THE
ENGLISH, DIOXYSIAN, AND HELLENIC
PRONUNCUTIONS OF GREEK,
COXSIDEEELC IN EEFERENCE TO SCHOOL AND
COLLEGE USE.
ALEXANDER J. ELLIS,
B.A., F.E.S., F.S.A., F.C.P.S., F.C.P.,
VICK-PBESIDENT (FUKMEELY PRESIDENT) OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY, AND PORMERLY
SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; LID VAN DE MAATSCHAPPY DER
XEUliRLAND.SCllE LliTTERKUXDE TE LBYDEX.
LONDON :
C. F. HODGSON & SON, 1, GOUGH SQUARE,
FLEET STREET.
1876.
Price Three Shillings.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
PRACTICAL HINTS on the QUANTITATIVE PRO-
NUNCIATION OF LATIN, for the use of Classical Teachers and
Linguists. 1874. Small 8vo. pp. xvi., 132. Macmillan & Co. 4«. 6^.
cloth.
" Mr. Ellis has here given, in a re\'ised and enlarged form, the substance
of a paper read at the College of Preceptors, when, as he says in his
Preface, he had ' an audience of classical teachers, who, during an address
of unexampled length (nearly two hours and a half), listened with that
attention which only great practical interest in the subject could command.'
We sincerely hope that this book may be received by teachers both at the
Universities and at Schools in the same spirit. No Englishman has so
good a claim to be heard on all questions of pronunciation as Mr. Ellis
ihas, and the interest of this special point of Latin pronunciation (which
once understood makes the Greek intelligible also) is not merely
antiquarian."— ^i^7i eajmestJ/aplicited to the re-consideration of this
important; bj-sfnc^f of Gi:eek Scholarship,^ with a view of placing it once
for all 'o*!!* a'i-eal 'Grraek'bftsi^^wtiBh jttiay be received by all civilised
nations. Communications on the subject will be gladly received by the
Author.
ALEXANDER J. ELLIS.
26, Argyll Road, Kensington, London, "W.
August, 1876.
THE ENGLISH, DIONYSIAN, AND HELLENIC
PRONUNCIATIONS OF GREEK.
What would be thought of a teacher of any of the living lan-
guages of Europe, such as English, German, Italian, and French,
who, with malice prepense, taught his pupils to pronounce in a
manner which no speaker of those languages at any time or place
had ever used or even thought of using ? He would most probably
be requested to ventilate his crotchets " on the desert air." But
lias it ever struck the masters of our great public classical schools
and the professors of Greek at our Universities, that they have
been guilty of exactly the same enormity ? Greek is a living lan-
guage, and has never ceased for one day to be a living language,
capable of expressing every poetical and philosophical idea of old,
and of forming expressions for every new thought that arises
now, from the time that Homer slung his lyre over his back
and trudged around Greece, —
" Singing the dreadful wrath of Achilles the son of Peleus," —
down to this morning's issue of an Athenian newspaper. It is a
long period of hard upon 3000 years, and certainly it required a
great fund of perverse ingenuity to hit upon a pronunciation which
no Greek could have understood, in all the numerous varieties of
his dialects that have existed throughout this long period and over
that diversified country, and which is mere gibberish to a modern
Greek, accustomed to hear his New Testament read in the original,
and himself speaking and writing a language which would be at
least as intelligible to the shades of Demosthenes and Xenophon,
perhaps even of Pericles, as our London speech of to-day to the
shades of Shakspere and Chaucer, or the living peasants of Devon-
shire and Scptland. Can I be wrong in saying that this is a
simple absurdity, and that it only requires to be brought home to
the heart and mind of teachers to be remedied ? But it must be
brought home. It must not merely command a passing assent, such
as, " It's all true enough; but I don't want to talk with Greeks,
and so I have nothing to do with it." A teacher of Greek has
everything to do with it, or else he becomes a teacher of letters
and not of language, and mummifies the living.
