Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/24

 it admits of no rational justification. Our own K, precisely and in every point, coincides with the Greek K: we have thus the means of reproducing the Greek name to the eye as well as to the ear, yet we gratuitously take the wrong letter in preference to the right. And the precedent of the Latins is here against us rather than in our favor, for their C really coincided in sound with the Greek K, whereas our C entirely departs from it, and becomes an S, before e, i, æ, œ, and y. Though our C has so far deviated in sound from the Latin C, yet there is some warrant for our continuing to use it in writing Latin names, because we thus reproduce the name to the eye, though not to the ear. But this is not the case when we employ our C to designate the Greek K, for we depart here not less from the visible than from the audible original; while we mar the unrivalled euphony of the Greek language by that multiplied sibilation which constitutes the least inviting feature in our own. Among German philologists, the K is now universally employed in writing Greek names, and I have adopted it pretty largely in this work, making exception for such names as the English reader has been so accustomed to hear with the C, that they may be considered as being almost Anglicised. I have, farther, marked the long e and the long o (🇬🇷) by a circumflex (Hêrê) when they occur in the last syllable or in the penultimate of a name.