without some knowledge of the dialect in which they are written. Who, for instance, can fully enjoy the native humour of BURNS or SCOTT without a knowledge of the Scottish tongue; or the charming simplicity of THEOCRITUS, if not conversant with the Doric? Even in matters of much higher import a knowledge of dialectic peculiarities may help to resolve important questions, such as that raised on the text, ἀφέωνταί σοι ἁι ἁμαρτίαι σε : “ Thy sins be forgiven thee” where some learned men have contended that ȧpéwvraι was to be understood as of the optative mood; whilst others more reasonably state apέwvraι, in the Attic dialect, to be used for åpɛīvтaι the perfect of the indicative mood. 49. Dismissing, for the present, the question how many of the known systems of speech, ancient or modern, ought to be regarded as standard Languages, in the sense above explained, I shall proceed to notice some of those which are commonly so esteemed, together with the local dialects depending on them respectively. And first as to the Greek. This is regarded by most Glossologists as a standard Language; and its chief Dialects are said to be four, the Ionic, Doric, Attic, and Eolic; of which, however, the two first form the leading distinction; for the Attic and Ionic agree in origin and in their main characteristics, as do the Eolic and Doric. Some Grammarians contend for a fifth Dialect, which they call the Common: and we find occasional mention of several which are denominated from various localities, as the Baotian, the Cyprian, Pamphylian, Chalcidian, Sicilian, Cretan, Tarentine, Laconian, Argive, Thessalian, &c. Nay, Homer seems to intimate that in Crete alone there were ninety cities each speaking its own dialect: ἐννήκοντα πόλης, Αλλη δ' άλλων γλῶσσα μεμιγμένη. Where ninety cities crown the famous shore, Odyss. 19, 174. Chapman. These inferior local Dialects may be ranked as subdivisions of the four principal ones; but no written memorials of them are now to be found, except in a few instances, where comic writers have brought them on the stage, much as Shakspeare does the Welsh dialect of Captain Fluellen and Sir Hugh Evans. Some of the Grammarians, who maintain the doctrine of a Common Dialect of the Greek, suppose it to have been the tongue of the original Hellenes, who inhabited Hellas, a city of Thessaly, and were among the followers of Achilles to the Trojan war :- the troops Pelasgian Argos held, That in deep Alos, Alope, and soft Trechina dwell'd, Chapman, Iliad, 2. But there is no proof that any such language was there spoken; and probably the so-called common Dialect is only a modern result obtained 2 Simonis' Introductio in Ling. Græc. Sect. 9, 5. 1 Matt. ix. 2. by selecting from the various dialects used by authors, from Homer to Menander, those particulars, in which the majority of them agree. 50. In addition to those ancient forms, the Modern Greek may not Romaic. unreasonably be regarded as a Dialect of the ancient, though of course much corrupted by long intercourse with foreign nations. This is usually called Romaic, in contradistinction to the ancient, which, in that view, is termed by the natives Hellenic. "A perfect knowledge of the Romaic," says Colonel LEAKE, "cannot be acquired without the previous study of Hellenic; but it would be a very suitable appendage to our customary academical pursuits; and by leading to a better understanding of the physical and national peculiarities of Greece and its inhabitants, as well as to a variety of analogies in the customs and opinions of the ancients and moderns, it would introduce us to a more correct acquaintance with the most important branch of ancient history, and to a more intimate familiarity with the favourite language of Taste and Science." The accomplished author of the Researches in Greece' has given not only an admirable analysis of the Romaic dialect, but of of one less known, which is called Tzaconic. The written Romaic has almost as many idioms as writers, taken partly from the vulgar discourse, partly from a slight tincture of Hellenic education, or from Italian, or Turkish. With these latter tongues the spoken Romaic is more or less mixed, according to the geographical position or political state of the district where it is spoken. The Attic dialect of the present day (unlike that of ancient times, which was the most admired of all) is most of all corrupted by the intermixture of French, Italian, and Álbanian; but the other dialects, which have been estimated at no less than seventy, have not so marked a difference from each other as those of distant provinces in France or England. The Tzaconic was noticed by Gerlach in 1573, as spoken in a district between Nauplia and Monemvasía, and as materially different (which it still is) from the ordinary Romaic. The name of the district, Tsakonia, is probably corrupted from the ancient Laconia, of which province it formed the northern extremity. The dialect contains some vestiges of the ancient Doric, as τὰν ψούχα, for the Romaic τὴν ψυχὴν; and also some old Greek words not found in Romaic; but upon the whole it resembles the ancient language less than the common Romaic does.2 66 Dialectic Writers. 