256530
4 ENGLISH PKONUNCIATION OF GREEK.
When Greek learning revived in "Western Europe, where only, and
not in Greece, it had ever died, or rather slept, the teachers were
Greeks from Constantinople, fleeing from the Turks, who finally con-
quered it from the representative of the Roman Empire of the East,
on 29 May, 1453. These Greeks, of course, taught their own pro-
nunciation, which was identical with that now used at Athens. We
know this by the controversy which took place in the sixteenth
century, in consequence of the dialogue between a Hon and a bear
concerning the right pronunciation of Latin and Greek, written
by Erasmus, and dated Basle, 1628.* The following is the history
of the publication of this celebrated book, as furnished by the
Dutch philologist, Gerard Jan Yoss (1557 — 1689), in his " Aris-
tarchus," book i., chap. 28,t which I translate, with the addition
of a few words inclosed in brackets. "It is probably known to
few by what motive Erasmus was induced to write on the correct
pronunciation [of Greek and Latin], and hence I have thought it
best to subjoin the account which I possess on a piece of paper
written some time since by Henry Kraaisteen [so I retranslate
Voss's Coracopetrseus], a very learned man and well known to
scholars [who says] : " I have heai'd M. Rutger Resch (who was
Professor of Greek in the Buslidian College in Louvaiii, and my
teacher of happy memory), say. That he lived in the school of
Lille {in LiUensl paedagoged) for about two years at the same time
as Erasmus, who occupied an upper bed-room, while he had a
lower one ; That Henry Glarean, [an intimate friend of Eras-
mus, and a learned Swiss musician, who, in addition to the trouble
he is here represented as having caused, managed utterly to con-
fuse the names of the ancient Greek musical modes, and the ill-
fortune to get his confusion generally accepted by musicians,]
having come from Paris to Louvain, had been invited to dine in
the College by Erasmus, and, on being asked the news at dinner-
time, had said — as he had invented on his journey {quod in itinere
conimentus erat) — knowing that Erasmus was inordinately fond of
novelties and wonderfully credulous {plies satis rerum novdrum
studivsum dc mire credulum)- — Ihat some native Greeks had come
to Paris, miraculously learned tnen, who spoke Greek in apronun-
ciation which differed extremely from that generally received in
these parts {quosdam in CIrcBcid ndtos Liitetiam venisse, vivos ad
mlrdcuhim dodos j qui longe aliam Ch'ceci sermonis pronuncidtionem
I'lsurpdrent, quani quce vulgo in hisce partihus recepta esset) : for ex-
ample, they called B (vita) Beta, and used Eta for H (ita), ai for AI
(eb), oi for 01 (i), and so on : That, soon after hearing this, Erasmus
wrote his dialogue on the right pronunciation of Latin and Greek,
to appear as if he himself were the discoverer, and offered it to
* " Des. Erasini Roterodami de Recta Latini Grs3cique Sermonis Pro-
nunciatione Dialogus." A decidedly amusing book. Reprinted in Haver-
camp's Sylloge, 2, 1 — 180.
f Amsterdam, 1685, fo. p. 36 ; Foertsch's edition, Halle, 1833, vol. i.,
p. 79. Part of this is quoted from Wetsten by Prof. J. S. Blackie, in his
" Pronunciation of Greek : Accent and Quantity. A Philological Inquiry."
1852.
ENGLISH PRONDNCIATION OP GREEK. 5
Peter of Alost, the printer, for printing ; but, as he happened to be
engaged with other matter, he declined, or, at any rate, said he was
not able to print the book as soon as Easmus wished. That there-
upon it was sent to Froben at Basle, by whom it was soon prmted
and published. But that, when Erasmus found out the trick, he
never afterwards used that method of pronouncing, nor taught
his friends, with whom he lived in terms of intimacy, to follow it.
{Erasmum cognitd fraucle nu7iquam ed j'ronunciandi ratione posted
usiun, nee amicls, quibusmivifamilidi iter vlvebat, ut earn ohservdrent,
prcecepisse.) In proof of this, M. Eutger showed a scheme of pro-
nunciation written by the hand of Erasmus himself (a copy of
which I still possess), for the use of Dauiian de Goes, of Spain,
which in no way differs from that which learned and unlearned
use everywhere for this language {in nullo dlverswrn ah ed, qua
passim clocti et indoeti in hdc lirigud Htuntur). — Hein-icus Coraco-
petrseus Cuccensis [of Kuik, in North Brabant ?], Neomagi [Nij-
megen], 1569 [41 years after the publication of Erasmus's dialogue],
the eve of St. Simon and St. Jude [27th Oct.]."
