tained by the Thessalians and Boeotians long after the opposition of Dorian and Ionian had established itself in other parts of Greece. The ethnographical fact is preserved in the legend* that "Hellen left his kingdom to Eolus, his eldest son, while he sent forth Dorus, and Xuthus the father of Ion, to make conquests in distant lands." This mythical genealogy makes Ion not the son, but the grandson of Hellen; and it has been shown by Mr. Kenrick†, that the name of Xuthus, which is interposed, is simply an epithet of the Dorian God Apollo, who was the eos naτoãos of the Ionians. From all the circumstances known to us, we are entitled to infer, that the Ionians, wherever they retained their independence, were only partially influenced by the Dorians: the Pelasgian element in their composition remained for a long while in full force, though they adopted the religious tenet of the Dorians, and paid homage to the conquering God under whose auspices the invaders marched and fought. We have shown above that the Dorians, according to the primitive meaning of their name, were called "Highlanders or mountaineers," and Mr. Kenrick, who has derived the same result from a Greek etymology of the name, has shown that the Ionians were emphatically the "Men of the coast" (Hiovía), and that they were also called the "Beach-men" (Alyalis), or "Sea-men" (Axauoí): and he remarks also that "the distinction between Doric and Ionic in later times answered very well to that which has been observed to prevail between the speech of mountaineers and of littoral nations,one being harsh and broad, the other smooth and liquidt." dollýs, i. e. “pressed together, standing side by side,” just as Alolos, the god of the different winds, expresses the meaning of his name in άɛlla, a turbo, or whirling together of objects from all quarters. From the idea of juxtaposition without fusion, we get the signification of alólos with reference to stripes or bands of alternate colours, as distinguished from xomilos, which denotes variation of colour by way of spots or circles (below, § 266). The meaning of alólos, as indicated by the epithet xoqvdaíolos is well illustrated by the alternate black and white in the crest of an armed figure represented on an ancient vase in the British Museum (see Gerhard, Athenens Geburt. Berlin, 1838. Taf. 11. 2). * Apollodor. 1. 7, 3, 1; Thirlwall, 1. p. 101. Ibid. p. lxi. We must not forget, however, that there were other differences of a more important and extensive nature; and that the Doric, or purely Hellenic element, at length so completely asserted itself, that we can only by a laborious process succeed in partially reproducing the articulation and structure of the old Pelasgian speech. The broad distinctions therefore are not to be expected in the four dialects, which, at a later period, were rather names of different branches of literature, than four varieties of spoken language. The Æolic dialect (ʼn Alolis), in this sense, referred to the lyric poetry cultivated at an early period by the Eolians of Lesbos; the Doric ( Дwgis), to the choral poetry of the Dorians; the Ionic ('Iás), to the epic poetry of the Ionians; and the Attic ('Ardis), to the universal literature of that branch of the Ionian race which had settled in the "Promontory-land” (1⁄2'Attixý, or 'Axtixý). The conquests of Alexander carried this last, in a less pure and vigorous form, into Asia and Egypt, where it incurred various corruptions, and became Hellenistic rather than Hellenic. An investigation of this non diάhextos, as it has been called, does not belong to our present purpose, which is rather to reproduce the more perfect and complete state of the Greek language than to scrutinize its decayed and feeble condition. CHAPTER V. THE THEORY OF THE GREEK ALPHABET. 98 Difficulty of the subject. 99 Every alphabet originally a syllabarium; so that the distinction between vowels and consonants is quite arbitrary. 100 (1) Semitic origin of the Greek Alphabet. Semitic alphabet consisted originally of 16 letters organically arranged. 101 These 16 letters formed the original Greek alphabet. 102 Subsequent additions to the Greek alphabet. 103 Poverty of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet. 104 Artificial arrangement of the Arabic characters. 105 (2) Analysis of the Greek Alphabet. Preliminary examination of the Dêva-Nûgarî. 106 Inferences deducible from the shape of the Sanscrit characters. 107 Formation of the vowel-signs and origin of the liquids. 108 Theory of the aspirates, sibilants, and secondary vowels. 109 Main difficulties in regard to the Greek alphabet. 110 The Greek digamma. 111 The Latin F. 112 The dental sibilant . 113 The Greek aspirate. 114 Evanescence of v and g. 115 Double value of §. 116 Etymological analysis of ŋ and w. 117 General review of the Greek alphabet. 118 (3) Interchange of mutes in the Greek and cognate languages. Grimm's law. 119 Exemplifications. 120 Exceptions in the case of the Greek language. 121 Law of divergent articulations. 