edinburgh Re¬ 
view, Art. Traduction 
A 