The great English apostles of this new faith, invented by
Glarean as a bit of fun to poke at his friend Erasmus, were Sir
John Cheke, tutor to Prince Edward, afterwards Edward YL, and
Sir Thomas Smith, successively Public Orator at Cambridge, Pro-
vost of Eton, and Secretary of State to Edward VI. These gentle-
men entered into a spirited controversy with the well-known
Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winche»*;er, then Chancellor of the
University of Cambridge, who defended the living Greek pronun-
ciations with all the vehemence of language and official tyranny
for which he became noted. Thus, after setting forth the present
modern Greek pronunciation then in general use,* he decrees in
The following are his words, which are, at least so far as they go
(they are by no means complete), an authoritative accoimt of the pro-
nunciation of Greek current in England in the middle of the sixteenth
century. (Compare Appendix IV.) The "quantities" are added.
" Diphthongos Graecas, nedum Latinas, nisi id diaeresis exigat, sonis ne
diducito, neve divellito, quaesitam usu alter! vocaliujn praerogatlvam nc
adimito, sed ut marem fceminae dominari sinito, quae vero earum in coni-
muuionem soni usu convenerunt, iis tu negotium ne facessito.
Ai ab 6, 01 et €t ab i sono ne distinguito, tantum in orthographia dis-
crimen servato. i) i v uno eodemque sono exprimito: cujusque tamen
propriam in orthographia sedem diligenter notato.
In /f et 7 quoties cum diphthongis aut vocalibus sonos i aut e referenti-
bus consonantur, quoniam a doctis etiamnum in usu variantur, alils den-
siorem, aliis tenuiorem sonum aflSngentibus, utriusque proniu]t"ationis
modiun discito, ne aut horum aut illorum aures offendfis, neve de sonis
litem inutiliter excites ; caeterum qui in his sonus a pluribus receptus est,
ilium frequentato.
B hteram ad exemplum nostri b ne inspissato, sed ad imitationem v
consonantis moUius proferto.
Literas tt et r, item 7 et k, pro loco et situ alios atque alios sonos
admittere memento. Itaque t et tt tum demum )8 quum proxime locantur,
haec post /It, iUa post u, his locis videhcot litera t referat nostrum d, tt
vero b nostrum exprimat.
Litera porr5 7 cum proxima sedem occupet ante « x> ^^f aliud 7, huic
6 ENGLISH PRONL^NCIATION OF GREEK.
1542 that if any one uses any other pronunciation he shall be ac-
counted a fool {hitnc hominem, quisquis is erit, ineptiim omnes
habento) ; if a member of the senate, he shall either recant or
be expelled ; if a candidate, he shall not be allowed to take any
degree of honour ; if a student, he should not be accounted such ;
and if a boy, he shall be flogged at home (puerllem denique teme-
ritdtem, si quid publice ansa fuerit, donii apud suds castigdri
curdto ;) and the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors are charged with
the execution of this decree.* Of course, " humanities " were not
to be controlled by such " inhumanities " as Gardiner's, and
Cheke's and Smith's scheme, which suited English pronunciation
in the sixteenth century, succeeded in establishing itself, although
utterly detestable to a Greek ear, as indeed Sir Thomas Smith
testifies, on the only occasion when he was able to speak with a
Greek, "a learned and polite man," he says, but who "got into
a heat as soon as I began to speak of that pronunciation, and
called Erasmus an ass [^Badinuin], in downright French, for having
introduced such broad [yastoti] sounds and harsh diphthongs into
Greek." t But the pronunciation of English has changed greatly
since that time, and the English pronunciation ot Greek with it,
so that the latter has become very unlike the Erasmian, and more
frightful than ever. In Germany the result has been a little
different, but it is still hateful to Greeks. In both countries these
would-be reformers continued to write the Greek accent marks
most carefully, and as carefully utterly ignored their existence in
speaking, but treated the words as if they were Latin, and placed
their substitute for the Latin accent (which is wholly post -classical)
npoB that syllable which would have had a high pitch of the voice
according to Latin rules, although these differed in principle and
practice from Greek habits. To read French with the English
position and nature of the accent, and the English pronunciation
of the letters, would be delightful in comparison !
