Peter Giles

“ In languages like Chinese, which have neither compound words nor inflection, accent plays a very important part. As the words are all monosyllabic, stress could obviously not be so important as pitch as a help to distinguish different senses attached to the same vocable, and in no other language is variety of pitch so well developed as in Chinese. In languages which, like English, show comparatively little pitch accent it is to be noticed that the sentence tends to develop a more musical character under the influence of emotion. ”

“ The language of literature is always of necessity to some extent a κοινή: with some Greek writers the use of a κοινή was especially necessary. The local dialect of Boeotia was not easily intelligible in other districts, and a writer like Pindar, whose patrons were mostly not Boeotians, had perforce to write in a dialect that they could understand. Hence he writes in a conventional Doric with Aeolic elements, which forms a strong contrast to that of Corinna, who kept more or less closely to the Boeotian dialect. ”

“ A grammar of Greek, which will deal fully with the whole material of the language, is at present a desideratum, and is hardly possible so long as new dialect material is being constantly added and while comparatively so little has been done on the syntax of the dialects. ”

“ Their earliest legends connected the origin of their race with Thessaly and Mt. Pindus, but Athenians and Arcadians also boasted themselves of autochthonous race, inhabiting a country wherein no man had preceded their ancestors. The Greek language, at any rate as it has come down to us, is remarkably perfect, in vowel sounds being the most primitive of any of the Indo-European languages, while its verb system has no rival in completeness except in the earliest Sanskrit of the Vedic literature. ”

“ Throughout the history of Greek the short sound remained practically unchanged. On the other hand, the long sound of α in the Attic and Ionic dialects passed into an open ē-sound, which in the Ionic alphabet was represented by the same symbol as the original ē-sound (see Alphabet: Greek) . The vowel sounds vary from language to language, and the a symbol has, in consequence, to represent in many cases sounds which are not identical with the Greek α whether long or short, and also to represent several different vowel sounds in the same language. ”

“ Thus the strong stress accent existing in the transition period between Latin and French led to the curtailing of long Latin words like latrocínium or hospitále into the words which we have borrowed from French into English as larceny and hotel. It will be observed that the first syllable and that which bears the accent are the two which best withstand change, though the strong tendency in English to stress heavily the first syllable bids fair ultimately to oust the e in the pronunciation of larceny. ”

“ Though we are unable to check the statements of the historians as to the area occupied by Ionic in prehistoric times, it is clear from the legends of the close connexion between Athens and Troezen that the same dialect, had been spoken on both sides of the Saronic gulf, and may well have extended, as Herodotus says, along the eastern coast of the Peloponnese and the south side of the Corinthian gulf. According to legend, the Ionians expelled from the Peloponnese collected at Athens before they started on their migrations to the coast of Asia Minor. ”

“ For different literary purposes Greek had different κοιναί. A poet who would write an epic must adopt a form of language modelled on that of Homer and Hesiod; Alcaeus and Sappho were the models for the love lyric, which was therefore Aeolic; Stesichorus was the founder of the triumphal ode, which, as he was a Dorian of Sicily, must henceforth be in Doric, though Pindar was an Aeolian, and its other chief representatives, Simonides and Bacchylides, were Ionians from Ceos. The choral ode of tragedy was always conventional Doric, and in the iambics also are Doric words like δράω, λάω, &c. ”

“ No such changes arise when a strong pitch accent is accompanied by a weaker stress accent, and hence languages like ancient Sanskrit and ancient Greek, where such conditions existed, preserve fuller forms than their sister languages or than even their own descendants, when stress takes the place of pitch as the more important element in accent. ”

“ In English, moreover, the vowel sounds tend to become diphthongs, so that the symbol for the simple sound tends to become the symbol for that combination which we call a diphthong. Thus the long ī in ride, wine, &c., has become the diphthong ai, and the name of the symbol I is itself so pronounced. In familiar, if vulgar, dialects, A tends in the same direction. In the “cockney” dialect, really the dialect of Essex but now no less familiar in Cambridge and Middlesex, the ai sound of ī is represented by oi as in toime, “time,” while ā has become ai in Kate, pane, &c. ”

