Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/67

 PROPER PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK. 45 actly as if Greek were Dutch. Whether Eras- mus put full or only partial faith in this story, it is certain he wished to use it in order to pamper his vanity; he intended to pose before the learned world as the inventor of this latest sagacity. Another version is that Erasmus himself intended a practical joke in writing this "dialogus de recta pronunciatione" and was amazed at being taken seriously by men of learning. This dialogue, as already said, was composed in 1528. Most of the contestants in the battle about the Greek pronunciation have not even read this manifesto. It assumes the shape of a dialogue between a bear and a lion, and is ex- ceedingly tedious, a feeble and attenuated waltz in trivial Latin. The bear informed the lion that the old Greeks might have possessed the Dutch pronun- ciation, interspersed here and there with speci- mens of French expressions. This nonsense spread like a prairie fire. A flood of pamphlets agreeing with this dialogue was the result. The professors of Greek need not boast of the history of their pronunciation of the Greek language; it shows anything but a scientific basis. If any one doubts the truth of this statement, let him read the