The one solitary excuse for this linguistic madness (I can in-
vent no milder term) is that we are thus able to preserve the
*' quantity" of the syllables. Of course the old Greeks did not un-
derstand how to pronounce their own language in such a way as
to bring out the quantity, although there is a tolerably well estab-
tu non suurn, sed sonum v literae accommodato. k autem post y poaitas
eonura 7 affingito.
Ne multa. In sonis omnino ne philosophator, sed utitor prsesentibus.
In his si quid emendandum sit, id omne autoritati permittito. Publice
vero protiteri quod ab autoritate sancita diversum, et consuetudine
loquendi recepta alienum sit, nefas esto.
Quod hie exprimitur, id consuetudini consentaneum diicito, hacte-
nusque pareto." Havercamp, 2, 205.
* The whole controversy in England and Holland has been collected in
two biilky volumes by Havercamp. Sylloge Scriptorum qui de Hnguae
Graecae vera et recta pronuntiatione commentarios reliquerunt. Lugd.
Bat. [Leyden], 1736, 8vo, pp. 476; and Index. Sylloge Altera . . . Lugd.
Bat. 1740, 8vo. pp. 726, and Index. Gardiner's edict is in vol. 2, pp. 205-7.
t Havercamp, 2, 481.
ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION OP GREEK. 7
lished tradition that they regulated their rhythms by quantity
only, and never used the Latin accent. But our Latin treason
against Greek does not succeed in its object. The only cases in
which our usual pronunciation of Greek shews quantity are when
€ rj or o (o occur in final syllables ending in a consonant, or when any
vowels and diphthongs occur in the last syllable but one of words
of more than two syllables. It is needless to say that, if we are
to read Greek verse at all with regard to rhythm, we must pre-
serve both the quantity and the accent. We have quite a right
to read ancient Greek verse without rhythm, for there are no
Greeks alive that read it with rhythm.* We have also quite a
right not to learn or teach Greek at all. But this is a matter not
under discussion. It is known that Greek is taught, and that
Greek verses are read, and that boys and young men are incited
by prizes even to write imitation Greek verses. Then it seems
to me to follow that they should be taught to pronounce Greek
in a way that would have been intelligible to Greeks at some
epoch or other, and to read ancient Greek verse in a way that
would have been intelligible to Greeks at an epoch when quantity
still regulated verse and the nature of accent remained un-
changed. None of these things are now done. We change the
nature of accent from an alteration of pitch to an alteration of
force, precisely as the modern Greeks are in the habit of doing,
but arbitrarily neglect the position of the accent, which the
modern Greeks observe, and we systematically neglect quantity,
except in the cases just mentioned.
To shew how we neglect quantity as well as accent, take the so-
called definite article 6 f] to; how do we distinguish these words
from w e T'),
and also pronounced both ot and iJ as v (that is, as the modern
French u). These pronunciations are the distinctive marks of the
preceding thousand years, reaching to B.C. 125, or a l.ttle earlier,
but during the earlier half of this millennium the feeling for
quantity and acceut (which broke down at the latter end of the
8rd century a. d.) was still in force, the aspiratj was possibly
used both before vowels and p, (a mere revival which lasted but
a short time,) and there was, I believe, more of the sound of ov
heard in the diphthongs av ev, which were not o/i e^ or a(f) f(f),
but more like aou/3, eou/i or aov
elliiig, there
were several transitions, and 1 cannot feul in any degree certain
respecting the changing usages of any part of that tune, though
probably in the third century B.C., tlie time of Aristotcles and
Demosthenes, a good deal of tiie pronunciation can be established.