“ The prehistoric movements of the Greek tribes can to some extent be realized in their dialects, as recorded in their inscriptions, though all existing inscriptions belong to a much later period. Thus from the ancient Aeolis of northern Greece sprang the historical dialects of Thessaly and Lesbos with the neighbouring coast of Asia Minor. At an early period the Dorians had invaded and to some extent affected the character of the southern Thessalian and to a much greater extent that of the Boeotian dialect. ”

“ In one place more rapidly, in another more slowly, the characteristics of modern Greek begin to appear. As we have seen, in Boeotia the vowels and diphthongs began to pass into the characteristic sounds of modern Greek four centuries before Christ. Dorian dialects illustrate early the passing of the old aspirate θ, the sound of which was like the final t in English bit, into a sound like the English th in thin, pith, which it still retains in modern Greek. ”

“ Before a following vowel the diphthong was divided between the two syllables, the ι or υ forming a consonant at the beginning of the second syllable, which ultimately disappeared. Thus from a root dheu- “run” comes a verb θέω for θε–ϝω, from an earlier *θευ–ω. The corresponding adjective is θοός “swift,” for θο–ϝο–ς, from an earlier *θου–ο–ς. The only dialect which kept the whole diphthong in one syllable was Aeolic. The long diphthongs, except at the ends of words, were shortened in Attic. Some of these appear merely as long vowels, having lost their second element in the proethnic period. ”

“ The Western Greek alphabet had a different symbol, Χ, for the sound of x and placed it at the end, as did its descendant the Latin alphabet. The original form of ο was a more or less roughly formed circle. The Aramaic and Hebrew ע, which seem so different, arise from a circle left open at the top, , a form which can be traced in Aramaic from the 5th or 6th century B.C. In the Greek alphabets the circle appears sometimes with a dot in the centre, but in many cases it is doubtful whether this mark is, intentional, or is only the result of fixing a sharp point there while describing the circle. ”

“ In such languages if signs are employed to mark the position of the chief accent in the word it will be the pitch and not the stress accent which will be thus indicated. Amongst the languages of ancient times Sanskrit and Greek both indicate by signs the position of the chief pitch accent in the word, and the same method has been employed in modern times for languages in which pitch accent is well marked, as it is, for example, in Lithuanian, the language still spoken by some two millions of people on the frontier between Prussia and Russia in the neighbourhood of Königsberg and Vilna. ”

“ With Aristotle, not a born Athenian but long resident in Athens, the κοινή may be said to have begun. Some characteristics of Attic foreigners found it hard to acquire—its subtle use of particles and its accent. Hence in Hellenistic Greek particles are comparatively rare. According to Cicero, Theophrastus, who came from as near Attica as Eretria in Euboea, was easily detected by a market-woman as no Athenian after he had lived thirty years in Athens. ”

“ Lucian wrote Attic dialogue with a facility almost equal to Plato; the old dialect was revived in the inscriptions of Sparta; Balbilla, a lady-in-waiting on Hadrian’s empress, wrote epigrams in Aeolic, and there were other attempts of the same kind. But they were only tours de force, κῆποι Ἀδώνιδος, whose flowers had no root in the spoken language and therefore could not survive. Even in the hands of a cultivated man like Plutarch the κοινή of the 1st century A.D. looks entirely different from Attic Greek. ”

“ In French, stress is less marked than it is in English, but here also there is evidence to show that in the development from Latin to French a very strong stress accent must have existed. The natural result of producing one syllable of a word with greater energy than the others is that the other syllables have a less proportion of breath assigned to them and therefore tend to become indistinct or altogether inaudible. ”

“ Lesbian has no oxyton words according to the grammarians, the accent being carried back to the penult or ante-penultimate syllable. It has also no “rough breathing,” but this characteristic it shared with the Ionic of Asia Minor, and in the course of time with other dialects. The characteristic particle of the dialects is κε, which is used like the Doric κα, the Arcadian καν, and the Attic and Ionic ἄν. Thessalian and Lesbian agree in making their long vowels close, η belonging ει (a close ē, not a diphthong) , πατείρ, “father.” ”

“ Probably the earliest portion of Asia Minor to be colonized by the Greeks was the north-west, to which came settlers from Thessaly, when the early inhabitants were driven out by the Thesprotians, who later controlled Thessaly. The name Aeolis, which after times gave to the N.W. of Asia Minor, was the old name for Thessaly (Hdt. vii. 176) . These Thesprotians were of the same stock as the Dorians, to whose invasion of the Peloponnese the later migration, which carried the Ionians to Asia and the Cypriot Greeks to Cyprus, in all probability was due. ”

