aspired to refinement, affected in their writings and discourse a restoration of the pure Hellenic, by an admixture of its obsolete terms with the popular idiom of the time. But the effort was as abortive in execution as empty in design; and though the practice continued till the end of the seventeenth cen

Doctor Hody's Memoirs of the Illustrious Greeks who after the fate of Constantinople restored Greek learning in Europe, states, that at this period the popular dialect of the Morea was so base as to retain no trace of its ancient beauty or purity. Lingua etiam ipsa adeo est depravata ut nihil omnino sapiat priscæ illius et sapientissimæ Græciæ. Mores vero barbarie omni barbariores." (Hodius de Græcis Illustrib. lib. ii. c. i. p. 190.) As to the popular dialect of Constantinople, it was equally degenerate; its words and phrases were totally distinct from those of the ancient Greek, and the construction, quantity, and accent of the original language were forgotten,-" neque de constructione grammatica orationis, neque de syllabarum quantitate, neque accentu, quicquam aut perfecti aut certi ex istorum præceptis haberi possunt (potest?) Nam lingua Æolica, quam et Homerus et Callimachus in suis operibus potissimùm sunt secuti, ignoratur istic prorsus." Idem ad Petrum Perleonem, ib. p. 188. With the higher orders, and especially the females, at the capital, however, it was still the mode to imitate as far as possible the ancient elegance of their national tongue. "Viri aulici," says Filelfo in another letter written in 1451, "veterem sermonis dignitatem atque elegantiam retinebant; in primis ipsæ nobiles mulieres, quibus, cum nullum esset omnino cum viris peregrinis commercium, merus ille ac purus Græcorum sermo servabatur intactus." (ib. p. 189.)

tury, it was productive of no permanent improvement.*

At the present day its dialects are as various as the causes which led to its corruption.† This peculiarity was noticed, as I have mentioned in a preceding chapter, by the early visitants of Greece; and though it may not now exist to the same extent as reported by Cabasylas and Zygomala,§ its variations are still sufficiently striking. They arise, of course, from the intercourse of the various districts with their respective conquerors and colonists; and in the existing idioms of each may be distinctly discerned the effects of their proximity

During those darkest periods which followed the fall of Constantinople, the mixo-barbarous was the mode of writing adopted by the few persons (chiefly ecclesiastics) who then received any kind of literary education. Their studies not being guided by taste or philosophy, they derived no other advantage from them than an unmeaning knowledge of the words and grammar of the ancient tongue, of which they made a pompous display in this style of pedantic ignorance; and thus the mixo-barbarous assumed a character different both from Hellenic and the common dialect. Since the corruption and effeminacy of the Turks, and the increasing weakness of their government, have unwillingly or unconsciously afforded an opening for the light of civilized Europe into Greece, this style has given way to those already mentioned, and is gradually falling into deserved contempt. Leake's Researches, p. 55.

↑ Vol. i. p. 206.

↑ Gesner, p. 47.

§ Turco-Græcia, lib. vii.

to their European or Oriental masters. In those of the provinces where their connection with the Ottomans has been most intimate,* the intermixture of Turkish expressions is proportionally remarkable; whilst in the vicinity of the Venetians, the alloy of Italian is equally perceptible. In the remote islands, where commerce is unknown, and where poverty holds out no inducement to foreign settlers, the greatest purity+ prevails; and, from an early period,

* Such as Macedonia, Egripo, Southern Albania, the Morea, and Asia Minor.

"In the Ionian Islands," says Colonel Leake, “most ideas above the ordinary use of the vulgar, and even many of the most common phrases, are denoted by Italian words with Romaic terminations and inflections: and thus the language of these islands is one of the most corrupt in Greece." -Researches, p. 61.

"Qui sub Turcarum dominatione vitam agunt, ab idiomate Turcico; qui in Venetorum, ab Italico voces mutuantur. In majoribus oppidis qui sub Turcis, Græcè et Turcicè; qui sub Venetis degunt, Græcè et Latinè vel Italicè; in pagis denique Græcè duntaxat omnes loquuntur."- Ducange, præf. p. vii.