Bub the 30 years preceding B.C. 403 were the time of the Pelo-
ponnesian war, when there was evidently much change, and before
* In order to be intelligible to an unprepared audience the Greek names
in this Lecture were all pronounced as usual in England, but I liave endHa-
voured, by j.dding the Greek accents and adopting Greek spelling, to en-
able the reiider, by help of the Appendix, to pronounce tlxcm either in the
Dionysian or modern Greek fashion. In Appendix V., thoy will be found
written in Greek characters, and distributed according^ to date.
t Boeclvh's Corpus Inscriptiouum Graecarum, 1828-33 53. Kirch-
hoif's Studies on the Greek Alphabet 1863 — 7; his old Attic Inscrip-
tions 1874, (studied by Cauer 1875 in Curtius's Studien S, 223 — 302),
Weber's Indian Transcriptions 1871 ; Newton and Hicks's Old Attic In-
scriptions in the British Museum 1874. Disquisitions in Curtius's Grund-
ziige der grieohischen Etymologie, 4th Edition, 1873.
X Transcriptions of Greek into Latin Letters in MSS. of the 9th, 12th,
and loth centuries, Latin written in Greek letters, 6th, 7th and 8th cen-
turies.
10 DIONYSIAN PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK.
that, up to B.C. 5?0, when Peisistratos collected the poems of
Homeros, and written Greek literature may be said to have
commenced, we have the old Attic period for which great uncer-
tainty prevails and the old writing is ambiguous and insufficienc.
Of course it is well known that our present Greek spelling is me-
dieval, and of no assistance whatever in these researches. The
difficulty of such transition periods is not to know what sounds
were used by some one at some t me or other, but to ascertain at
what time one sound ceased — not to be used, but — to be usual,
and the other supplied its place. Thus, I have been able to form a
very precise notion of the pronunciation of English during the
14th and 16th centuries, but the transition period of the 15th
baffles me altogether. This will explain the difficulty which I feel
in trying to discover the changes in Greek pronunciation during
the five hundred j^ears preceding the second millennium reckoned
upwards from the present day. Before B.C. 630, everything is
mere conjecture, although we have some inscriptions from the
island of Thera, usually refer. -ed to B.C. 620.
Now I am not going to trouble you with this investigation,
which is not only very long and difficult to follow, but not in
point for our present object, as no uncertain pronunciation could
be proposed for school or college use.* The great objection to the
Erasmian scheme was that it was purely conjectural. To avoid
this rock, I select from all these diiJerent possible pronunciations
one which I call the Dionysian, because I can feel no doubt that
it represents in all essentials the pronunciation of Diony'sios of
Halicarnassos, who is the earliest and most direct authority on
the subject that we possess, since the works of Aristophanes of
Byzantium have not come down to us.t In this Dionysian form
Greek came to Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, the last of whom
naturalised Greek lyric metres in Rome. It is the latest form
which retained all the feeling of ancient quantity and accent, the
form which Greek rhetoricians and grammarians had especially
elaborated and studied for the purpose of teaching their language
to Romans, and the form which was used when the present ortho-
graphy of Greek was settled. The movement which has been so
happily bagun for abolishing our abominable English perversion
of Latin, and reverting to a classical type, necessarily involves a
similar treatment of Greek, and would seem to point to the con-
temporary pronunciation of the two languages during the century
before and the century after our era, as that which we should
seek to restore. This gives us as a result Ciceronian Latin and
Dionysian Greek.
* In Appendix V. I have given a more detailed view of these changes
distributed over eight or nine periods, but generally without assigning
reasons, some of which however will be found in the notes to the transla-
tion of Diony'sios in Appendix VE.
t A Tabular Statement of my view of the Dionysian Pronunciation
•will be found in Appendix I., which should now be consulted. The justifi-
cation of this view will be found in the annotated translation of all the
passages in Diony'sios's writings bearing on the subject, in Appendix VI.
DIONYSIAN PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK. 11
Diony'sios, as we shall see in tlie passages which I shall read to
you [Appendix III.], lays great stress on quantity and accent. As
to quantity it should offer no difficulty, and in my lecture in June
1874, now printed as a book with many developments, under
the name of Practical Hints on the Quantitative Pronuncia-
tion of Latin (Macmillan 1874), every necessary detail is given.
