By A. T. Robertson
THE HISTORICAL METHODI. Language as History. The scientific grammar is at bottom a grammatical history, and not a linguistic law-book. The seat of authority in language is therefore not the books about language, but the people who use the language. The majority of well-educated people determine correct usage (the mos loquendi as Horace says). Even modern dictionaries merely record from time to time the changing phenomena of language. Wolff was right when he conceived of philology as the "biography of a nation." The life of a people is expressed in the speech which they use.1 We can well agree with Benfey2 that "speech is the truest picture of the soul of a people, the content of all that which has brought a people to self-consciousness." However, we must not think that we can necessarily argue race from language.3 The historical conception of grammar has had to win its way against the purely theoretical and speculative notion. Etymology was the work of the philosophers. The study of the forms, the syntax, the dialects came later. The work of the Alexandrians was originally philology, not scientific grammar.4 (a) COMBINING THE VARIOUS ELEMENTS. It is not indeed easy to combine properly the various elements in the study of language. Sayce considers Steinthal too psychological and Schleicher too physical.5 The historical element must be added to both. Paul6 objects to the phrase "philosophy of language" as suggesting "metaphysical speculations of which the historical investigation of language needs to take no count." He prefers the term "science of principles." The study of language is a true science, a real philosophy, with a psychical as well as a physical basis. It is properly related to the historical natural sciences which have been subject "to the misdirected attempt at excluding them from the circle of the sciences of culture."7 Language is capable of almost perfect scientific treatment. Kretschmer8 outlines as modern advances over ancient grammar the psychological treatment of language, the physiology of sound, the use of the comparative method, the historical development of the language, the recognition of speech as a product of human culture, and not to be separated from the history of culture, world-history and life of the peoples. He thinks that no language has yet received such treatment as this, for present-day handbooks are only "speechpictures," not "speech-histories." (b) PRACTICAL GRAMMAR A COMPROMISE. Historical practical grammars have to make a compromise. They can give the whole view only in outline and show development and interrelation in part. It is not possible then to write the final grammar of Greek either ancient or modern. The modern is constantly changing and we are ever learning more of the old. What was true of Mistriotes9 and Jannaris10 will be true of the attempts of all. But none the less the way to study Greek is to look at it as a history of the speech-development of one of the greatest of peoples. But it is at least possible now to have the right attitude, thanks to the books already mentioned and others by Bernhardy,11 Christ,12 Wundt,13 Johannsen,14 Krumbacher,15 Schanz,16 G. Meyer,17 I. Miller,18 Hirt,19 Thumb,20 Dieterich,21 Steinthal.22 The Latin syntax received historical treatment by Landgraf,23 not to mention English and other modern languages. II. Language as a Living Organism. (a) THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. Speech is indeed a characteristic of man and may be considered a divine gift, however slowly the gift was won and developed by him.24 Sayce is undoubtedly correct in saying that language is a social creation and the effort to communicate is the only true solution of the riddle of speech, whether there was ever a speechless man or not. "Grammar has grown out of gesture and gesticulation."25 But speech has not created the capacities which mark the civilized man as higher than the savage.26 Max Muller remarks that "language forms an impassable barrier between man and beast." Growls and signs do not constitute "intellectual symbolism."27 Paul indeed, in opposition to Lazarus and Steinthal, urges that "every linguistic creation is always the work of a single individual only."28 The psychological organisms are in fact the true media of linguistic development. Self-observation and analogy help one to strike a general average and so make grammar practical as well as scientific. (b) EVOLUTION IN LANGUAGE. Growth, then, is to be expected in a living tongue. Change is inseparable from life. No language is dead so long as it is undergoing change, and this must be true in spoken and written usage. It is not the function of the grammarian to stop change in language, a thing impossible in itself. Such change is not usually cataclysmic, but gradual and varied. "A written language, to serve any practical purpose, must change with the times, just like a living dialect."29 In general, change in usage may be compared to change in organic structure in "greater or lesser fitness."30 The changes by analogy in the speech of children are very suggestive on this point. The vocabulary of the Greek tongue must therefore continually develop, for new ideas demand new words and new meanings come to old words. Likewise inflections vary in response to new movements. This change brings great wealth and variety. The idea of progress has seized the modern mind and has been applied to the study of language as to everything else. (c) CHANGE CHIEFLY IN THE VERNACULAR. Linguistic change
occurs chiefly in the vernacular. From the spoken language new
words and new inflections work their way gradually into the
written style, which is essentially conservative, sometimes even
anachronistic and purposely archaic. Much slang is finally
accepted
in the literary style. The study of grammar was originally
confined to the artificial book-style. Dionysius Thrax expressly
defined grammar as
e]mpeiri<a tw?n para> poihtai?j te kai> suggrafeu?sin
w[j e]pi> to> polu> legome<nwn.
