Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/97

 PROPER PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK. 75 dom, numbering over two and a half millions, Greek is extensively spoken in European Turkey, Bulgaria, Servia, Roumania, Southern Russia, through all the northern coast of the Black Sea, and thence from Trebizonde and Sin- ope to Constantinople and down to the coast of Asia Minor, the ancient Ionia, from Smyrna down to Beyrout and Alexandria. One can travel through all those countries to-day and get along very well if he knows no other language than modern Greek. It is absurd, therefore, to call a language spoken by over ten millions of Greeks a dead language, and it is a matter of deep regret that, owing to the prevailing Eras- mian pronunciation in your colleges, your young men cannot ask for a glass of water and be understood in Athens, although they spent many years of their life in learning Greek in America. I will not detain you any longer. Dr. Rose brought the strongest argument to prove why the modern Greek pronunciation should be uni- versally adopted in America. I will finish my remarks with a recitation of a few verses from the heroic poem of one of our celebrated modern poets, Alexander Soutzo, called o llspmXa^xbiievo^, viz.: "The Wanderer."