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"A woman, who fhewed us the manufacture, fent me fmall famples of the raw thread;, alfo in its different ftates: washed, heckled, pun, and knit.

"I gave her a trifle, the blushed, and, with true cordiality and fenfibility, requested that, before my departure, the might bring me a pair of gloves. The next day fhe came to the archbishop, and entreated him to intercede with me to take the gloves, which the brought me the fame evening.

"I must not forget to tell you of a fingular requeft. A monk came, when I was prefent, sent by the young novices, to the archbifhop, and whispered him to petition me to petition the monk that he might grant them permiffion to go into the town in the evening, and fee the illumination, in honour of the faint. Accordingly, the archbishop petitioned me, I petitioned the monk, and he complied."

CLASSICAL

CLASSICAL AND POLITE CRITICISM.

SHORT ACCOUNT of the MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE, its ORIGIN and SYSTEM.

[From DALLAWAY'S CONSTANTINOPLE ANCIENT and MODERN.}

BETWEEN the Romeika, or modern Greek language, and the ancient, a fimilar analogy may be found, as between the Latin and the pure Italian; for languages, no less than governments, have their revolutions and their periods. The Greek claims the higheft antiquity, and perhaps after the Arabic has been preferved longer than any other; from the irruption and domination of other nations its purity has been eventually corrupted, as from Grecian conquefts the Egyptian lapfed into the Coptic, and the Arabic into the Syriac.

"When Conftantine established his new capital,o many Roman citizens followed him, that the Greek language adopted many Latinifins, and, once corrupted, the more readily admitted the idiom and words of the French and Venetian invaders, at the commencement of the thirteenth century. The establishment of the Ottoman empire extended the change, by the adoption of fo many Turkish phrafes and words, and the Romeïka, or vernacular dialect, as it now

prevails, was univerfally establish ed. Not that one mode of expreffion only is in ufe. The inhabitants of the Morea and the coafts of the Adriatic partake much of the Venetian; the inlanders of the Archipelago and the Smyrniotes mix Venetian with Turkish. The Greeks of the Fanal speak almoft claffically, whilft thofe of the oppofite town of Pera have the most vulgar pronunciation.

"The leading caufe of deviation from the ancient Greek has been the great ufe of contractions, and the blending by that means feveral words into one.

"At what era the modern pronunciation was adopted it would be difficult to determine with any degree of precifion. The more learned of the inhabitants of the Fanal ftrongly contend, that however their language has been debafed by the alloy of others, that the pronunciation of the remoteft times is continued to them, pure and without variation. This quef tion, fo much agitated at the revival of literature, is foreign to my prefent purpose, and it may be ne

ceffary

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ceffary to fubjoin the more prominent diftin&tions *. Certain it is, that the modern Greek, pronounced as the ancient in England, would be as unintelligible to them as the Italian at Rome or the French at Paris, if we spoke or read them exactly as they are spelled, giving the letters and fyllables the fame power as to thofe in our own language.

"The Romeïka refembles in its conftruction the Italian and French, and rejects the tranfpofition of the

ancient Greek or Latin. It retains the articles and inflection of cafes, but has neither duals nor aorifts. The tenfes are formed by the verbз fubftantive.

"A fummary account, which my prefent limits allow me only to offer of a language fo little known in Europe, may be confidered as no unacceptable curiofity by fome readers.

"The grammar of Simon Portius was the earliest attempt. Pere

"The ancient alphabet and character are retained by the moderns, who are ill verfed in or negligent of orthography, both in their epiftolary correspondence and monumental infcriptions. Their printed books are tolerably correct. Some of them write the character very neatly. In their books for the church fervice the capital letters are grotesquely made and ornamented, departing entirely from the antique and fimple form.

Without entering into too wide a digreffion, I fhall remark only the different powers given to letters which in the combination of fyllables produce a found fo different from that which we have been accustomed to hear given them.

"B, connected with fyllables, is pronounced as our v, and is expreffed by the modern Greeks by a after a : Braidais, vafilifs—aumores, ambotes.

"A and, as the hard or foft th of the English: dev, then. Mr. Knight, in his ingenious treatise entitled An Analytical Effay on the Greek Alphabet,' 4to. 1791, obferves, that the ancient manner of pronouncing 0, was indifputably that which is • ftill preserved by the modern Greeks, the Copts, and the English, that is, by a con• Arained aspiration between the tongue and upper teeth. All the other European nations pronounce it as a mute confonant, and throw the afpiration on the next 'fucceeding vowel.' P. 13. A is fyllabically formed by after : warra, panda. "E has a found of frequent recurrence, and with a certain nicety of articulation is Expreffed indiscriminately with the diphthongs & and o: which mode seems to have been adopted from the French. It has a broad tone, as e in éire, or our a in fate. " for f, as in philofophy-the diphthong av is univerfally áv, as auros, autos. "I has a foft tone between the g and y of the English; as Пlavayia, Panagia. Two are ng, as in the ancient Ayyados.

αν

"I medial as ee, and final as y in humanity.

"K incipient as with us. X incipient very guttural.

"N final is generally quiefcent, and when preceded by two vowels, the latter is likewife funk: ro vipav, to nero-To xpassou, to krafy.

TO

"Q and are used indifcriminately. The double as is the diphthong ov, as in the French.

"II after is b, and before f, as ara, efta.

"T. ncipient, medial, or final, as ee.

"H and the diphthong have likewise the same sound.

"Or has the force of oui in French, and corresponds with the English w.

"As a mechanical mode of facilitating pronunciation, the following management of the organs of fpeech is recommended, as tending to the acquirement of thofe founds which are most frequent in the Romeïka.