It was with him a concern for the
poets and writers, not "die Sprache des Lebens."31
Grammar
(grammatikh<, gra<fw),
then, was first to write and to understand
what was written; then the scientific interpretation of this
literature;
later the study of literary linguistic usage. It is only the
moderns who have learned to investigate the living speech for
its own historical value. Before the discovery of the Greek
inscriptions
the distinction between the vernacular and the literary
style could not be so sharply drawn for the Greek of the
classical
period, though Aristophanes should have taught us much. We
have moved away from the position of Mure32
who said: "The
distinction between the language of letters and the vulgar
tongue,
so characteristic of modern civilization, is imperceptible or
but
little defined in the flourishing age of Greece. Numerous
peculiarities
in her social condition tended to constitute classical
expression
in speaking or writing, not, as with us, the privilege of a
few, but a public property in which every Hellene had an equal
interest." The people as a whole were wonderfully well educated,
but the educated classes themselves then, as now with us, used a
spoken as well as a literary style. Jannaris33
is clear on this point:
"But, speaking of Attic Greek, we must not infer that all
Athenians
and Atticized Greeks wrote and spoke the classical Attic
portrayed in the aforesaid literature, for this Attic is
essentially
what it still remains in modern Greek composition: a merely
historical
abstraction;
that is, an artistic
language which nobody
spoke but still everybody understood." We must note therefore
both the vernacular and the literary style and expect constant
change in each, though not in the same degree. Zarncke indeed
still sounds a note of warning against too much attention to the
vernacular; though a needless one.34
In the first century A.D. the
vernacular Greek was in common use all over the world, the
character
of which we can now accurately set forth. But this nonliterary
language was not necessarily the speech of the illiterate.
Mahaffy35 is very positive on this point. "I said
just now that
the Hellenistic world was more cultivated in argument than we
are nowadays. And if you think this is a strange assertion,
examine,
I pray you, the intellectual aspects of the Epistles of St.
Paul, the first Christian writer whom we know to have been
thoroughly
educated in this training. Remember that he was a practical
teacher, not likely to commit the fault of speaking over the
heads of his audience, as the phrase is." Hatzidakis36
laments that
the monuments of the Greek since the Alexandrian period are no
longer in the pure actual living speech of the time, but in the artificial Attic of a bygone age. The modern Greek vernacular is
a living tongue, but the modern literary language so proudly
called kaqareu<ousa
is artificial and unreal.37
This new conception
of language as life makes it no longer possible to set up the
Greek
of any one period as the standard for all time. The English
writer to-day who would use Hooker's style would be affected
and anachronistic. Good English to-day is not what it was two
hundred years ago, even with the help of printing and (part of
the time) dictionaries. What we wish to know is not what
was good Greek at Athens in the days of Pericles, but what was
good Greek in Syria and Palestine in the first century A.D. The
direct evidence for this must be sought among contemporaries,
not from ancestors in a distant land. It is the living Greek
that
we desire, not the dead.
III. Greek not an Isolated Language.
(a) THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR. Julius
Caesar, who wrote a work on grammar, had in mind Latin and
Greek, for
both were in constant use in the Roman world.38
Formal Sanskrit
grammar itself may have resulted from the comparison of Sanskrit
with the native dialects of India.39
Hence comparative
grammar seems to lie at the very heart of the science. It cannot
be said, however, that Painini, the great Sanskrit scholar and
grammarian of the fourth century B.C., received any impulse.
from the Greek civilization of Alexander the Great.40
The work
of Panini is one of the most remarkable in history for subtle
originality,
"une histoire naturelle de la langue sanscrite." The
Roman and Greek grammarians attended to the use of words
sentences, while the Sanskrit writers analyzed words into
syllables41
and studied the relation of sounds to each other. It is
not possible to state the period when linguistic comparison was
first made. Max Muller in
The Science of Language
even says:
"From an historical point of view it is not too much to say that
the first Day of Pentecost marks the real beginning of the
Science
of language." One must not think that the comparative method
is "more characteristic of the study of language than of other
branches of modern inquiry."42 The root idea
of the new grammar is the kinship of languages. Chinese grammar is said to be
one of the curiosities of the world, and some other grammatical works can be
regarded in that light. But our fundamental obligation is to the Hindu and Greek
grammarians.43
(b) THE COMMON BOND IN LANGUAGE. Prof. Alfredo Trombetti,
of Rome, has sought the connecting link in all human
speech.44 It is a gigantic task, but it is
doubtless true that all
speech is of ultimate common origin. The remote relationships
are very difficult to trace. As a working hypothesis the
comparative
grammarians speak of isolating, agglutinative and inflectional
languages. In the isolating tongues like the Chinese, Burmese,
etc., the words have no inflection and the position in the
sentence
and the tone in pronunciation are relied on for clearness
of meaning. Giles45
points out that modern English
and Persian
have nearly returned to the position of Chinese as isolating
languages.