In Asia Minor To xám is the door, it is оρта in the Morea, and lupa at the Fanar.-Douglas, Mod. Greeks.

Leake, pp. 62, 66. "On a remarqué que les marins et les pêcheurs de cette nation ont retenus plus de mots anciens que d'autres personnes; les noms qu'ils donnent aux plantes et aux poissons ressemblent pour la plupart à ceux par lesquels les désignent Dioscoride et d'autres naturalistes."Depping, La Grèce, vol. i. p. 14.

the secluded mountaineers of the North have preserved with their ancient freedom the least corrupted dialect of their fathers.* At no time, however, has the language of Modern Greece been more fluctuating and unsettled than at the present. I refer, of course, to the written dialect, which has ever been essentially different from the vulgar idiom of the people.† Its deficient, or doubtful grammatical construction, as well as the absence of any acknowledged standard of excellence, leaves it to the mercy of a host of writers, each of whom, according to his taste or education, adapts the ancient language to the modern dialect, or varies the construction of both, to suit the genius of some European model. The schools of the several literati, each eager to establish his own system of reform, have served to perpetuate

· ἐν δὲ τῇ Θεσσαλονίκῃ καὶ Βυζαντίῳ καὶ ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ καὶ εν ἄλλῃ Ἑλλάδι εὑρήσεις καλῶς τὴν κάθ ̓ ἡμᾶς ἰδιωτικὴν φθεγ γομένους ἐνίους, ὡς καὶ τοὺς παλαι. κ. τ. λ. Letter of Cabasylas to Kraus in Turco-Gr.

Μετὰ δὲ τὴν εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα διάβασιν τῶν Ῥωμαίων, καὶ τὴν σύστασιν τοῦ Ῥωμαϊκοῦ Θρόνου εἰς τὸ Βυζάντιον, ἡ Αττικὴ προφορὰ διαδοθεῖσα εἰς τὰ μέρη τῆς Θράκης, διεφυλάχθη εἰλι κρινὴς, καὶ ἀπὸ τοὺς Βυζαντινοὺς, καθώς καὶ ἀπὸ τοὺς ἄλλους Ἕλληνας, ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν. — ̓Αρχαιολογια Ελλήνικη κ. τ. λ. παρα Γρηγόριου Ιερομόναχου Παλιουριτου. Τ. ii. p. 312, Venice, 1815. Hughes' Travels, vol. ii. p. 73.

+ Douglas, Modern Greeks, p. 92.

the confusion, till, in the words of an able investigator, there are almost as many idioms as authors in Romaic, and it has become utterly impossible to affix any accurate boundaries to the shades which separate the ancient language from the vulgar dialect of the people.*

* Col. Leake. See an account of the state of the language and its reformers in Ioannina, in Hughes' Travels, vol. ii.

Independent of the Barbarian, and European, and Turkish interpolations to which I have alluded above, the points in which the construction of the modern Greek differs most essentially from its original, may be said to consist chiefly in the adoption of accent instead of quantity, as a guide for pronunciation ; but though the three species of accents are accurately marked in their writings, one only is admitted in discourse. Aspirates, in like manner, are still affixed by their Grammatikoi, or scribes, but are totally overlooked by their readers. Elisions, and insertions of letters, both initial, medial and final; metatheses, synalæphæ, protheses, aphæreses, and innumerable other orthographic licences, occur in abundance, but all bearing evidence that brevity, rather than euphony, has been consulted in their introduction. In their nouns, In their nouns, the prefixing of prepositions has superseded the elegance of inflected cases; and from the Italians they have introduced the use of diminutives of every gender; and in some cases, but more rarely, of augmentatives. (See Leake, p. 18.) They have

See on this subject Foster's Essay on Accent and Quantity, and Mitford's Enquiry into the Harmony of Language.