Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/263

* GREEK LANGUAGE. 229 GREEK LITERATURE. ami of the New Testament furnishes a good ex- ample of this Hellenistie Cireek. It is the lan- guage of Aristotle, Polybius, Puusanias, Plutarch, and Lucian. The prouuneiation was changed even more than the form of the language. As early as the third century, v.c. a came to be sounded like i; f was pronounced like Eng. x. In the early Christian centuries 77 also assumed the sound of t; ai came to lie pronounced like simjile e. The diplitliong 01 was sounded like v and later both were soiuidcd like 1. The diphthongs ending in v modified or lost their second vowel. /3, y, and 5 were softened in sound. During all this time the literary language continued to follow Attic models, but by A.D. 800 the difference between the spoken and the written language had become so great that the literary language could no longer maintain itself, and was gradually supplanted by the spoken language. With this date, there- fore, the period of modem Greek may be said to begin. Bibliography. The most complete Greek gram- mar is that of Kiihner, Ausfiihrliclie firammatik der griechischen Uprnrlw. revised by Blass and Gertii (Hanover, 1890-S)S). Historical gram- mars are those of Brugmann, in Jliiller, Uand- buch der klassischen Altertnmswissenschaft, vol. ii. (3d ed.. JIunicli. 1900) : ileyer (.3d ed.. Leip- zig. 1890) ; Krelschmer. Einlcitimg in die fle- scliichte dry griechischen fipraclie ( Leipzig. 1897 ) : Hirt, Laiit mid Foniicitlcliyc der griecliischen tSprache (Heidelberg, 1902). Good working gram- mars in English are those of Goodwin ( Boston, 1892), and Hadley, revised by Allen (New York, 1875). I'seful for syntax are JMadvig. Kiinlax drr griechischen Sproche (Brunswick. 1884). and Goodwin, Greek Moods and Tenses (Boston, 1900). Sjiecial works on the dialects: Ahrens. De drivca' IJinnia: Dialretis (("iiittingen, 1839-4.3); Meister, Die griechischen Dialekte ( ib., 1882-89) ; Hoffman, Die griechischen Dinlekte in ihrem his- torischen Zusammenhange (ib., 1891-98); Smith, .S'oHH(/s and Inflections of the Greek Dialects, vol. i. Ionic (Oxford, 1894). There is no general treatment of the 'common' dialect, but Thumb, Die griechische Hprache im Zeitalter des Helle- nism its (Strnssbura'. 1901). is useful as an intro- duction to the subject. The best lexicon is that of Liddell and Scott' (8th ed.. Oxford, 1897)., The Greek Language. Modern. — The differ fences between ancient and modern Greek are by no means so groat as has commonly been supposed, the modern language being a direct descendant of the 'common' dialect (vide siipra). The begin- nings of most of the changes that have affected modern Greek can be traced back into the Hellen- istic period. Some of these changes have been noted above. Olhi-rs are as follows: — The ancient marks of accent have been retained, but they no longer represent a difference of pitch ; the accent is a stress accent, exactly like that of English (traces of this change can be seen as early as ..d. 400). The rough breathing is still printed, but is no longer pronounced. Etacism has extended its inlluence tuitil no fewer than six different vowels and diphthongs have the .sound of ancient i — name- ly, 1, J), V, ei, 01, and vi. The dual number has entire- ly disappeared, and the middle voice appears in only a few isolated forms. In the lansruage of the common people, the dative case is practically lost, its place being supjdied by the genitive or the accusative with a preposition. Great numbers of nouns have taken the diminutive ending wi", which in the vermicular is reduced to i, and the loss of a syllable at the beginning of w'ords is not infrecpient; so rvpi. checae —Tvpi6p.Tvp6! ; ^pdpi, Ush = i^l/of, through i'^dptor; ^dri, eye = Sp.fia. In many nouns, moreover, the accusative is taken as a new nominative ; so 6 waripas = rar-qp. But it is in the conjugation of the verb that the greatest changes have taken place. Here the ojitative has entire ly disappeared and the infini- tive survives oidy in a mutiiati'd form. The an- cient uses of both are supplied by the subjunc- tive: VTTTJya dta vardv tdu^^^XOop 'iva ai'rbv t5otfxt ; O^Xu pi fii} — e^Xai iXlitcv. The future, the perfect, and the pluperfect are formed by the aid of aux- iliaries : $ai ^^ (^Aa> iVa) vu or ^d XiKTio =: Xutjw ; ^x<o Xwti = X^XvKa ; eixo Xvc-a = iXcXvKii. The ]ironouns have suH'ered many changes. The awkward dirorot, or even the advcrl) ttoO is used in phice of the relative. The vocabulary also has suffered from the in- trusion of loan words from other languages, no- tably from Italian and Turkish, although the in- fusion has not been so great as to give the lan- guage the appearance of a mixed language ; cf. arlrt (Latin hospitintn) . house; pavbpi ( Ital. CH^jorc) . steamer ; Sepfiivi (Turkisli (/rrrc/if/) , pass. Since the establishment of the Greek kingdom (1830), there has been a stronger move- ment toward the purification of the modern lan- guage and a closer conformity to 'the ancient Greek idiom. This has resulted in a curious gap between the literary language and the common speech, not unlike that which existed in the later classical times. The new movement, however, has made steady progress, and it is not too much to say that the modern Greek newspaper would be easily intelligible to Plato and Demosthenes. The best ilodern Greek granunars arc those of Mitsotakis, Praktische Grammatik drr ncugrie- cliisrhcn Sjirache (Stuttgart, 1891), and Peniot, Gramniaire grecqne moderne (Paris. 1897). In English, Vincent and Dickson, .1 Handbook to Modern Greek (London, 1893), is good for the literary language; and Gardner. .4. Modern Greek Grammar (London, 1892), for the spoken lan- guage. Hatzidakis, Einlcitung in die neugric- chisehe Gramtnatik (Leipzig, 1892), treats es- pecially the relation of the modern language to Hellenistic and Byzantine Greek. The best dictionaries are those of Kontopulos (3d ed., Athens, 1889), and Kyriakides^ (Nicosia, Cyprus, 1892). Useful, also, are Sophocles, A Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Pe- riods (New York, 1887), and Dueange, Glossa- rinni ad Srriplores Mediw et Infinirr (Ira'cilatis (Leyden, 16SS: reprinted Breslau, 1891). GREEK LITERATURE. The literature of ancient Greece is important, not only because it is the earliest literature in Europe, and the one which has had a mastering influence on all the others, but also for the intrinsic value of its re- mains, which prove it one of the greatest of all literatures. The Greeks possessed no models for their guidance, as later peoples have had, so that their literature is an original and natural de- velopment; in it were determined most of the literary types employed by European peoples. For- tunately, the remains of this ancient literature are large enough to enable us to trace the history of its various forms with a considerable degree of accuracy. We can distinguish six natural divisions: (1) The Age of Epic Poetry; (2) The Lyric Period;