Hence it is inferred that the Chinese has already gone
through a history similar to the English and is starting again
on
an inflectional career. Agglutinative tongues like the Turkish
express
the various grammatical relations by numerous separable
prefixes, infixes and suffixes. Inflectional languages have made
still further development, for while a distinction is made
between
the stem and the inflexional endings, the stems and the endings
do not exist apart from each other. There are two great families
in the inflexional group, the Semitic (the Assyrian, the Hebrew,
the Syriac, the Arabic, etc.) and the Indo-Germanic or
Indo-European
(the Indo-Iranian or Aryan, the Armenian, the Greek, the
Albanian, the Italic, the Celtic, the Germanic and the Balto-Slavic).46 Ind-European
also are Illyrian, Macedonian, Phrygian, Thracian and the newly-discovered
Tocharian. Some of these groups, like the Italic, the Germanic, the
Balto-Slavic, the Indo- Iranian, embrace a number of separate tongues which show
an inner affinity, but all the groups have a general family likeness.47
(c) THE ORIGINAL INDO-GERMANIC SPEECH. It is not claimed
that the original Indo-Germanic speech has been discovered,
though Kretschmer does speak of "die indogermanische Ursprache," but he
considers it only a necessary hypothesis and a useful definition for the early
speech-unity before the Indo-Germanic stock separated.48 Brugmann speaks also of the
original
and ground-speech (Ur-
and Grundsprache) in the
prehistoric background
of every member of the Indo-Germanic family.49
The
science of language has as a historic discipline the task of
investigating
the collective speech-development of the Indo-Germanic
peoples.50 Since Bopp's day this task is no longer
impossible. The
existence of an original Indo-Germanic speech is the working
hypothesis of all modern linguistic study. This demands indeed
a study of the Indo-Germanic people. Horatio Hale51
insists that
language is the only proper basis for the classification of
mankind.
But this test breaks down when Jews and Egyptians speak
Greek after Alexander's conquests or when the Irish and the
American Negro use English. The probable home and wanderings
of the original Indo-Germanic peoples are well discussed by
Kretschmer.52
It is undeniable that many of the
same roots exist
in slightly different forms in all or most of the Indo-Germanic
tongues. They are usually words that refer to the common
domestic
relations, elementary agriculture, the ordinary articles of
food, the elemental forces, the pronouns and the numerals. Inflexional
languages have two kinds of roots, predicative (nouns
and verbs) and pronominal. Panini found 1706 such roots in
Sanskrit, but Edgren has reduced the number of necessary
Sanskrit
roots to 587.53 But one must not suppose that
these hypothetical roots ever constituted a real language, though there was an
original Indo-Germanic tongue.54
(d) GREEK AS A " DIALECT" OF THE INDO-GERMANIC SPEECH.
Greek then can be regarded as one of the branches of this
original
Indo-Germanic speech, just as French is one of the descendants
of
the Latin,55
like Spanish, Portuguese,
Italian. Compare also the relation
of English to the other Teutonic tongues.56
To go further,
the separation of this original Indo-Germanic speech into
various
tongues was much like the breaking-up of the original Greek into
dialects and was due to natural causes. Dialectic variety itself
implies previous speech-unity.57
Greek has vital relations with
all
the branches of the Indo-Germanic tongues, though in varying
degrees. The Greek shows decided affinity with the Sanskrit, the
Latin and the Celtic58
languages. Part of the early
Greek stock
was probably Celtic. The Greek and the Latin flourished side by
side for centuries and had much common history. All the
comparative
grammars and the Greek grammars from this point of
view constantly compare the Greek with the Latin. See especially
the great work of Riemann and Goelzer,
Grammaire comparee
du Grec et du Latin.59
On the whole subject of the
relation of the
Greek with the various Indo-Germanic languages see the excellent
brief discussion of Kretschmer.60
But the hypothesis of an
original Graeco-Italic tongue cannot be considered as proved,
though there are many points of contact between Greek and
Latin.61 But Greek, as the next oldest branch
known to us,
shows more kinship with the Sanskrit. Constant use of the
Sanskrit
must be made by one who wishes to understand the
historical development of the Greek tongue. Such a work as
Whitney's
Sanskrit Grammar is very
useful for this purpose.
See also J. Wackernagel,
Altindische Grammatik.
I, Lautlehre
(1896). II, 62,
Einleitung zur Wortlehre
(1905). So Thumb's
Handbuch des Sanskrit.
I, Grammatik
(1905). Max Muller1
playfully remarks: "It has often been said that no one can know
anything of the science of language who does not know Sanskrit,
and that is enough to frighten anybody away from its study."
It is not quite so bad, however. Sanskrit is not the parent
stock
of the Greek, but the oldest member of the group. The age of
the Sanskrit makes it invaluable for the study of the later
speechdevelopments.
The Greek therefore is not an isolated tongue, but sustains
vital
relations with a great family of languages. So important does
Kretschmer consider this aspect of the subject that he devotes
his notable
Einleitung in die Geschichte
der griechischen Sprache
to the setting forth of "the prehistoric beginnings of the Greek
speech-development."63 This effort is, of
necessity, fragmentary and partly inferential, but most valuable for a
scientific treatment of the Greek language. He has a luminous discussion of the
effect of the Thracian and Phrygian stocks upon the Greek when the language
spread over Asia Minor.64
IV. Looking at the Greek Language as a Whole.
We cannot
indeed make an exhaustive study of the entire Greek language in
a book that is professedly concerned only with one epoch of that
history. As a matter of fact no such work exists. Jannaris65
indeed
said that "an ‘historical’ grammar, tracing in a connected
manner the life of the Greek language from classical antiquity
to
the present time, has not been written nor even seriously
attempted
as yet." Jannaris himself felt his limitations when he
faced so gigantic a task and found it necessary to rest his work
upon the classical Attic as the only practical basis.66
But so far he departed from the pure historical method. But such a grammar
will come some day.