51. Reverting to the ancient Dialects, it is to be observed that Greek though an author may have generally written in some one of them, it seldom happened that he did not occasionally adopt an expression from some other. "Frustra sunt," says DAMMIUS," qui Poetis Græcis peculiarem aliquem linguam adsignant." They err, who assign to the Greek Poets any one peculiar dialect." The most striking example of such intermixture is in the productions of the greatest Greek Poet. Homer indeed (as Plutarch says) employed chiefly the Attic dialect, but borrowed largely from all the others. Thus he used 1 Researches in Greece, p. iii, 2 Researches in Greece, p. 198. 3 Lexicon Homer, voc. λágoas. Writers on Greek Dialects. Latin. the Doric ellipsis δῶ for δῶμα, and the Doric transposition κάρτιστοι for páriσTOL. So he terminated the third person of the Imperfect with the Folic η instead of ει, as ἐφίλη for ἐφίλει; and frequently employed the Ionic forms, as βῆ for ἔβη, ἔλθησι for ἔλθη, νοῦσον for νόσον, "Ηρη for Ἥρα, &c. This circumstance (as my learned and experienced friend Mr. BOYES suggested to me), however much it may have added to the beauty of the poem, renders the Iliad very unfit to be employed in our schools as the pupil's first introduction to Greek verse; since the variety of dialects tends greatly to confuse him, in the outset of a task sufficiently difficult to the youthful mind. A knowledge of the Attic dialect is perfectly necessary to the readers of Thucydides, Plato, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Sophocles, &c.; that of the Ionic to the student of Herodotus or Hippocrates, &c.; and of the Doric to understand Theocritus and Pindar, of whom, however, the latter seems to style his verse sometimes Doric, and sometimes Æolic; for in the first Ölympian he uses both expressions:ἀλλὰ Δωρίαν ἀ Again πὸ φόρμιγγα πασσάλου Λάμβαν 1 Of the mere Æolic, the chief remains are some fragments of Alcaus and Sappho. 52. The Greek Dialects very early attracted the notice of Grammarians. APOLLONIUS, called Dyscolus (or the difficult), wrote a treatise not now extant on the four dialects. Extant treatises bear the names of JOANNES GRAMMATICUS and of CORINTHUS; but on these two H. ESTIENNE wrote long animadversions. ZUINGER, of Basle, gave a minute analysis of the four dialects; and FERBER treated of them generally, as did MAITTAIRE, HERMANN, and others. Besides which, each Dialect has been treated separately; the Attic by H. ESTIENNE and HERMANN; the Doric by MUHLMANN; the Eolic by AHRENS and GIESE; and the Ionic by PINZGER and LUCAS. Some even of the subordinate Dialects have been ably illustrated, as the Laconian by MEURSIUS; the Macedonian by STURZ; and the Sicilian by TORREMUZZA. 53. Although the Latin, as a standard Language, attained its greatest eminence in the Ciceronian and Augustan age, yet several of its brightest luminaries were of provincial extraction; Cicero himself being a native of Arpinum, Virgil of the Mantuan territory, Horace of the Venusinian on the borders of Apulia, Ovid of Sulmo, and Livy of 1 Pindar, Ol. 1, v. 26. 2 Ibid. v. 162. Padua. No doubt, each of these districts had its provincial dialect; of which probably the writers, whom it produced, may have retained, even in their most polished compositions, some traces, though too slight to be easily detected at this distance of time. Some modern critics, however, have investigated generally the rustic, plebeian, and provincial language of the Roman Empire, as PAGENDARM, HEUMANN, SCHÖNEMANN, WACKSMUTH, and SCHWEITZER. LANZI says of the Latin-" It was extinguished in Italy, not by foreign languages, but by a dialect of the vulgar, which from the earliest times had existed in the country parts, and even in Rome itself; but which, having remained in obscurity during the best ages, reappeared in the worst, and gradually spreading, and obtaining greater strength, settled at last in what may be called the vulgar language of Italy." Hence we find certain plebeian words brought into common use, as Caballus for Equus; we find certain letters changed for their cognates, the final consonant, or final vowel dropped, or the initial syllable omitted, as lubra for Ulubra, Spania for Hispania, &c. This theory was adopted by Maffei and by Muratori; but the chief objection to it is that it assumes an identity of dialect in very distant districts, contrary to all probability. That every province may have had its own dialect is far more probable; and we may well believe that some modes of expression, which existed in early Roman times among the provincial peasantry, have reappeared in modern times as portions of polished language in Italy, France, and Spain. 