“ At all periods, moreover, hieroglyphic writing was a branch of decorative art, and it may have been that the ancient Egyptian, like the modern Turk, resented too much lucidity, and liked his literary compositions to be veiled in a certain obscurity. The alphabet devised by the Egyptians consisted of twenty-four letters. Egyptologists are at variance on the question whether this alphabet was the original, or had any influence upon the development of the Phoenician alphabet. ”

“ The causes for the change of position are not always easy to ascertain. In words of four syllables with a long penult and words of five syllables with a short penult there probably developed a secondary accent which in course of time replaced the earlier accent upon the first syllable. But the number of such long words in Latin is comparatively small. It is no less possible that relations between the stress and pitch accents were concerned. ”

“ They did not, however, profit by their discovery, because, amongst the Egyptians, writing was clearly a mystery in both senses—only possible at that period for masters in the craft, and also something, like the writing of medical prescriptions at the present day in Latin, which was not to be made too easily intelligible to the common people. ”

“ Instead of the Athenian method of giving the father’s name in the genitive when a citizen is described, these dialects (especially Thessalian) tend to make an adjective: thus instead of the Attic Δημοσθένης Δημοσθένους, Aeolic would rather have Δ. Δημοσθένειος. Thessalian stands midway between Lesbian and Boeotian, agreeing with Lesbian in the use of double consonants, where Attic has a single consonant, with or without lengthening of the previous syllable: ἐμμί, Attic εἰμί for an original *esmi; στάλλα, Attic στήλη; ξέννος for an earlier ξένϝος, Attic ξένος, Ionic ξεῖνος, Doric ξῆνος. ”

“ The sound of n stands in the same relation to d as m stands to b; both are ordinarily voiced and the mouth position for both is the same, but in pronouncing n the nasal passage is left open, so that the sound of n can be continued while that of d cannot. This is best observed by pronouncing syllables where the consonant comes last as in and id. When the nasal passage is closed, as when one has a bad cold, m and n cannot be pronounced; attempts to pronounce moon result only in bood. ”

“ Be that as it may, legend and language alike connected the Athenians with the Ionians, though by the 5th century B.C. the Athenians no longer cared to be known by the name (Hdt. i. 143) . Lemnos, Imbros and Scyros, which had long belonged to Athens, were Athenian also in language. The great island of Euboea and all the islands of the central Aegean between Greece and Asia were Ionic. Chios, the most northerly Ionic island on the Asiatic coast, seems to have been originally Aeolic, and its Ionic retained some Aeolic characteristics. ”

“ The inevitable result of geographical and political division was the maintenance of a great number of local characteristics in language, differentiating in this respect also each political community from its nearest neighbours. It was only natural that the inhabitants of a country so little adapted to maintain a numerous population should have early sent off swarms to other lands. ”

“ While Achaean influence spread out to the more southerly Ionian islands, Corinth carried her dialect with her colonies to the coast of Acarnania, Leucas and Corcyra. But the greatest of all Corinthian colonies was much farther to the west—at Syracuse in Sicily. Unfortunately the continuous occupation of the same or adjacent sites has led to the loss of almost all that is early from Corinth and from Syracuse. Corcyra has bequeathed to us some interesting grave inscriptions from the 6th century B.C. Southern Italy and Sicily were early colonized by Greeks. ”

“ The strength of the expiration may be greatest either at the beginning, the end or the middle of the syllable, and, according as it is so, the accent is a falling, a rising, or a rising and falling one. Syllables in which the stress is produced continuously whether increasing or decreasing are called single-pointed syllables, those in which a variation in the stress occurs without being strong enough to break the syllable into two are called double-pointed syllables. ”

“ In the middle, Greek does not entirely agree with Sanskrit in its personal endings, and the original forms cannot all be restored with certainty. The endings of the primary tenses differed from those of the secondary, but there has been a certain amount of confusion between them.
The syntax of the verb is founded on the original I.E. distinction of the verb forms, not by time (tense) , but by forms of action, progressive action (present and imperfect) , consummated action (aorist) , state arising from action, emphatic or repeated action (perfect) . ”