(a) DESCRIPTIVE HISTORICAL GRAMMAR. Meanwhile descriptive
historical grammar is possible and necessary. "Descriptive
grammar
has to register the grammatical forms and grammatical conditions
in use at a given date within a certain community speaking
a common language."67
There is this justification for
taking
Attic as the standard for classical study; only the true
historical
perspective should be given and Attic should not be taught as
the only real Greek. It is possible and essential then to
correlate
the N. T. Greek with all other Greek and to use all Greek to
throw light on the stage of the language under review. If the
Greek itself is not an isolated tongue, no one stage of the
language
can be so regarded. "Wolff68
deprecates the restriction of
grammar to a set of rules abstracted from the writings of a
‘golden’ period, while in reality it should comprise the whole
history
of a language and trace its development." H. C. Muller69
indeed thought that the time had not arrived for a grammar of
Greek on the historical plan, because it must rest on a greater
amount of material than is now at hand. But since then a vast
amount of new material has come to light in the form of papyri,
inscriptions and research in the modern Greek. Miller's own
book has added no little to our knowledge of the subject.
Meanwhile
we can use the historical material for the study of N. T.
Greek.
(b) UNITY OE THE GREEK LANGUAGE. At the risk of slight
repetition
it is worth while to emphasize this point. Muller70
is apologetic
and eager to show that "the Greek language and literature
is one organic, coherent whole." The dialectical variations,
while
confusing to a Certain extent, do not show that the Greek did
not
possess original and continuous unity. As early as 1000 B.C.
these
dialectical distinctions probably existed and the speech of
Homer
is a literary dialect, not the folk-speech.71
The original sources of the Greek speech go back to a far distant time when as one
single
language an Asiatic idiom had taken Europe in its circle of
influence.
72 The translator
of Buttmann's Greek
Grammar speaks
of Homer "almost as the work of another language." This was
once a common opinion for all Greek that was not classic Attic.
But Thiersch entitled his great work
Griechische Grammatik
vorzuglich
des homerischen Dialekts,
not simply because of the worth
of Homer, "but because, on the contrary, a thorough knowledge
of the Homeric dialect is indispensably necessary for those who
desire to comprehend, in their whole depth and compass, the
Grecian tongue and literature."73
But Homer is not the gauge by
which to test Greek; his poems are invaluable testimony to the
early history of one stage of the language. It is a pity that we
know so little of the pre-Homeric history of Greek. "Homer
presents
not a starting-point, but a culmination, a complete achievement,
an almost mechanical accomplishment, with scarcely a
hint of
origins."74
But whenever Greek began it has
persisted as a
linguistic unit till now. It is one language whether we read the
Epic Homer, the Doric Pindar, the Ionic Herodotus, the Attic
Xenophon, the AEolic Sappho, the Atticistic Plutarch, Paul the
exponent of Christ, an inscription in Pergamus, a papyrus letter
in Egypt, Tricoupis or Vlachos in the modern time. None of
these representatives can be regarded as excrescences or
impertinences.
There have always been uneducated persons, but the
Greek tongue has had a continuous, though checkered, history all
the way. The modern educated Greek has a keen appreciation of
"die Schonheiten der klassischen Sprache."75
Muller76
complained
that "almost no grammarians have treated the Greek language
as a whole," but the works of Krumbacher, Thumb, Dieterich,
Hatzidakis, Psichari, Jannaris, etc., have made it possible to
obtain
a general survey of the Greek language up to the present
time. Like English,77
Greek has emerged into a new
sphere of
unity and consistent growth.
(c) PERIODS OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE. It will be of service to
present a brief outline of the history of the Greek tongue. And
yet it is not easy to give. See the discussion by Sophocles in
his
Greek Lexicon
(p. 11f.), inadequate in view of recent
discoveries
by Schliemann and Evans. The following is a tentative outline:
The Mycenaean Age, 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C.; the Age of the
Dialects,
1000 B.C. to 300 B.C.; the Age of the
Koinh<,
300 B.C. to 330
A.D.; the Byzantine Greek, 330 A.D. to 1453 A.D.; the modern
Greek, 1453 A.D. to the present time. The early stage of the
Byzantine Greek up to 600 A.D.) is really
koinh<
and the rest is
modern Greek. See a different outline by Jannaris78
and Hadley
and Allen.79
As a matter of fact any division
is arbitrary, for
the language has had an unbroken history, though there are
these general epoc is in that history. We can no longer call the
pre-Homeric time mythical as Sophocles does.80
In naming this
the Mycenaean age we do not wish to state positively that the Mycenaeans were Greeks and spoke Greek. "Of their speech we
have yet to read the first syllable."81
Tsountas82
and Manatt, however, venture to believe that they were either Greeks or of the
same stock. They use the term "to designate all Greek peoples who share in the
Mycenaean civilization, irrespective of their habitat."83 Ohnefalsch-Richter (Cont.