Suffice it to note that difference of length in a vowel does not
alter its sound. It is absurd to say that the vowels in mane,
7nieni wine, goat, tune, are the long sounds of the vowels in man,
men, win, got, tun. Hence the first practice is to hold one sound,
as a, for one or two swings of a pendulum or of the hand, without
altering its pitch or sound. This is best done by prefixing a
consonant as nd na ira, nd, rrd, na nd, nd na at a uniform pitch
of the voice.
All syllables having a long vowel are long, and from the scheme
given below it is seen that all that is necessary to make the Greek
orthography indicate the proper sounds, is to place the long
marks over the vowels d, f, v, when they are long " by nature." It
is extremely difficult to find out when they are so, and when the
printed book is not so marked,the master should first read aloud the
passage to be studied, and the pupils should place a pencil mark
under every long d r v which occurs in it. No teacher ought to
suppose that a pupil knows the quantities of these " doubtful "
vowels intuitively, or expect him to discover them by painful
consultation of Lexicons.
There are many long syllables having a short vowel, the length
being due to combinations of following consonants, and as these
are easily learned, they need not be marked. In the transcribed
examples in the Appendix, I have indicated these cases by placing
a short mark over the vowel and a hyphen between the consonants,
because the common fault is to say that the vowel, instead of the
syllable, is "long by position." What has to be acquired is a
habit of dwelling on the consonant sufficiently to make the length
of the syllable apparent, and this is especially necessary with
double consonants. Let Englishmen compare un-owned with
unknown, blacking with black king, &c.
As there are no slurred vowels, but merely aphaeresis and crasis,
which are almost invariably indicated in writing, and as there is no
unpronounced final consonant in Greek, like the old Latin s before
consonants and m before vowels, the question of quantity in Greek
is much simpler than in Latin. But there are even more combina-
tions which may make the preceding vowel form a long as well as a
short syllable (as the first syllables of tek-vu, re-Kva vv. 1 & 6, e8-pds,
€-dpdu vv. 2 & 13, in the passage from Sophocles, in App. III.),
and initial combinations which invariably or generally react on
the preceding vowel (as didi T7-poia\\r€u, v. 3 of the passage from
Homer, in App, III.) The general (perhaps not invariable) assimila-
tion of final j/to the subsequent consonant, which shows itself in very
early Attic inscriptions, before B.C. 400, bears a striking analogy
to the assimilation of final Latin m before a consonant, which I
pointed out in my lecture on Latin, but there is no identity of
practice.
12 DIONYSIAN PRONUNCIATION OF GEEEK.
The musical accent is very much more varied in Greek than it
was in Latin ; but as we have many of the varieties in the mode of
modulating our voice at the ends of interroeative or affirmative
phrases, the difficulty will be found to consist, not in apprehendin^jj
the nature of a musical accent, nor in itnilating it in isolated
words, but in acquiring a sufficiently ready control over onr organs
to bring it in on all occasions in peaces which are unfamiliar to our
habits. Suppose we are askijig whether we are to do a thing
" so" and are answered that we are, we should ask, so f = era? (4),*
with a high pitch of voice, and be answered, so = aco (2), in a much
lower pitch. The former so has an acute, the latter so a grave
vowel. Again, in English we may often cry out oh!=a) (5), or answer
no^po) (5), making both o's very long, beginning them both with
a high pitch, and gliding down in pitch as we hold them on.
These are the true circumflexed sounds. We may do this with a
diphthong, as in " not now !" =■ v6t vaov (5), when the descent of the
voice is especially felt on the second element. All these cases
occur in Greek, as may be seen by the examples of monosyllables
(1) to (5) in Appendix II. I may remark that I find it conveni-
ent to distinguish syllables as affected by force into strong and
loeak, as affected by length into long and short, and as affected by
pitch into high and lotv, to which I add down when the pitch
begins high and glides to low. For purposes of teaching, it is neces-
sary to combine the names for length and pitch, and we hence
obtain the terms high-long, high-short, low-long, low-short, down-
long (there is no down -short), which may be conveniently con-
tracted into hhfh, lit, low, lo, doivn respectively, and written more
simply liigh hi, h.iv lo, doivn, the full and abridged spelling
sufficiently indicating long and short duration, which should be
imitated when reading the words, while the sound of the words
high and loiv shews the pitch, which should however be imitated
in reading. Pronounced thus, with the pitch and length which
they denote, these "rhythmical names" will be found very ser-
viceable in teaching to read by quantity and mui^ical accent.