"X, x before a confonant, as in xpieros, is beft pronounced by drawing the tongue to the throat, and holding it fufpended under the palate with the lips a little open. "Aas dth, which is effected by forcing the tongue againft the upper row of teeth. "I incipient as gh, more gutturally than in English.

"fofter than A, which found is produced by placing the point of the tongue between the teeth, almost closed with a kind of hiffing.

"But perfection must depend upon an accurate ear, colloquial facility, and long practice.

Thomas,

Thomas, a capuchin of Paris, compofed another; and Spon has affixed to his voyage a meagre vocabulary, which he calls Petit Dictionaire.' Mavro Kordato's 'Lexi'con' (as I have before obferved) contains the moft fyftematic analyfis. There are grammars extant of Romeïka, French and Italian, for the ufe of the natives who acquire thofe languages. That of Benardino Pianzola, of Turkish, Romeïka, and Italian, printed in the Roman character, is that in moft general acceptation.

«With no pretenfions to philological accuracy, I offer a fummary sketch, noticing the leading difcriminations, from claffical Greek, and its analogy to the Italian and French,in grammatical conftruction.

"ARTICLES. The modern Greeks retain the articles o, n, to, as used by the ancients, which are conftantly prefixed to nouns, as demonftrative of genders, of which the neuter is admitted as one. Plurals feminine are made by the article a and the ancient dative, as a nespass days.

"Nouns are declined by articles, prepofitions, and inflections, Nouns mafculine and feminine have univerfally but three different terminations in both numbers, and the heuter but two only. There are five declenfions arranged according to the termination of the nominative cafe.

"ADJECTIVES are always prefixed to nouns, as in Englith, excepting by the intervention of a verb, and are declinable with articles peculiar to the three genders. There are likewife five declenfions.

"COMPARATIVES and SUPERLATIVES change the pofitive as the ancients-σos, copotegos, σoporaTo, adding likewife the prepofitions wapa and awoj o avowwos

6

σοφότατος παρά τις άλλες, αιετ wife man.

"DIMINUTIVES are much ufed in converfation, by the modern Greeks as by the Italians. They join s and ax to mafculine or neuter nouns, and and she to feminine; as, avopañoædi, wäiòaxı," a little man-a little boy: 4ıxd¤, xopita, a little foul-a little girl; but especially to proper names, as Пergaxi, Hoita.

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PRONOUNS. The genitives of pronouns perfonal are always added to nouns: πατήρμό, πατήστε, πατέρα της, πατήρμας, πατήρσας, πατήρτα my, his, her, our, your, their father.

"Perfonal relatives are declinable, and the others are fupplied by the invariable pronoun os. There are likewife demonftratives and interrogatives, &c. as in the ancient Greek.

"VERBS. There are four kinds: derivative; auxiliary, I am, 9w, I will, and ex, I have, which form the tenfes of the other; and anomalous, or imperfonal, which are but few.

"The derivative verbs are active, paffive, and deponent only, and are divided into two claffes, barytone and circumflex, the former of which have the accent placed on the last fyllable but one, as y, ¿‡x, I write; and in the paffive on the laft fyllable but two, as your, I am written. The latter are accentuated on the final fyllable, as ayaw, I love; and in the paffive on the laft but one, as ayauai, I am loved. The difference of conjugations is determined by the firft perfon prefent and the first perfon perfect of the indicative mood. The barytones have four and the circumflex three conjugations.

"There is no infinitive mood, from which tenfes in other lan guages are deduced; but the poten tial with a conjunction is substituted,

as

as aypapu, to write. The active participle resembles the Italian gerund —pa forras, writing; and the paffive is pure Greek-ypaçoμivos, written.

"ADVERBS are moftly determined by a waxa, very well. "PREPOSITIONS all govern an accufative cafe.

"Thefe flight obfervations may

communicate, merely as a matter of curiofity, fome idea of the structure of a language upon which the character of barbarifm has been often fixed with lefs juftice than that of fyftem and refinement upon the Italian and Spanish. The deviations from the original tongues have fprung from the fame caufes, and are nearly equal."

On the LATIN TERMS ufed in NATURAL HISTORY, by the REV. JOHN BRAND, A. M. &c.

[From the third Volume of the TRANSACTIONS of the LINNEAN SOCIETY.]

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THE 'HE Latin has been adopted as the language of natural hiftory; but the latinity of the natural hiftorians has undergone no finall cenfure.

"By the adoption of the Latin as the common language of the science, in the degree in which it obtains, new difcoveries in it are propagated with great facility. Other branches of philofophy have not had the fame good fortune; and every European nation is become philofophical: and thus, as Monf. D'Alembert has obferved, ⚫he who devotes himself to the cultivation of any one of them, if he would keep his knowledge up to the level of its ftate, is reduced to the neceflity of flinging away a very valuable part of his life, in acquiring feven or eight languages.

"But the latinity of the terms in which natural history is written, has been cenfured: upon this charge the following remarks may be made.

"Such terms must be either primitives or derivatives; now either of these may be barbarifms, when not found in any good Latin au

thor; or improprieties (verba impropria, Quint.), when, though fo found, they are not to be found ufed in the fame fenfe. This must be admitted: but it is here contended, that it does not on this account alone follow that they are fo. This is proved from the practice of the ancient grammarians in the invention of technical terms, in conjunction with the authority of Tully.

"First, the ufe of a Latin primitive or derivative, in a fenfe in which it does not occur in any pure Roman writer, is not neceffarily an impropriety, technically fo called; for if a confiderable variation from fuch an established fenfe were fo, the very grammatical terms of the Roman writers would fall under that cenfure, as for instance (articulus) an article, (verbum) a verb. When these terins were first used by grammarians, there was a great variation from their pre-established fenfe, and their priinary fignifications-a joint, a word.

"It is likewife certain, that if grammar had not been reduced into an art among the Romans, these

terms

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