The Pronunciation of Greek: Accent and Quantity, a Philological Inquiry

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5

THE

PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK; ACCENT AND QUANTITY.

A PHILOLOGICAL INQUIRY.

JOHN STUART BLACKIE, PROFESSOR OF CRKKK

IN

THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

EDINBURGH: SUTHERLAND AND KNOX. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND MDCCCLII.

CO.

T.

CONSTABLE. rutxTKK TO HER MAJESTY.

" Sit omnibus rebus :

verbis,

suum senium, sua juventus ;

ct

etiam sonis sonos succedere permittatnus."

sic

tit

rerla

Bisnor

GARUIXEK.

u This

new pronunciation hath since prevailed, whereby we Englishmen speak Greek, and are able to understand one another, which nobody

"

Maxime

THOMAS FULLER.

else can."

cupio ut

in

omnibus Academiis nostris hodicrna

BOISSONADE.

Grcecorum prommtiatio rcdpiatur."

"

Neque dubitamus quin ERASMUS,

si in

tantam Grcucce pro-

nuntiationis discrepantiam incidisset, vulgarem

salvum

usum

inlactinn

jvt, and two three both long and short, a, i, v. All short, e and o ;

these are pronounced by the wind-pipe acting on the

mouth remains

in its simple natural

and the tongue remaining

at rest takes no part

breath, while the state,

Now, the long vowels, and those which may be either long or short, when they are used

in the utterance.

as long, are pronounced with the stream of breath, extended and continuous but the short vowels, and ;

those used as short, are uttered by a stroke of the

mouth cut

off

immediately on emission, the wind-

AND QUANTITY.

r

27

pipe exerting its power only for the shortest time. Of all these, the most agreeable sounds are produced

by the long vowels, and those which are used as long, because their sound continues for a considerable time,

and they do not suddenly break off the energy of the breath. Of an inferior value are the short vowels, and those used as in

them

is

small and broken.

most sonorous

is

volume of sound

short, because the

the

a,

when

Of the long it

again, the

used as long, for

is

pronounced by opening the mouth to the fullest, while the breath strikes the palate. The next is 17,

it is

because in

its

mouth

formation, while the

is

moder-

ately open, the sound is driven out from below at the mouth of the tongue, and keeping in that quarter

does not strike upwards. Next comes the it the mouth is rounded, and contracts the

mouth

the stroke of the

end of the mouth, Inferior to this

is

is

v,

for in

lips,

and

sent against the extreme

(aKpoa-rop-iov,

the

&>,

the

for in this

I

presume.) vowel an observlips,

able contraction takes place in the extreme region of the

lips,

comes out

so that the sonorous breath

attenuated and compressed. Last of all comes i, for here the stroke of the breath takes place about the teeth, while the

opening of the mouth

lips contribute nothing towards

more dignity as

it

vowels, neither

sonorous

able, for

it

is

parts the

but

small,

giving the

passes through. ;

is

o is

Of

and the sound

the short

the least agree-

mouth more than the "

receives the stroke nearer the wind-pipe.

other,

and

TUB PRONUNCIATION (F (JRKKK

28

Now, while every point of this tion

;

physiological descrip-

not be curiously accurate, 1 there

may

of obvious certainty in

to settle

it

is

enough some of the most

important points of Greek orthoepy, so far as the

concerned

rhetorician of Halicarnassus

is

authority in this matter

that of a

highest

skill,

is

;

and

man

his

of the

which, as the daily practice of our law

worth that of a thousand persons That the ITACISM of the modern taken at random. courts shows,

is

Greeks did not speakers

Greeks of the as

it

in the

was not allowed by good

or

time of this writer, so far as the

not only do

for

;

exist,

vowels are concerned,

single fest

2

identify,

mean

77,

ajbimdantly

mani-

which the modern

v,

different sounds, but the

in particular is

rj

t,

is

removed

sound

as far from the

i

could well be in any scale of vocalization, which

supremacy of the broad A. And if these sounds were distinguished by polished ears in sets out with the

the days of Augustus Ca3sar, 1

What he

the vowels

is

it

is

contrary to

all

says about the tongue performing no part in the formation of manifestly .false, as any one may convince himself by pro-

nouncing the three sounds, au, ai, ee, successively, with open mouth before a mirror. He will thus observe a gradual elevation and advance of the tongue, as the sound to be emitted becomes

more

slender.

