Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/32

10 whole it may be said of this dialect, as of the Bœotian in its earlier form, that it bears an archaic character, and approaches nearest to the source of the Greek language; hence the Latin, as being connected with the most ancient form of the Greek, has a close affinity with it, and in general the agreement with the other languages of the Indo-Germanic family is always most perceptible in the Æolic. A mere variety of the Æolic was the dialect of the Doric race, which originally was confined to a narrow district in Northern Greece, but was afterwards spread over the Peloponnesus and other regions by that important movement of population which was called the Return of the Heracleids. It is characterized by strength and breadth, as shown in its fondness for simple open vowel sounds, and its aversion for sibilants. Much more different from the original type is the other leading dialect of the Greek language, the Ionic, which took its origin in the mother-country, and was by the Ionic colonies, which sailed from Athens, carried over to Asia Minor, where it underwent still further changes. Its characteristics are softness and liquidness of sound, arising chiefly from the concurrence of vowels, among which, not the broad a and o, but the thinner sounds of e and u, were most prevalent; among the consonants the tendency to the use of s is most discernible. It may be observed, that wherever the Ionic dialect differs either in vowels or consonants from the Æolic, it also differs from the original type, as may be discovered by a comparison of the cognate languages; it must therefore be considered as a peculiar form of the Greek, which was developed within the limits of the Grecian territory. It is probable that this dialect was spoken not only by the Ionians, but also, at least one very similar, by the ancient Achæans; since the Achæans in the genealogical legends concerning the descendants of Hellen are represented as the brothers of the Ionians: this hypothesis would also explain how the ancient epic poems, in which the Ionians are scarcely mentioned, but the Achæan race plays the principal part, were written in a dialect which, though differing in many respects from the genuine Ionic, has yet the closest resemblance to it.

Even from these first outlines of the history of the Greek dialects we might be led to expect that those features would be developed in the institutions and literature of the several races which we find in their actual history. In the Æolic and Doric tribes we should be prepared to find the order of society regulated by those ancient customs and principles which had been early established among the Greeks; their dialects at least show a strong disposition to retain the archaic forms, without much tendency to refinement. Among the Dorians, however, every thing is more strongly expressed, and comes forward in a more prominent light than among the Æolians; and as their dialect everywhere prefers the broad, strong, and rough tones, and introduces them throughout with unbending regularity, so we might naturally look among