122 Corresponding consonants in Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin. Appendix to § 110. (a) The digamma as it appears in inscriptions. (b) Extracts from Bentley's MS. on the digamma. η 98 THE necessary prelude to an attempt to increase our knowledge of a dead language is, an inquiry into the value of the symbols or letters which have preserved and transmitted to us its written remains. All languages are made up of sounds, and of these sounds the letters are the only representatives in the case of a language no longer spoken; unless, therefore, we can to a certain extent ascertain to what sounds these symbols corresponded, we shall hardly be able to draw a profitable comparison between the language in question and the others to which it is related; nor will it be possible to explain and justify those regular permutations of letters, which time and use have occasioned in languages of the same family, if we do not discover what was the value of this notation in the first instance. To obtain this knowledge, the great philologers of the present day have laboured diligently; but though they have collected an immense mass of facts, and have heaped up materials for the future labourer to work upon, they have left so much room for arrangement and construction, that this subject is the most difficult part of our task. The Greek alphabet presents peculiarities of a most embarrassing nature. It derives its characters and their arrangement from a family of languages with which it has no immediate connexion, and the whole development of its system of writing is at variance with the notation on which it is based. We must, therefore, consider as independent questions (1) the Semitic origin of the Greek alphabet, (2) the actual value of the different letters as used by the Greeks, and (3) the changes which take place in consonants of words as represented in the different idioms of the Indo-Germanic family. It will, however, be as well to begin with a few remarks on alphabetical writing in general. 99 According to the grammatical system which has descended to us from the Greeks, we are taught from our earliest years to distinguish between vowels and consonants, and to regard them as necessarily having a separate existence. This is a notion which must be at once discarded by every one who would make any progress in philology. Language is a transfer of the thoughts to the outward world of sense: when this is effected by sounds, it is speech; when by symbols, it is writing; but as men speak before they write, every symbol is a representative of some sound: it is in itself an element of language. There are some languages in which each symbol represents a whole word; such is the case in the Chinese. But in all languages every symbol must have been significant in the first instance. Consequently, there could not be any distinction into vowels and consonants, but the alphabet must have been a syllabarium, the elements of which might or might not be independent words. "By words," says W. von Humboldt (über. d. Versch. d. menschl. Sprachb. p. 74), "we understand the signs of individual conceptions. A syllable forms a unity of sound, and becomes a word when it obtains an independent signification; but for this a combination of several syllables is sometimes necessary. A doubled unity-of sound and conception-meets in a word." The distinction of these syllables into consonants and vowels is perfectly arbitrary. Neither a vowel nor a consonant can have any separate existence in spoken language: the consonant always requires a vowel-appendage in order to be pronounced; the vowel cannot be pronounced without an initial breathing, which is sometimes so strong as to become a definite consonant. In either case the vowel can be regarded only as a modification of its fulcrum. Hence, in all ancient alphabets, we find that the vowels are not in the first instance expressed by separate symbols, but, as the indistinct ă or ě, which originally accompanied every consonant, was in process of time developed into distinct vowel-sounds, these were denoted by various hooks or points attached to or written under the consonants to which they referred, or, at the beginning of the word, to the mark denoting the breathing with which they were pronounced. At first, then, there were only two sorts of letters,-breathings and consonants, both of them accompanied by short vowels which were not expressed, or by modifications of these vowels expressed by certain marks pertaining to the original symbol. The first deviation from this original state would take place in those languages, which, like the Indo-Germanic, did not use many or very various breathings, and in which the vowels assumed to themselves at an early period important functions in the grammatical organization. But even then no new symbols were invented for the vowels. It was thought sufficient to adopt for their expression more or less mutilated forms of those breathings or consonants with which they were found most constantly combined. We shall presently show, from a palæographical examination of the Greek and Sanscrit alphabets, in what manner this was effected. 100 (1) Semitic origin of the Greek Alphabet. The traditionary history of the Greek alphabet is well known. It is said to have originally consisted of only 16 letters, which were brought from Tyre by Cadmus, and to which 4 were added by Palamedes at the time of the Trojan war, and subsequently 4 others by Simonides of Ceos (Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 56*). Other inventors or importers of the alphabet are also mentioned (Schol. Dionys. Thr. Bekk. Anecd. p. 784), perhaps with as much reason as those to whom it is ordinarily attributed; for all that we are to understand by these * A vase found at Agylla has inscribed on it, in alphabetical order, all the letters except 2, the digamma and koppa being inserted in their proper places. The age of this vase is doubtful. See Franz, Elementa Epigraphices Græcæ, Berolini, 1840, p. 22. Cf. Lepsius, Annal. Arch. Instit. Vol. viii. 1836, pp. 188-203. |