Rev.,
Dec., 1912,
p. 862) claims Cyprus as the purveyor of culture to the Creto-Mycenan age. He claims that Hellenes lived in Cyprus 1200 to
1000 B.C. The Mycenaean influence was wide-spread and comes
"down to the very dawn of historical Greece."84
That Greek was
known and used widely during the Mycenaean age the researches
of Evans at Knossos, in Crete, make clear.85
The early linear writing of the Cretans came from a still earlier pictograph. The
Greek dialects emerge into light from about 1000 B.C. onward and
culminate in the Attic which flourished till the work of
Alexander
is done. The Homeric poems prove that Greek was an old language
by 1000 to 800 B.C. The dialects certainly have their roots deep
in the Mycenaean age. Roughly, 300 B.C. is the time when the
Greek has become the universal language of the world, a
Weltsprache.
330 A.D. is the date when the seat of government was removed
from Rome to Constantinople, while A.D. 1453 is the date
when Constantinople was captured by the Turks. With all the
changes in this long history the standards of classicity have
not
varied greatly from Homer till now in the written style, while
the Greek vernacular to-day is remarkably like the earliest
known
inscriptions of the folk-speech in Greece.86
We know something
of this history for about 3000 years, and it is at least a
thousand
years longer. Mahaffy has too poor an idea of modern Greek, but even he can
say: "Even in our miserable modern pigeon- Greek, which represents no real
pronunciation, either ancient or modern, the lyrics of Sophocles or Aristophanes
are unmistakably lovely."87
(d) MODERN GREEK IN PARTICULAR. It is important to single out
the modern Greek vernacular88
from the rest of the language for
the obvious reason that it is the abiding witness to the
perpetuity
of the vernacular Greek as a living organism. It is a witness
also that is at our service always. The modern Greek popular
speech does not differ materially from the vernacular Byzantine,
and thus connects directly with the vernacular
koinh<.
Alexandria
was "the great culture-reservoir of the Greek-Oriental world . .
.
the repository of the ancient literary treasures."89
With this
V. The Greek Point of View.
It sounds like a truism to
insist that the Greek idiom must be explained from the Greek
point of view. But none the less the caution is not superfluous.
Trained linguists may forget it and so commit a grammatical
vice. Even Winer102
will be found saying, for
instance: "Appellatives
which, as expressing definite objects, should naturally have the article, are in certain cases used without it." That
"should" has the wrong attitude toward Greek. The appellative
in Greek does not need to have the article in order to be
definite. So when Winer often admits that one tense is used
"for" another, he is really thinking of German and how it would
be expressed in German. Each tongue has its own history and
genius. Parallel idioms may or may not exist in a group of
languages.
Sanskrit and Latin, for instance, have no article. It is
not possible to parallel the Hebrew tenses, for example, with
the
Greek, nor, indeed, can it be done as between Greek and English.
The English translation of a Greek aorist may have to be in the
past perfect or the present perfect to suit the English usage,
but
that proves nothing as to how a Greek regarded the aorist tense.
We must assume in a language that a good writer knew how to
use his own tongue and said what he meant to say. Good Greek
may be very poor English, as when Luke uses
e]n t&? ei]sagagei?n tou>j
gonei?j to> paidi<on ]Ihsou?n
(Lu. 2:27). A literal translation of
this
neat Greek idiom makes barbarous English. The Greeks simply
did not look at this clause as we do. "One of the commonest and
gravest errors in studying the grammar of foreign languages is
to make a half-conjectural translation, and then reason back
from our own language to the meaning of the original; or to
explain
some idiom of the original by the formally different idiom
which is our substantial equivalent."103
Broadus was the greatest
teacher of language that I have known and he has said nothing
truer than this. After all, an educated Greek knew what he
meant better than we do. It is indeed a great and difficult task
that is demanded of the Greek grammarian who to-day undertakes
to present a living picture of the orderly development of
the Greek tongue "zu einem schonert and grorren Ganzen” and
also show "in the most beautiful light the flower of the Greek
spirit and life.”104
Deissmann105
feels strongly on the subject of
the
neglect of the literary development of Primitive Christianity,
"a subject which has not yet been recognized by many persons in its full
importance. Huge as is the library of books that have been written on the origin
of the N. T. and of its separate parts, the N. T. has not often been studied by
historians of literature; that is to say, as a branch of the history of ancient
literature."