*

This limitation must be carefully borne in mind ; for after Athens ceased to be a capital, being overwhelmed by Alexandria, it still remained

a sort of literary metropolis, giving, or affecting to give, the law in matters its authority had ceased practically to bind large

of taste, long after of those

whose usage fashioned the existing language.

;

ACCENT AND QUANTITY.

29

analogy of language to suppose that in the days of

Alexander the Great,

Plato, or Pericles, they should

have been confounded.

Provincialisms, indeed,

and

certain itacizing peculiarities, such as that noticed

by

Plato, (page 24, above,) there

might have been

but that any language should confound

sounds in

its

best days, arid distinguish

days of commencing feebleness, succession of things which

we

is

vowel-

its

them

contrary to

;

in its

all

daily witness.

that

Differ-

ent letters were originally invented to express different sounds, and did so naturally for a long time, fashion

and freak combined with

till

habit, either over-

ran the phonetic rule of speech by a rank growth of exceptive oddities, (as has happened in English,) or fixed

upon the organs of articulation some

strong-

tendency towards the predominance of a particular sound, which in process of time became a

marked

idiosyncrasy, from which centuries of supervening

usage could not shake the language

what has taken place vowel-sounds.

tain

servations further,

in

free.

This

is

Greece with regard to cer-

But before pursuing these oblet us see distinctly what the

special points are, that this

remarkable passage of

The

ascer-

The long or slender sound of the English

A, (as

the Halicarnassian distinctly brings out.

tained points are these, 1

.

30

TUB

in lane,) is

not acknowledged by Dionysius, nor

I'UONI X( 1AT10N OF (JUKEK

;

existence possible under his description.

gether an anomaly and a monstrosity

or Greek.

lish

moment

of

used by the Eng-

77

is

an attenuation the

removed from the conception of About e there is no dispute anywhere.

The sound of

French

1

possible

Dionysius. 3.

many

in the pronunciation of Latin

and the modern Greeks,

farthest

like so

alto-

1

The slender sound

2.

is

and should never have

things in this island tolerated for a

It

is its

u,

or

described

v

German u heard

manifestly the

is

in Briider, Biihne

:

a

very delicate and elegant sound bordering closely on the slender sound of

i,

English,) into which

(ee,

it is

sometimes attenuated by the Germans, and with which, by a poetical license, (as Briider

nieder,) but

it

is

allowed to rhyme,

having no connection with

the English sourfd of oo, (as in boom,) with which. 1

In some English schools a small concession has been

sense,

and

to

sound of a

to the long a, while the short

a in

Now, as changes are not

bat.

among

made

to

common

sound principles of teaching, by confining the long slender

schoolmasters,

who are a

a.

easily

is

pronounced

made

stiff-necked

in

like the short

England, especially

generation everywhere,

it

would have been worth while when they were moving, to kick the barbarous English A out of the scholastic world altog"ther. But their conservatism was too strong for this

;

besides, the ears of

many were

so gross

that they would not have distinguished, or would have sworn that they

could not distinguish, a long a from a short one, without giving the former the sound of an entirely distinct vowel

!

There

is

no limit

that m'>n will talk in defence of an inveterate absurdity.

to the

nonsense

ACCENT AND QUANTITY. confounded.

in Scotland, it is

31

This with us

the

is

more unpardonable, as our Doric dialect in the south possesses a similar sound in sucli words as guid, bluid, attenuated by the Northerns into the slender sound of (/need,

and

The English sound

bleed.

of long

Walker has pointed out, a compound sound, of which one element is a sort of consonant Y. ] t u

as

is,

is,

besides, altogether a piece of English idiosyncrasy,

that

we have no reason

to suppose ever existed any-

where, either amongst Greeks or Romans. 1

The English sound of I is another of John Bull's phonetic crotchets, and must be utterly dis4.

carded.