We have many more variations of pitch for monosyllables in
English, all determining meaning, but as they are not marked in
Greek, I need not trouble you with them. It must, however, be ob-
served that these pitch accents do not add at all to the force or loud-
ness of the words. Words with a high pitch, as Ka\ = Krj, fxev, Se, 8t],
may be, and in such cases as these almost always must be, touched
very lightly, whether long or short. This is best seen in combina-
tion thus ; if we ask did she ?=^did shi (9), and receive the answer, she
did = shi did (10), we have in each case a long syllable with a short
vowel, did = did, in the oidinary pitch, and a very short syllable,
she -shi, in a high pitch, but in different orders. That is, we have
low-ht (9) and hi-Uw (10). Again, if we shout for Mary ! we most
probably say firjpi (9), with a long and a short like did she ? or
^iripi' (7) with two long syllables, but at the same time raise the
* These immbers affixed to the English examples refer to the Greek
examples of Dionysian Quantity and Accent in the Appendix II.
DIONYSIAN PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK. 13
voice on the last syllable. That is, we have low-lii (9) and low-
higk (7). Again, if we ask, did you say he earned we end with
* Krjfi (11), where we have a short low syllable followed by a high
long, or lo-hlgh (11) ; and if the answer is, no surely, the last word
sni-ely = shovpXi (8), has a long high followed by a short low syllable,
high-Id (8). If we ask of an omnibus conductor. City ?= see p. 43, note.
"V, possibly 0. to 7., y rov \6yov fiopluv) beside each other. These are called by
others the elements of reading or writing {o-Toix^7a ttjs Ae^ews). [©eoSe'/c-
T7JS and 'Af)i(TT0T4\'r]s admitted only three — nouns, verbs, and conjunctions.
Subsequent writers, especially the Stoics, raised them to four, distinguished
conjunctions and articles. Then nouns were divided into adjectives and
substantives. Afterwards others disassociated pronouns from nouns,
adverbs from verbs, prepositions from conjunctions, and participles from
adjectives.] But however many we choose to consider them, the connec-
tion and juxtaposition of these parts of speech form what are called phrases
(K«Aa, members) ; and the union {apixovia) of phrases completes periods
(7r€pt($Sovs), which together constitute the whole of what is said {rhv
avixiravra \6yov) ,
Chapter hi. — All writing or speaking (Ae^is) by which we symbolise
thought, must be in verse (eyu/ierpos) or in prose {dfierpos). [To shew the
effect of the collocation of words in each kind, examples are given from
-Homer, Od. xvi. 1-16,* and Herodotus, i. 8, 9, translated from the Ionic
to the common dialect.]
Chapter iv. — To make you better feel the force of collocation in poetry
and prose, I will take sopie passages which are allowed to be well con-
structed, and by altering the arrangements {rhs apfiovlas ficraOels) I will
change the character both of the verse and the prose. First take these
lines of Homer, II. xii. 433-5.
ciAA' €xoi', Siare raKavra yvv^ x^f"'^''"'^ a\7}6^s,
i^r€ (TTaOfihv exovaa not eJ^ioj/, aficpls av4\K^i
lard^ova ,'lva itaialv aet/cea fiitrdhv ^prjrai.
This is in perfect heroic, dactylic hexameters. Now by merely chang-.
ing the order of the words, I will make the lines into tetrameters, and, iv,
place of heroic, accentual {'7rpo(ra}SiKovs), thus
ctAA* exov, &(iTi yvvi] x^P^^'^'^^ rdKayra a\T}9}]S,
tJt' etpioif aiJL(p\s koI (TTad/xhv ^x^vtr' i.U€\K€i
lad^ova Xv de(/cea iraKTlv &poiTo [sic] fiiadSp.