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1. See Oertel, Lect. on the Study of Lang., 1902, p. 9 f. 2. Kleinere Schr., 1892, 2. Bd., 4. Abt., p. 51. 3. See Sayce, Prin. of Comp. Philol., 1875, p. 175 4. See Kretschmer, Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, pp. 2, 3. 5. Prin. of Comp. Philol., p. xvi. 6. Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., 1888, p. xxi. "The truth is that the science of which we are thinking is philosophy in the same way as physics or physiology is philosophy, neither more, nor less." 7. Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., 1888, p. xxvii. See Von Ulrich's Grundl. und Gesch. der Philol., 1892, p. 22: " Zu der wissenschaftlichen Grammatik gesellt sich die historische Betrachtung. Sie unterscheidet die Periodisierung der Satze von deren loser Verknupfung, die wechselnde Bedeutung der Partikeln, den Gebrauch der Modi und Tempora, die erfahrungsmassig festgestellten Regeln der Syntax, den Sprachgebrauch der Schriftsteller." On the scientific study of the Gk. language sketched historically see Wackernagel, Die Kult. der Gegenw., Tl. I, Abt. 8, pp. 314-316. 8. Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., pp. 3-5. He himself here merely outlines the historical background of the Gk. language. 9. "Kata> tau?ta loipo>n h[ grammatologi<a de>n ei#nai ou#te a]migh>j i[storikh<, ou#te a]migh>j ai]sqhtikh> e]pisth<mh a]lla> mete<xei a]mfote<rwn.” [Ellhnikh> Grammatologi<a, 1894, p. 6. "As a matter of course, I do not presume to have said the last word on all or most of these points, seeing that, even in the case of modern Gk., I cannot be expected to master, in all its details, the entire vocabulary and grammar of every single Neohellenic dialect." Hist. Gk. Gr., 1897, p. X.11. Wissensch. Synt. der griech. Spr., 1829. 12. Gesch. der griech. Lit., 1893. 13. Volkerpsychol., 1900, 3. Aufl., 1911 f. 14. Beitr. zur griech. Sprachk., 1890. 15. Beitr. zu einer Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1885. 16. Beitr. zur hist. Synt. der griech. Spr., Bd. I–XVII. 17. Ess. und Stud. zur Sprachgesch. und Volksk., Bd. I, II, 1885, 1893. 18. Handb. der Altertumswiss. He edits the series (1890—). 19. Handb. deal griech. Laut- und Formenl. Eine Einfuhr. in das sprachwiss. Stud. des Griech., 1902, 2. Aufl., 1912. 20. Die griech. Spr. im Zeitaltcr des Hellen., 1901. 21. Untersuch. zur Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1898. 22. Gesch. der Sprachwiss. bei den Griech. und Rom., Tl. I, II, 1891. 23. Hist. Gr. der lat. Spr., 1903. Cf. Stolz und Schmalz, Lat. Gr., 4. Aufl., 1910; Draeger, Hist. Synt. der lat. Spr., Bd. I, II, 1878, 1881; Lindsay, The Lat. Lang., 1894. In Bd. III of Landgraf's Gr., Golling says (p. 2) that Latin Grammar as a study is due to the Stoics who did it "in der engsten Verbindung mit der Logik." Cf. origin of Gk. Gr. 24. See Whitney, Lang. and the Study of Lang., 1868, p. 399. 25. Sayce, Intr. to the Sci. of Lang., vol. II, p. 301. 26. Whitney, Darwinism and Lang., Reprint from North Am. Rev., July, 1874. 27. Three Lect. on the Sci. of Lang., 1891, p. 9. See also The Silesian Horseherd: "Language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is as yet no idea." Many of the writers on animals do not accept this doctrine. 28. Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., p. xliii. Paul, Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., p. 481. Ib., p. 13. Kuhner speaks of "das organische Leben der Sprache" and of "ein klares, anschauliches und lebensvolles Bild des grossen und kraftig bluhenden Sprachbaums." Ausfuhrl. Gr. der griech. Spr., 1. Bd., 1890, p. Kretschmer, Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, pp. 3-5.32. A Crit. Hist. of the Lang. and Lit. of Anc. Greece, 1850, vol. I, p. 117. 33. Op.
cit., 1897, p. 3 f.
34. Die Entst. der
griech. Literaturspr., 1890, p. 2: "Denn man liefe Gefahr,
den Charakter der Literaturdenkmaler ganzlich zu zerstoren,
indem man,
ihre eigenartige Gestaltung verkennend, sie nach den Normen
einer gesprochenen
Mundart corrigirt." But see Lottich, De Serm. vulg. Att., 1881;
and
Apostolides,
op. cit.
35. Prog. of
Hellen. in Alex. Emp., 1905, p. 137.
36. Einleitung, p.
3.
37. "Eine
Literatursprache ist nie eine Art Normalsprache." Schwyzer,
Weltspr. des Altert., 1902, p. 12.
38. King, Intr. to
Comp. Gr., p. 2.
39. Sayce, Prin. of
Comp. Philol., p. 261.
40. Goblet
d'Alviella, Ce que 1'Inde doit a la Grece, 1897, p. 129.
41. King,
op. cit.,
p. 2 f. "The method of comparative grammar is merely
auxiliary to historical grammar," Wheeler, Whence and Whither of
the
Mod. Sci. of Lang., p. 96.
42. Whitney, Life
and Growth of Lang., 1875—, p. 315.
43. F. Hoffmann, Uber die Entwickel. des Begriffs der Gr. bei den Alten,
1891, p. 1.
44. See his book,
The Unity of Origin of Lang. Dr. Allison Drake, Disc. in
Heb., Gaelic, Gothic, Anglo-Sax., Lat., Basque and other Caucasic Lang.,
1908, undertakes to show "fundamental kinship of the Aryan
tongues and
of Basque with the Semitic tongues."
45. Man. of Comp. Philol., 1901, p. 36.
46. Brugmann, Kurze
vergl. Or. der indoger. Spr., 1. Lief., 1902, p. 4.
47. See Misteli,
Characteristik der hauptsachlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues, 1893. For further literature on comparative grammar see
pp. 10 ff.
of this book. There is an English translation of Brugmann's Bde.
I and II
called Elements of the Comp. Gr. of the Indo-Ger. Lang., 5
vols., 1886-97.