It

is,

in fact, a

the deep vowel a

is

compound sound,

seen,

stands at the very

opposite end of the Halicarnassian's scale

So far as we

an

the predominant element

we have

element which,

of which

!

see, therefore, the English, Scotch,

and modern Greek methods of pronouncing the five vowels all depart in some point from the highest authority that can be produced on the subject 1

;

in

The following passage from MITFOKD (Pennington,

how

here as an instructive lesson,

"Strong national

partiality only,

blindly prejudice

and determined

imagination cherished by the French

critics,

p. 37) may stand may sometimes speak :

habit, could lead to the

that the Greek

u

was a sound

by a position of the lips so ungraceful as the Paris. History, book ii. sec. iii., note. SCALIGER (Opuscula

so unpleasant, produced

French u."

:

1G10, p. 131) says rightly, quiB ita

prommtianda

est

tit

"

Est obscurissimus sonus in Gneca vocali

proximo accedat ad

iota."

u,

32

fact,

THE PRONUNCIATION OF CKEF.K

a alone has preserved

the single vowel

rounded purity uncorrupted by any

its full

But

part}'.

with regard to the other four vowels, there

marked

a

difference in the degree of deflection from

the classical

norm

one point,

the

v,

v,

and

while the Scotch err only in

for,

;

modern Greeks

(though their error case of

is

err in two,

and

77

v,

but a very nice one in the

is

has, in both cases, long centuries of

undeviating usage to stand on,) and the English err in all the four points,

a, v,

,

and

u,

and that

in the

most paradoxical and abnormal fashion that could have been invented, had it been the direct purpose of our Oxonian and Etonian doctors to put sical

propriety at defiance.

all clas-

In such lawless anarchy

has ended the restoration of the divine speech of Plato, so loftily

promised by Sir John Cheke

so true in this small matter also,

of the

New

is

;

and

that wise parable

Testament, which advises reformers to

beware of putting new patches on old vestments. r

Instead of the robe of genuine Melibean purple which

Erasmus wished

to

throw round the shoulders of the

old Greek gods, our English scholars, following in his track of conjectural innovation,

have produced

an English clown's motley jacket, which the Zeus of

Olympus never saw, and even Momus would But

let us

proceed to the diphthongs.

disdain.

ACCENT AND QUANTITY.

33

Unhappily Dionysius, by a very unaccountable omission, has given us no information on this head ;

we

so

are

left

and conclude from a greater

field of stray inquiry,

mass of materials with much

The

scientific certainty.

any man

to

power

appearance of

less

following results, however,

that will fairly weigh the cumulative

of the evidence brought together with such

and Seyffarth,

laborious conscientiousness by Liscov

must appear unquestionable

:

proved by evidence reaching as far back

It is

1.

a wide

to pursue our inquiries over

as the time of the

Ptolemies, that the diphthong

first

was pronounced like the same diphthong in our 1 So the diphthong is pronounced English word gain. AI

by the

living

Greek nation.

There

is,

evidence of more than 2000 years in

therefore, the

its

favour,

and

against the prevalent pronunciation, which gives

the broad sound of ai in the

rhyming

pretty

with

nearly

German word our

it

KAISER,

English

word

WISER.

The diphthong

2.

EI

was pronounced

in the time

of Ptolemy Philadclphus like the English ee in seen, 1

"

Ut

ut

tit,

id saltern nacti

sumus Interpretum

S.

sc.

singularum

atijue

(minium iiHctoritnte ut constft AI mature atque optim'u adeo Grcecorum temfnirilniK

liiniji/ii-'i

rm-iifi

K ;v.vyW/'.