* Of course Aio^vaios had no conception how to pronounce "O/Mtipos
except as he himself pronounced ; yet he goes on to speak of the beauty of
the passage which " seduces and be\vitches the ear," (indyerai kui Kr^K^l
jas oLKods,) and to shew that this effect does not depend on the words used
^ut on thciy colloc^tiop.
APP. VI.] DIONYSIUS ON GREEK PRONUNCIATION. 37
These are so called Priapean or ithyphallic verses, like
ov fie^TjKos, us Aeyerai, rod v4ov Aioviffov,
Kt^yw 8' e| evepyeclrjs a}pyiaafi4pos ^«ca>.
dSevwv Ur]\ov(TiaKhi' Kvecpaios Ttaph. TeAfia.*
Chapter x. — After these definitions we have to speak of what a person
should aim at who wishes to put a composition (Ae|ji/) well together (a-vy-
riOeuai), and by what rules he will attain his end. The two principal aims
(reAiKcoTara), as I conceive, which those who wish to write good verse or
prose should desire to attain {fcpUa-Bai dei) are pleasure to the ear {rj 7}5ov^)
and beauty to the mind (rh KaXhu).
Chap. xi. — Now there are four principal elements of pleasure to the ear
and beauty to the mind, — music (ficKos, difference of pitch), rhythm {pvOfxhsf
division of time), change {ixera^oX^, avoidance of uniformity), and the
result of these three, appropriateness (rh irpeirhu). Under what is pleasing
(tV v^ov^v), I class elegance (t^i/ S>pav), grace (ri]i/ x^P^^)y flowingness
(rVci'O'TO/uia*'), sweetness {rrju 7AuKirr77Ta), persuasiveness {rh iridavht/) , and
such like. Under what is beautiful {rh KaAhi/), I put magnificence (t^j/
fieyaKoirpeTTCiai/), weight {t}) ^dpos), solemnity (t^;/ (re/jivoXoyiap), dignity
(rh a^'KOfxa), persuasiveness {rh iridavov, as before), and such like.
Now I said that the ear is pleased first with music, then with rhythm,
next with change, and above all with appropriateness. For the truth of
this I appeal to experience, which cannot be accused of misleading in
* This third line is added from 'H^atcTTiwi/, as explained by Schafer,
who translates : " Non sum prof anus, ut dicitur : Bacchi juvenilis ex beue-
ficio et ipse sacris initiatus adsum, dum vespertinus iter facerem juxta
Pelusiacum palfidem." The (hepyiai-qs is also from 'li^aKTTicoVy as the
MSS. of Aiovvaios read ipyaaifjs. Mr. E. M. Geldart, Cambridge (New)
Journal of Philology, 1869, p. 160, as quoted by Dr. Wagner, in his Medi-
eval Greek Texts, Preface, shews that these lines, and the transformed
lines of Homer, if read as modem Greek (period 8.), would give, rather
rough, arixoi iroXiriKoi, or the usual modem verse. By improving the
transposition (as Dr. Wagner suggests, but since he reads ^Ipiov and not
etpiov, I have altered his arrangement somewhat) they can be made still
better, thus (writing the modem pronunciation as in Appendix IV., p. 31,
with stress mark),
a\ 6'xo*' Q' 3) /8 5 7, 4) /utt vr jik ; and in this respect
are superior to any other nation in Europe, and also to the Indians, who
had no 6 and obtained (p, x hy generation only, and were quite ignorant of
the third series. The Spanish has the first series complete, and substitutes
for the second its /, z,j; in the third it has /3, and d a substitute for 5, but
APP. VI.] DIONYSIUS ON GREEK PRONUNCIATION. 47
longed manner (jbLaKpws) whether semi-voiced or voiceless. SyUahles are
short which consist of a short vowel, or one taken as short, and end
similarly. There are different kinds of length and shortness of syllables.
no 7 (unless, as some assert, / be rather 7 than x) ; l>ut the fourth series
is represented by g only, both b and d being missing. In High German
1) IT, t (not quite t), k occur only as finals ; as initials they passed into
irh generating ircp (written jt?/), t-k generating is (written z), while nh is
retained; 2) fiir fi, pt 5, 7,/c 7, had only one sign, the
differences depending entirely on the combinations. In Arabic v is want-
ing, and