But his Kurze vergl. Gr. (1902-4) is the handiest edition.
Meillet (Intr.
l'Etude Comp. etc., pp. 441-455) has a discriminating discussion
of the literature.
48. Einl. in die
Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, pp. 7-9.
49. Kurze vergl.
Gr., 1. Lief., 1902, p. 3.
50. Ib., p. 27.
51. Pop. Sci. Rev.,
Jan., 1888.
52. Einl. in die
Gesch. etc., pp. 7-92.
53. See Max Muller,
Three Lect. on the Sci. of Lang., 1891, p. 29.
54. Sayce, Prin. of
Comp. 1875, p. vi.
55. See
Meyer-Ltibke, Gr. der rom. Spr., 3 Bde., 1890, 1894, 1899.
56. See Hirt,
Handb. der griech. Laut- and Formenl., 2d ed., 1912, p. 13.
Cf. Donaldson, New Crat., p. 112 (Ethn. Affin. of the Anc.
Greeks).
57. Whitney, Lang.
and the Study of Lang., 1868, p. 185. See Brugmann,
Griech. Gr., p. 5: "Die griechische, lateinische, indische
u.s.w. Grammatik
sind die konstitutiven Teile der indogermanischen Grammatik in
gleicher
Weise, wie z. B. die dorische, die ionische u.s.w. Grammatik die
griechische
Grammatik ausmachen."
58. See Holder, Altcelt. Sprachsch., 1891 ff.
59. Synt., 1897.
Phonet. et Et. des Formes Grq. et Lat., 1901.
60. Einl. in die
Cesch. der griech. Spr., pp. 153-170.
61. Prof. B. L. Gildersleeve, Johns Hopkins Univ., has always taught Greek,
but his Latin Grammar shows his fondness for Latin. See also
Henry, A
Short Comp. Gr. of Gk. and Lat., 1890, and A Short Comp. Gr. of
Eng. and
Ger., 1893.
62. Three Lect. on
the Sci. of Lang., 1891, p. 72.
63. P. 5. Prof.
Burrows (Disc. in Crete, 1907, pp. 145 ff.) raises the question
whether the Greek race (a blend of northern and southern
elements) made
the Gk. language out of a pre-existing Indo-European tongue. Or
did the
northerners bring the Gk. with them? Or did they find it already
in the AEgean? It is easier to ask than to answer these questions.
64. See pp.
171-243.
65. Hist. Gk. Gr., 1897, p. v.
66. Ib., p. xi.
Thumb says: "Wir sind noch sehr weit von einer Geschichte
oder historischen Grammatik der griechischen Sprache entfernt;
der Versuch
von Jannaris, so dankenswert er ist, kann doch nur provisorische
Geltung
beanspruchen, wobei man mehr die gute Absicht and den Fleiss als
das
sprachgeschichtliche Verstandnis des Verfassers loben muss." Die
griech.
Spr., etc., 1901, p. 1. Cf. also Krumbacher, Beitr. zu einer
Gesch. der griech.
Spr. (1884, p. 4): "Eine zusammenhangende Darstellung des
Entwickelungsganges
der griechischen Sprache ist gegenwartig nicht moglich." But it
is
more possible now than in 1884.
67. Paul, Prin. o
the Hist. of Lang., 1888, p. 2.
68. Oertel, Lect.
bn the Study of Lang., 1902, p. 27. Thumb (Theol. Literaturzeit.,
1903, p. 424) expresses the hope that in a future edition of his
Gr.
des N. T., Blass may do this for his book: "Die Sprache des N.
T. auf dem
grossen Hintergrund der hellenistischen Sprachentwicklung
beschreiben zu
konnen."
69. Hist. Gr. der hell. Spr., 1891, p. 14 f.
70. Ib., p. 16. Op
"die griechische Sprache als Einheit" see Thumb's able
discussion in Handb. d. griech. Dial. (pp. 1-12). With all the
diversity of
dialects there was essential unity in comparison with other
tongues.
71. Brugmann,
Vergl. Gr., 1902, p. 8.
72. Kretschmer,
Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, p. 6. On the unmixed
character of the Gk. tongue see Wackernagel, Die griech. Spr.,
p. 294,
Tl. I, Abt. 8 (Die Kult. der Gegenw.). On the antiquity of Gk.
see p. 292 f.
73. Sandford, Pref.
to Thiersch's Gk. Gr., 1830, p. viii.
74. Miss Harrison, Prol. to the Study of Gk. Rel., 1903, p. vii.
75. Hatzidakis,
Einl. in die neugr. Gr., 1892, p. 4.
76. Hist. Gr. der
hell. Spr., 1891, p. 2.
77. See John Koch,
Eng. Gr., for an admirable bibliography of works on Eng.
(in Ergeb. and Fortschr. der germanist. Wiss. im letzten
Vierteljahrh., 1902,
pp. 89-138, 325-437). The Germans have taught us how to study
English!
78. Hist. Gk. Gr.,
p. xxii. Cf. also Schuckburgh, Greece, 1906, p. 24 f.
Moulton (Prol., p. 184) counts 32 centuries of the Gk. language
from 1275
B.C., the date of the mention of the Achmans on an Egyptian
monument.