54. Of several Dialects spoken in the neighbouring provinces or Italian. districts, it frequently happens, that accidental circumstances, political, literary, or others, give one dialect the pre-eminence: it then becomes a standard Language, is cultivated and refined by the best writers in all parts of the country, and is adopted at the Court, the Universities, and the seats of Law, whilst the other dialects are thrown aside to the vulgar, who nevertheless hold fast to them for centuries; and these often retain certain marks of antiquity, which in the more polished tongue have been wholly obliterated. This has been peculiarly the case with the Italian. Among its dialects may be reckoned the Milanese, Piedmontese, Bergamascan, Venetian, Paduan, Genoese, Tuscan, Roman, Neapolitan, Apulian, and Sicilian. Of these the written, but not the spoken Tuscan has obtained the supremacy. The Lingua Toscana in bocca Romana is the proverbial description of "choice Italian;" but when I was told at Pisa, that my friend, Professor "Xarmignani” lived near the "Xiesa" (for Carmignani and Chiesa), I confess that my ear was rather painfully affected by the sound. Several circumstances, however, contributed to elevate the written dialect of Tuscany above those of other parts of Italy. From its proximity to Rome, it may easily be believed to have preserved much of the old Roman type. For a like reason, it was less disfigured by Gothicisms, than those parts where the long-bearded Goths impressed their name on Lombardy; and it was Saggio di Ling. Etrusc. i. 422. quite free from the oriental taint, which the Arabs have left to this day on the Sicilian tongue. But the seal was finally set on its supremacy by the noble writers who adopted it at the revival of literature; and it would now be vain to dispute a pre-eminence secured to it by the works of Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and their distinguished successors. Not that its rights have been always undisputed. The Milanese, though not asserting their own exclusive superiority, have denied that of the Tuscans; contending that the modern Italian was first formed from all the dialects of the Peninsula, and that all were entitled to contribute to its improvement. At the other extremity of Italy, the Neapolitan dialect (certainly not for the delicacy of its sound) claims to be at least of high antiquity. The ingenious and erudite GALIANI has shown it to have been formed from the Latin and Greek dialects, spoken in times when the Roman epicure could exclaim Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amænis.1 The lovely Baiæ ev'ry coast outshines. At subsequent periods, indeed, it was mixed with many words and phrases introduced by successive foreign invaders, Norman, Provençal, and Spanish; but it still serves to keep a whole theatre of native Neapolitans in a roar, at the witticisms of Pulicinello, though to any foreigner they are utterly unintelligible. The authors who have The Vene The 2 composed in the different dialects of Italy are numerous. tian was used by CALMO, and is still in some popular plays. Milanese was employed by MAGGI, the Paduan by RUZZANTE. Of the Neapolitan dialectic writers there is a long list, from CORTESE in the latter part of the sixteenth century to GALIANI in the eighteenth; and of the Sicilian several, from FULLONIO in the beginning of the seventeenth century to MELI in the latter part of the eighteenth. Original compositions in these dialects may be tolerated for the sake of the energy, sweetness, or drollery of their expressions, and the pleasure which they consequently afford to the native reader; but it is to be regretted that the talent of the authors has been often wasted on dialectic translations of Homer, Tasso, Ariosto, Dante, and Petrarch. The Italian Dialects in general have been treated by FERNOW, and treatises, grammars, and dictionaries have been composed of the Bolognese by SCALIGERO and MONTALBAN, BUMALDI and FERRARI; of the Brescian by GAGLIARDI and MELCHIORI; of the Ferrarese by MANNINI; of the Genoese by CASACCIA; of the Lombard, Mantuan, and Milanese by MARGHARINI, CHERUBINI, and VARON; of the Nizzan by MICEN; of the Paduan by BRUNACCI; of the Parman and Piacenzan by PESCHIERI and FORESTI; of the Piemontese by PIPINO, CAPELLO, ZALLI D'CHER, and PONZA; of the Roveredan, Venetian, and Veronese by VANNETTI, PATRIARCHI, BOERIO, and ANGELI; of the Siennese by BARGAGLI and GIGLI; of the Corsican and Sardinian by ROBERTS, Horat. Epist. i. 1, 83. 2 E. g. Fasano, Tasso Napoletano, zoe la Gierosalemme Libberata. 1689. |