79. Gk. Gr., 1885,
p. 1f. Deissmann indeed would have only three divisions,
the Dialects up to 301 B.C., Middle Period up to 600 A.D., and
Mod. Gk. up
to the present time. Hauck's Realencyc., 1889, p. 630. Cf.
Muller, Hist.
Gr. der hell. Spr., 189 , pp. 42-62, for another outline.
80. Gk. Lex., etc.,
p. 11.
81. Tsountas and
Manatt, The Mycenaean Age, 1897, p. 316.
82. Ib., p. 335 ff.
83. Ib., p. 235.
84. Ib., p. 325.
See also Beloch, Griech. Gesch., I., 85: "Auch sonst kann
kein Zweif el sein, dass die mykendische Kultur in Griechenland
bis in das
VIII. Jahrhundert geherrscht." Flinders-Petrie (Jour. of Hell.
Stud., xii,
204) speaks of 1100 to 800 B.C. as the "age of Mycenaean
decadence."
85. Cretan
Pictographs and Pre-Phoenician Script, 1895, p. 362; cf. also Jour. of Hell. Stud., xiv, 270-372. See Jannaris, Hist. Gk. Gr.,
p. 22, for further
proofs of the antiquity of Gk. as a written tongue. Mosso
(Palaces of
Crete, 1907, p. 73 f.) argues that the Mycenaean linear script
was used 1900
B.C. Cf. Evans, Further Researches, 1898.
86. Brugmann,
Griech. Gr., p. 13. See also Hatzidakis, Einl. in die neugr.
Gr., 1892, p. 3.
87. Survey of Gk. Civiliz., 1896, p. 209. Cf. further Mosso, Dawn of Civiliz.
in Crete, 1910; Baike, Kings of Crete, 1910; Firmen, Zeit und
Dauer der
kretisch- myken. Kult., 1909.
88. The modern
literary language (kaqareu<ousa)
is really more identical with
the ancient classical Gk. But it is identity secured by
mummifying the dead.
It is identity of imitation, not identity of life. Cf.
Thumb-Angus, Handb. of
Mod. Gk. Vern., Foreword (p. xi f.).
90. "Die heutige griechische Volkssprache ist die nattirliche Fortsetzung der alten Koinh<." Die neugr. Spr., 1892, p. 8. See Heilmeier's book on the Romaic Gk. (1834), who first saw this connection between the mod. vern. and the vern. koinh<.
91.
Transl. by J.
H. Moulton in Gr. of N. T. Gk., 1906 and 1908, p. 30, from
Rev. des Et. Grq., 1903, p. 220. Cf. Krumbacher, Das Prob. der
neugr.
Scluiftspr., 1902.
92. Einl. in die drei ersten Evang., 1905,
p. 9.
94. Thumb, Handb.
der neugr. Volkspr., 1895, p. x.
95. Roger Bacon's
Gk. Gr., edited by Nolan and Hirsch, 1902, p. lx f.
96. Ib., p. xlii.
97. Hell. die
internat. Gelehrtenspr. der Zukunft, 1888. Likewise A. Rose:
"Die griechische Sprache . . . hat . . . eine glanzende Zukunft
vor sich."
Die Griechen and ihre Spr., 1890, p. 4. He pleads for it as a
"Weltsprache,"
p. 271. But Schwyzer pointedly says: "Die Rolle einer
Weltsprache wird
das Griechische nicht wieder spielen." Weltspr. des Altert.,
1902, p. 38. Cf.
also A. Bolt; Die hell. Spr. der Gegenw., 1882, and Gk. the Gen.
Lang. of
the Future for Scholars.
98. Cf. J. C.
O'Connor, Esperanto Text-book, and Eng.-Esper. Dict.
99. Jebb, On the
Rela. of Mod. to Class. Gk., in Vincent ands Dickson's
Handb. to Mod. Gk., 1887, p. 294. Blass actually says: "Der
Sprachgebrauch
des Neuen Testaments, der vielfaltig vom Neugriechischen her
eine
viel bessere Beleuchtung empfangt als aus der alten klassischen
Literatur."
Kuhner's Ausf. Gr. etc., 1890, p. 25. Blass also says (ib., p.
26) that "eine
wissenschaftliche neugriechische Grammatik fehlt." But
Hatzidakis and
others have written since.
100. See Reinhold,
De Graecitate Patrum, 1898.
101. Jebb, ib., p.
290.
102. Gr. of the N.
T. Gk., Moulton's transl., 1877, p. 147.
103. Broadus, Comm.
on Mt., 1886, p. 316. See also Gerber, Die Spr. als
Kunst, 1. Bd., 18'1, p. 321: "Der ganze Charakter dieser oder
jener Sprache
ist der Abdruck der Natur des Landes, wo sie gesprochen wird.
Die griechische
Sprache ist der griechische Himmel selbst mit seiner tiefdunklen
Blaue,
die sick in dem sanft wogenden agaischen Meere spiegelt."
104. Kuhner, Aus Gr.
der griech. Spr., 1834, p. iv. How much more so
now!
105. Expos. Time ,
Dec., 1906, p. 103. Cf. also F. Overbeck, Hist. Zeitschr.,
neue Folge, 1882, p. 429 ff.
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